Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by kawera on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @01:29PM
(#7629038)
Won't you include Godaddy in the "general purpose business website" space?
Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by arbuge on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @01:40PM
(#7629124)
If you do, you need to also throw in Godaddy competitors like 1&1 etc. Many have website builders of their own.
Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by funkyy on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @01:44PM
(#7629151)
afaik SS is claiming it is profitable and it was always breaking even. There was an interview somewhere where the owner said until recent the only outside money was $30K loan from his dad (I think it was one with Alexis Ohanian).
Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by callmeed on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @04:13PM
(#7630113)
They raised $40M last week [1] ... $78M in total [2]
Almost 300 employees, spending a ton on ad/marketing, and raising that much money–I can't see how they're profitable. I could be way wrong though.
[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/04/15/squarespace-r...
Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by zachb on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @02:34PM
(#7629467)
Got a link? Wikipedia confirms the $30K loan from dad, but can't find the interview on google.
Re:Weebly Valued at $455M Amid Website-Building Boom
by funkyy on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @02:48PM
(#7629559)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPj5SOUrn8
I think thats the one. Anyways - imo its extremely interesting and worth watching.
Wix and Squarespace at least are spending a ton on PPC customer acquisition. One analysis we saw put their AdWords spend at $10-25K per day (though, I'm not sure how accurate that is).
Also, both Wix and Squarespace advertise on terrestrial radio and television. Squarespace had a Super Bowl ad and I regularly see their ads on Shark Tank (ABC). I hear Wix ads quite often on AM radio.
Squarespace was on Inc's 5000 list in 2011 with 2010 revenues of 11.7M.
Wix went public recently. They had 2012 revenues of $43.68M with a loss of $15M [1].
In the "general purpose business website" space, I think all 3 (Wix, SS, Weebly) see it as a "winner take all / own the market" play (it probably is). So, they are all spending as much as possible to acquire customers.
Wix clearly isn't profitable. I doubt SqaureSpace is. I think it's admirable that Weebly is ... but I almost wonder if they need to spend more to compete.