Category: Tech

Stripe Invoicing – Misses the Point!

Stripe has just launched a new invoicing tool to help its customers create invoices faster and more efficiently. However, it misses the point!

Stripe has offered invoicing options for some time within its standard platform, but now they have decided to segment it out and try to charge for something that was previously for Free (without telling anyone).

Additionally, the invoicing product only seems to be tailored to its current customer base, which is very tech / startup / businesses that require a developer heavy!

Oh… and I forgot to mention that they want to take 0.5% of your entire invoicing price just to provide you with super basic tech you really should be getting for Free.

No wonder this is getting heavily downvoted on ProductHunt!

Better luck next time Stripe. This could have been good, but missed the mark.

Inspirato By Numbers – Revenue, Members, Vacation Homes, Locations, Prices

Inspirato is a luxury vacation home rental startup that simply just lets you pay a subscription to access unlimited rentals for $2500/month or on-demand rates with a $600/month subscription.

Its 18,000 members can book 1,200 vacation homes in 395 locations.

My Thoughts:

Somehow Inspirato is going public at what looks like might be a $1 billion valuation. Based on the numbers there is potential the company has a $45 million revenue. We have to be in a bubble for anyone to consider this type of business thats growing at 30% year on a year – to be valued anywhere near $1 billion.

Coinbase Goes Public – I Expect it to Drop to $30 billion Valuation then Rise Again!

Coinbase went public the other day on the NASDAQ. Coinbase have a very exciting business and I have been trying to learn as much as possible about the Crypto world for the past year or so (but feels like I’m barely scratching the surface).

At one point Coinbase hit $100 billion in valuation, but I suspect that will drop below half over the next few months as the froth from the initial trades die down.

It will be very interesting to see how Coinbase performs over the long term, but it does seem to be a good hedge if you expect cryptocurrencies to be strong in the next 10 years or more.

Prediction – it drops below $30 billion in market cap and then it starts to climb again.

Xiaomi EV is Coming Soon and Im Excited

Xiaomi entering the EV market.

I think Xiaomi is one of the most interesting companies in the world. Xiaomi has managed to develop a huge portfolio of products with the aim of selling them with low margins to gain as much market share as possible and then make most of their margins from software based services for these products.

Xiaomi has now announced that they are going to spend $10 billion USD over the next 10 years to manufacturing electric cars, embarking on its biggest-ever overhaul to enter China’s booming EV market.

Xiaomi didn’t specifically state whether they were going to develop the software for these EVs or develop the entire Car (much like Tesla).

I would assume they will go down the Tesla route to market and will develop an amazing EV.

Venture Capital is a Game of Outliers – Here are the Numbers / Chances of Success

Venture Capital by Numbers:

Venture Capital business is 100% a game of outliers

  • 4000 venture fundable businesses per year
  • 200 will get by top tier Venture Capital
  • 15 will some day get to $100 million in revenue
  • Those 15 – provide 97% of all the returns for the entire Venture Capital category for the year.

Spotify Acquires Locker Room – Watch Out Clubhouse!

Spotify Acquires Locker Room and Announces Plans for a New Live Audio Experience

“Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform,” said Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify. “The world already turns to us for music, podcasts, and other unique audio experiences, and this new live audio experience is a powerful complement that will enhance and extend the on-demand experience we provide today.” 

This makes perfect sense for Spotify and an area that I’m sure they are going to be strong in.

Clubhouse has performed well because everyone has been in lockdown, but I’m not sure it will perform as well on its own over the long term as people get back to their normal lives at the end of the summer.

Twitter Becoming More Innovative! $300 billion Market Cap inside 10 Years!

I have found myself Tweeting a lot more over the past couple of months and getting more engagements and interactions on the platform. There seems to be something in the water at Twitter at the moment – as they seem to be going through a big change in innovation and launching more and more product (Twitter Spaces is a great example of this).

I would love to see Twitter Space become its own standalone app (as currently it is quite hard to find who is talking, when and where). Twitter also recently acquire a Newsletter company, so it seems like they are now trying to make a conscious effort to push through monetization for creators in all shapes and forms.

Great moves overall… Im very bullish on Twitter over the next 10 years.

(at the time of writing this Twitter has a $48 billion market cap with $3.7 billion in revenues over the last 12 months). In 10 years I can easily see Twitter being a $300 billion market cap company.

Justin Kan – Killing it on YouTube with his Business Tips

Justin Kan (Co-founder of Twitch and Justin.tv) has started to vlog on YouTube with handy business tips. Justin has had a lot of adventures with Twitch and beyond and its great to see him giving something back.

