So I was chatting with another PM a few days ago, and we had vastly different opinions on Pandora. IPO price $16 (raised from $8), he was certain it was going to skyrocket as linkedIn did. I just don’t see the hype to this company. Stock’s now $13 and cratered down from $24 from yesterday. Company has never made money. Dead stick?
I don’t think anyone really knows what the value of it is. The radio is fantastic though. I use it all the time.
Maybe that’s why their IPO was so small: restrict supply of shares so feeding frenzy will drive the value up.
reminds me of 99 - 00. Only difference is that stocks went higher after the IPO. Looks like a new pattern is emerging.(perhaps an offshoot of the classic pump and dump) Linkedin went upto 120 and now 67.XX Who knows? WRT value that depends on what you are willing to pay. IF the company has made no money then your guess is as good as mine. my 2c.
humbling…for the immediate term, it’s really more of a trading/speculation play. value investors beware. cool company but will have to change a ton in terms of the way it monetizes its business model, and more importantly, how it influences music consumers’ behavior (in the same way that everyone doubted facebook until they changed social behavior and engagement as we knew it), to become profitable. anyway, pandora is a dream case study for MBA students though – i looked at this company in two of my classes this year. i guess the ultimate point is that where this company is going is anyone’s guess.
Companies relying on the internet to make money are doomed. Well except GOOG, AMZN and a select few…
ZeroBonus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Companies relying on the internet to make money > are doomed. Well except GOOG, AMZN and a select > few… INTERNETS!
well I heard it’s value right now is as much as all the rest of the radio industry. It seems that a bunch of private owners want to exit, still they might get tricked by their own idea of exiting such a small amount of ownership (restrict shares supply to inflate prices) we’ll see what happens to facebook, the titan
I don’t know much about Pandora, but I do know the Bluth Company is “Solid as a Rock.” http://www.dailytees.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/l/bluth-base.png
That 218% 18-month gain though (Jan 2013-now)…
I’m curious what makes it an interesting MBA case study?
Personally I like the product a lot, and think its superior to the other streaming radio options. Doesn’t make it a good stock though.
I’ll sum it up in one sentence: bears thought Pandora was going to tank because they’d never figure out how to make money, would lose share to “free alternatives,” and would never be able to monetize mobile.
Look what happened, and figure out why the bears were wrong.
I’ll also add that at the time I had written my post over three years ago, I hadn’t yet encountered the Pandora case study in business school. Turned out there already was one (even though the story has evolved quite a bit since then - per the first paragraph of this post)
http://hbr.org/product/pandora-radio-fire-unprofitable-customers/an/610077-PDF-ENG
Thanks numi.
This thread belongs in the “Investments” forum, not “Water Cooler”.
Good point.
I’ll move it.
Looks like Itera was dead wrong…
I can say that? I won’t get banned will i? 