[HN Gopher] Backblaze IPO ___________________________________________________________________ Backblaze IPO Author : hippich Score : 111 points Date : 2021-11-02 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sec.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sec.gov) | jsploit wrote: | Previous S-1 discussion (this is an amendment): | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28912799 | braum wrote: | Fidelity is handling the IPO and if you have been a customer of | BackBlaze for a while apparently you will get to buy before | public, up to 1,000 shares between $15-17 per share. That is my | understanding. | benburleson wrote: | That seems pretty huge, if true. | knowfilter wrote: | bigly huge | toomuchtodo wrote: | A family member and I are both Backblaze customers, they | received a surveymonkey link to indicate interest in an IPO | share allocation through Fidelity. If there's a way to get on | that list, I'm interested if anyone knows. | jonplackett wrote: | Here did you hear about this? | braum wrote: | Well I'm a BackBlaze customer and have been for a year or more. | Not sure what else would qualify me to be part of the IPO | before it goes public. Also AFAIK there is nothing preventing | them from allowing customers to be part of it, but there may be | a limiting factor. Some way to narrow the list. I have more | than one computer subscribed, that could be part of the filter. | FfejL wrote: | Not sure where you're getting those numbers. I've been a | Backblaze customer for 10+ years, and I was contacted about the | directed share program. Have not heard about price or volume | yet. | tester756 wrote: | how much time it takes to write document like that? | | also that formatting, damn. | busymom0 wrote: | They also released "Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2021" today: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29082379 | rsync wrote: | I find this part interesting - of the ~500,000 customers, 70,000 | are B2 customers and 430,000 are "backup" customers ... which are | flat-rate "unlimited" users. | | These flat-rate users are _very fickle_ and price-sensitive. | | If you peruse subreddits related to cloud storage or online | backup, etc., they are filled with very picky users who expect | the product to be free - or close to free. | | It's a fools errand to pursue this market and I assume the pivot | to B2 was to build something more sustainable with a much higher | price and usage ceiling. | | Regardless, roughly 85% of the user-base are paying $7/mo for | "unlimited backup". | | I wish them good luck. | matthewmcg wrote: | "Fickle"? I've been a subscriber to the unlimited tier since | seemingly forever, and I didn't realize it was now $7/mo | instead of $5/mo. I think in the aggregate, subscriptions are | pretty sticky due to inertia, etc. | deanCommie wrote: | I think the hope is that 420,000 of those users are Grandmas | who installed backblaze because their son told them it's a good | idea to make sure she doesn't lose all her important documents, | and she's backing up a couple PDFs. | | And then the other 10,000 are data hoarders like me with | Terabytes of data. | | I used to be a Crashplan customer - tried them and Backblaze, | and liked Crashplan more. They eventually pivoted to Business | only. | | I was at AWS Re:invent and came up to their booth and bemoaned | the loss of a great service. They said "How much data were you | backing up?" I told them. They said "yeah, we lose a ton of | money on every user like you." | | Fair enough! | delusional wrote: | I don't think there's really any "unlimited backup" solutions | left outside of backblaze. Back when storage was cheap I could | see users switching if you upped the price, the datahoarders | that actually use the storage don't really have anywhere to go | anymore. | kdasme wrote: | Good luck Backblaze! It is a tough market for sure, especially | with recent announcement from Cloudflare. | yellow_lead wrote: | Didn't know Backblaze offers cloud storage. Cool to know! | henning wrote: | > We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to | be profitable for the foreseeable future. | | Fundamentals seem solid, gotta get me some of those shares! | airstrike wrote: | That's pretty standard for most young and fast growing tech | companies | AYBABTME wrote: | It feels like Backblaze has been in the space for a while | though? My uninformed picture of them was as a modest | small/medium size business with a good niche product and | probably some loyal customers type, not as an all-stop-sign- | pulled-VC-funded-moonshot startup. | [deleted] | windthrown wrote: | At 14 years old, is Backblaze still considered "young"? | bpodgursky wrote: | If you're confident, short it. Make some money. | henning wrote: | Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. They also | said the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay | solvent. | bpodgursky wrote: | I guess the fundamentals are solid then. | jonny_eh wrote: | Or they don't matter. | Jenk wrote: | Serious question asked from a place of naiveness: how do you | short at IPO assuming one doesn't already have stock? | vaughan wrote: | I have paid for Backblaze for 4 years, after signing up for two 2 | year subscriptions a few years apart. | | I have never got it to backup my files ever. | | Their settings dialog integrates with macOS preferences and | freezes while it scans for files to backup without giving me any | status update. It uploads so damn slowly it's pretty useless. If | I was to move/rename things around it would take weeks more to | reupload. Every time I try to ignore some files so it's actually | useful, it blocks my system prefs again and takes forever to | rescan. | | I honestly don't know how anyone uses it. | | Carbon Copy Cloner on the other hand is excellent software. | Entire backups of 4TB drive in less than <20mins. And excellent | support. | chrisweekly wrote: | Not a BB user, but 100% agreed that CCC is fantastic, reliable, | fast, etc. | SahAssar wrote: | I'm sorry if I missed something, but you twice paid for long | subscriptions for a service that did not work for you? What | made you choose the two year plan when trying it the second | time? Why did you pick the two year option at all the first | time before trying it? | nodesocket wrote: | Here is their roadshow video for those like me that are more | audio and visual. Great information in the video with their CEO | and CFO. Funny that Matthew Prince (Cloudflare founder and CEO) | is included in the roadshow video pumping up Backblaze when | Cloudflare just announced a directly competing product. | DigitalOcean (huge recent IPO and tendies) is also listed as a | partner of Backblaze. I wonder if DigitalOcean object storage is | built on-top of Backblaze? | | https://www.netroadshow.com/custom/IPO/Backblaze/retail/road... | | I applied for IPO shares from Robinhood. Robinhood is my play | brokerage, but they do have the best IPO platform. I have no idea | with my primary brokerage E*Trade how to participate in IPOs. | moooo99 wrote: | I love the Backblaze personal backup but never used another | product by them. Wish them the best of luck, thats a super tough | market for sure! | jhack wrote: | There goes the competitive pricing... | singlow wrote: | Right, because the existing owners were giving you that price | as a favor, and now the evil stockholders will demand that they | chase away all of their customers by raising prices. | onion2k wrote: | Typically existing owners have been spending those sweet, | sweet VC bucks that go on "growth hacking", and after an exit | event the business switches to actually trying to make some | money instead of pretending MAUs are better than money for | whatever reason they like this week. | | In the case of Backblaze they've only raised $5.3m over three | rounds so that's unlikely. There wouldn't be much VC cash to | hack growth with after 14 years. | rudian wrote: | Yes. Everything you said is correct. Often startups sell at a | loss, this is not news. | bigtones wrote: | $65 Million in ARR to list on the NASDAQ seems really low, | especially with the 32% YoY growth. | | I don't think I've seen a SaaS company with < $100 Million in ARR | in the year it listed. | nekoashide wrote: | Your not wrong, there's been a huge number of companies listing | over the last year and some of questionable size and | profitability. Everybody sees the market as a huge money | machine and all these companies want a piece. | codegeek wrote: | It happens. One of our competitors IPO'd at 30M in ARR. | tomashertus wrote: | How they have been doing? | [deleted] | bastardoperator wrote: | I've been using their product for awhile, I even have my 72 year | old mom on it. Solid backups, gets out of my way, great price. | Congrats to the Backblaze team! | durnygbur wrote: | Any chance to subscribe for their shares for an EU tax resident? | List of EU based brokers accepting the subscriptions? | reacharavindh wrote: | I am an EU resident, and I use Interactive Brokers to buy US | shares. I hope I can buy Backblaze shares when they IPO. | cinntaile wrote: | He wants to be in on the IPO I think, buying when it's | reached the stock market is too late for that. | durnygbur wrote: | yes, this is my intention | odiroot wrote: | Wouldn't you need to be a customer of one of the underwriting | banks? Or, conversely, one level removed, so a customer of one | of the big banks on the "VIP list" of initial buyers. | | I always thought retail-facing brokers are just too small | fishes to be involved. | durnygbur wrote: | e.g. Degiro enables current share owners to subscribe to new | issue of shares in case of dilution, so here is the little | hope I have... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-02 23:00 UTC)