Plus, these videos are actually entertaining, short, and provide a recap at the end (which is great).

Keep up the good work Justin!

Synchedin Sound Effects Live – Royalty Free Sound Effects for All Creators

Synchedin is our licensing platform for creators of all shapes and sizes.

Synchedin Sound Effects is now live – https://synchedin.com/sound-effects – we have thousands of Sound Effects being added – in both CC0 and Subscription packages.

Costs:

  • $3.99 per month – standard subscription
  • $39.99 per year – standard subscription
  • $3.60 per month – if referred by affiliate program
  • $36.00 per year – if referred by affiliate program

Key Selling Points:

  • CC0 (free downloads) and Royalty Free assets (paid subscription downloads)
  • Affordable price for all creators
  • Unlimited Downloads
  • Unlimited Commercial License (any project worldwide in perpetuity)
  • Community lead – See more information on this below

Affiliate Program:

The affiliate program allows any account to refer a friend. The Referrer will receive 10% of the subscription fees for the life of the subscription (percentage can change). Referree receives a 10% discount if they use a referral code (to insentivise using a referral code).

Sourcing SFX:

People can apply to Synchedin as a contributor. Once approved by the Synchedin team, they can add to the sound effects catalogue. The Synchedin team are also adding CC0 sound effects monthly i.e. NASA sounds, Presidential Speeches etc.

What is meant by NFT?

Non-Fungible Token. Never seen the word “fungible” before? Hint: it has nothing to do with mushrooms, and do not feel bad that that’s where your brain went first (totally not trying to make myself feel better).

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique entry on a blockchain which is not interchangeable with any other (not fungible).

NFT – How do they work.

Is there a web-based Shazam?

Shazam doesn’t have a web based application at the moment.

However, Shazam used to have a native Windows 10 app for desktop until it was shut down a few years ago.

Since Shazam is now owned by Apple I doubt they will be making a desktop PC or web based version any time soon.

Deliveroo Financials 2020 YOY

Deliveroo is planning to go public at a valuation of around $7 billion USD. Here is a quick breakdown of some of their numbers that have just been released.

  • Gross Transactional Volume (GTV)
    • 2020 – £4.1 billion
    • 2019 – £2.5 billion
  • Gross Profit
    • 2020 – £357.50 million
    • 2019 – £188.70 million
  • Operating Profit / Loss
    • 2020 – £-223.70 million
    • 2019 – £-317.30 million

These number make for hard reading, but it seems like there is a real path towards profitability – but it feels like it is going to really require mass scale of nearly £10 billion per year in GTV to get there.

However, Deliveroo have the ability to start new product lines and delivering in other areas as well as corporate contracts, plus geographic expansion.

Technology stocks are currently dropping fast – so it will be interesting to see if there is an appetite on the London Stock Market for a heavy losing technology company with growing scale.

Lilium – Flying Electric Taxis – Another Crazy SPAC?

The flying taxis are coming!

Lilium is a German company who are developing electric air taxis – they are currently in talks to go public via a SPAC.

It seems like they are running out of great companies to SPAC and seems like people are focused on select around buzz words – like mobility and electric vehicles.

Another German company with very similar aims, Volocopter, opted to raise new capital on the private market, bringing in €200 million (about $238 million) for a Series D.

Amuse.io – Do They Pay Musicians / Artists More Money Than Competitors?

The short answer is = NO.

Amuse claim that they pay artists / musicians more money than their competitors – but this is a completely FALSE claim.

The major record labels and the lead music distributors all have the same revenue share with Spotify, Apple Music and other DSPs. There is NO way that a small distributor such as Amuse would have a higher revenue share than the major record labels!

It’s getting a little bit tired that there are a lot of companies out there making completely false claims knowing they can’t be challenged.

Coinbase Valued at Over $100 billion – You Have to Be Kidding Me (From $8 billion to $100 billion in a year)

Coinbase is looking to go public very soon and its valuation in the secondary markets has just gone over $100 billion.

Coinbase’s valuation over the years:

  • 2016 — $500M
  • 2017 — $1.6B
  • 2018 — $8B
  • 2020 — $100B

Coinbase reported revenue of $530M for 2019 and $691M for the first nine months in 2020. The company posted a net income of $141M between January-September 2020, up from a loss of $30M in overall 2019. Notably, these numbers don’t include 2021, when the Bitcoin price surged more than 90% YTD.