Quibi Reportedly Weighs Selling Itself Less Than 6 Months After Launching (cnet.com) 29
According to The Wall Street Journal, the mobile streaming service Quibi is exploring strategic options including a possible sale. "It is also considering raising more money or going public through a merger with a specially formed company that could help it fund deals," adds CNET. From the report: It declined to comment directly on the report, but Quibi said in a statement that it "has successfully launched a new business and pioneered a new form of storytelling and state-of-the-art platform." It added that CEO Meg Whitman and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg "are committed to continuing to build the business in the way that gives the greatest experience for customers, greatest value for shareholders and greatest opportunity for employees."
how did he do it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Quibi founder, what's his name .. .Jeffrey Katzenburger Ratzenbun or something, is a genius. I mean, he had a pathetic unworkable obvious-bad idea and yet they managed to raise a billion dollars from his Hollywood buddies. He even got Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to invest.
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No genius needed, just connected (Score:2)
how did he do it?... he had a pathetic unworkable obvious-bad idea and yet they managed to raise a billion dollars from his Hollywood buddies.
Says it all right there. He doesn't need to be smart, he just has a good Rolodex (ha ha outdated reference there for sure).
To be fair to whatever people dropped money into this, he did have some record of success at media companies he worked for before. But it seems pretty obvious in retrospect that without whatever team he had there, he just got lost... I seriously
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To be fair to whatever people dropped money into this, he did have some record of success at media companies he worked for before. But it seems pretty obvious in retrospect that without whatever team he had there, he just got lost...
This assumes he had the same goal each time. Consider that his goals may have evolved over time. In each case before the end result was divesting for profit, but those may not have always been his goal. This time its clearly his only goal.
I get the opposite take (Score:1)
This time its (divesting) clearly his only goal.
To me I get the opposite. I seriously think he believed this idea would be huge, and wanted to build it from the ground up.
At this point he is looking to sell not to reap any kind of profit, because he'll be taking a huge financial hit compared to what he himself invested. They want to sell because they are desperate. Will there be any buyer dumb enough to purchase the obvious flaming wreckage? Maybe, if only for the content (some of the shorts sounded kin
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1) Launch a new company with a much hyped but hopeless product / service
2) Get some sucker VCs with more money than sense to invest in your turd. You'll probably be left with 50-70% of the equity.
3) Say you end up with 10 mil of capital. Spend the money. You obviously need a good wage, but more importantly you'll want to build up something that has actual (or at least perceived) value. IP is good, whether it's content or patents.
4) Your company inevitably crash
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I totally understand what you are getting at there and in other circumstances I'd agree, but I am pretty sure with the money that Katzenburg put into this personally (could not find a mention of that but I thought I'd read it was some very large amount in the tens of millions) he has lost millions... even worse for someone in the entertainment industry, he now also is forever known for "The guy who thought Quibi would work". Basically just all around he lost way too much for this to be a scam.
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he just has a good Rolodex
My fax machine giggled at your Rolodex reference.
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Worked for WeWork. CEO may have changed, but the old CEO still charges WeWork for his overpriced real estate. So he may not be CEO anymore but he's still funneling investor money to himself, and still makes out like a bandit. Espe
Yeah, take the money and run (Score:3)
In my experience 99 out of 100 VC-backed boards would definitely take an exit at this stage even though it is possible that you could get 50x whatever the deal is now down the road. This is a chancy business in a dicey economy.
No doubt when they started they thought that Trump was going to usher in a new golden age of the economy but it doesn't look that way now. Or maybe they think Biden is going to ruin everything by raising taxes.
Thing is I just don't see what great valuation they can get at this stage.
Re:Yeah, take the money and run (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt when they started they thought that Trump was going to usher in a new golden age of the economy
That happened last year, when Quibi started, the economy was great at that point. But every single person in America could have been sitting in solid gold houses studded with diamonds, and Quibi still would have died.
In fact I firmly believe that because so many people were at home bored, it probably tripled whatever traffic Quibi would have had if there had been no pandemic and the economy were still blazing, instead of business in city downtown districts!
Quibi Reportedly Weighs Selling Itself ... (Score:2)
They better be seeing themselves as "pretty light" if they hope to attract any buyers.
Ridiculous business model (Score:3)
I can't believe it took that long. It's amazing it launched at all.
What does it take to convince yourself that people will pay a monthly subscription fee (!) to watch 10 minute video programming on their phone? Are the creators of Quibi really that alienated from humanity?
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Good riddance (Score:2)
I'm also sick of seeing qubi ads on YouTube, I hope they crash and burn
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Opinion (Score:4, Informative)
For those that haven't dug in on this, it's a streaming service founded by people that are computer illiterate. The episodes are super short, 10 minutes, and can only be streamed to mobile devices. No PCs, No SmartTVs.
The production value of the one show I've seen was fantastic, but it's an extremely hard sell for me to pay for a tiny catalog of movie shorts that I have to watch it on my phone.
Their valuation is tough because they get a studio to invest $x and in exchange they agree to buy $x content. They are pretty short on free cashflow. The bazillion dollar question is "What is their end-of-free-trial conversion rate?"
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I wasn't all that impressed with what I saw on Quibi, anyway. It felt like a subscription version of YouTube, honestly.
It probably makes for an attractive buyout target, since someone can get a ton of content on the cheap. I could see something like "Chrissy's Court" being popular on Netflix if they strung a few episodes into a 30-minute program and made a short "season" out of that.
Quico (Score:2)
Companies in short bits, get 'em now.
not surprised (Score:2)
...that they'd try to sell.
Will be more surprised if anyone will buy it, for really any serious amount of money.