Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have an IPO or exit?

Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by Animats on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @02:55PM (#14850773)

Profitability. IPOs for money-losers went out in the first dot-com boom.

The scale of the business has to be reasonably large. Market cap in at least 8 figures.

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Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by skinnymuch on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @09:08PM (#14853079)

Have you looked at recently IPO'ed companies? Many dont turn a profit. Salesforce only started turning a profit last year I think.

I'll just name a couple of recently or semi recently IPOed companies of varying reputations that do not turn a profit. All are way above 8 figure market caps. Are you sure you didn't mean 9 figures or at least closing in on 9 figures.

- New Relic

- Atlassian

- ServiceNow

- WorkDay

- Splunk

- Box

- Godaddy

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Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by sencho on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:21PM (#14857599)

Atlassian is an odd example here - they've been profitable for a decade: http://www.businessinsider.com/atlassian-files-for-ipo-2015-...

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Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by skinnymuch on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @11:43PM (#14862536)

Yes, I should have specified the more unique situation Atlassian is in. They say they were always profitable, but we have had around 6 earnings reports since their IPO. I don't think they have turned a profit once. They also don't seem like they will in the near future.

Do you think it should still be included with an asterisk or not included? I think an asterisk with an explanation would've been best.

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Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by skinnymuch on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:56AM (#14853734)

I had a list of companies in Simplenote. It seems like they all still fit. Another almost 20 tech companies without profits yet:

- Okta

- Wix

- Shopify

- Square

- Yext

- RingCentral

- Zillow

- LogMeIn

- Netsuite

- Trivago (though now majority owned by Expedia)

- Youku (Chinese tube site)

- Tableau

- FireEye

- Pablo Alto Networks

- Proofpoint

- Verint

- Imperva

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Re:Ask HN: What are some indicators that a company will have... by icedchai on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @06:24PM (#14852402)

Profitability? You must be kidding. I'm guessing you don't follow many IPOs. Most of these companies lose money every quarter with no end in sight.

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