Well, it's now official: we're in the midst of dot-com boom 2.0 so get ready for another wild ride. The market finally turned the corner when YouTube CEO Chad Hurley was asked about an IPO by MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco. His response: “If we have an opportunity to go public in the future, that would be very exciting for us”
I have no doubt that if YouTube went public today, investors would be chomping at the bit to get a piece of the action. The sky's limit if you're serving up 100 million videos a day, right? While Hurley's answer to the IPO question was reasonable, the fact he was asked the question even though YouTube has little revenue and a yet to be determined business model (sponsorships, banner ads, subscriptions?) makes it clear the Web 2.0 environment is getting frothy. It's not unlike the dot-com boom 1.0 when companies with lots of eyeballs and lots of red ink did IPOs.
What has keep the market today relative even-keeled is most of the excitement has been focused on new, cool services and the occasional deal by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Other than Vonage, IPOs have few and far between, which has kept enthusiastic retail investors from jumping into the fray and getting burnt. As for YouTube's potential IPO, it's highly unlikely the company will ever go that route. Why go through the hassle of an offering and the scrutiny that goes along with filing quarterly results when you can attract a nice, clean acquisition for $1-billion or so?
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One Comment
Hey, Mark. I saw Mathew Ingram comment along the same lines but have to disagree that one comment from Churley sounds the bubble bell. Remember, this is guy being interviewed by Bambi who asked him about all of his exit strategy options, so he was bound to prefer one over another.
What Churley says and what the market may give him in any potential IPO are two very different things. This time around, it is clear the market is no longer rewarding “cool ideas” unless they have a real business model attached to them. As Kedrosky points out on his blog, 17 IPO's have been cancelled over the last couple of months – a strong indication that what VC's and founders want is not what the street is willing to give.
At the end of the day, a couple of rich deals are always going to make their way to the table because greed is always going to look for the next Google. For the most part, however, the only online companies that will successfully IPO in the future are those that have a proven and defensible business.
I don't think any of the social networking sites can satisfy these requirements. They don't deliver services that people are willing to pay for and a new one pops up every minute that could easily displace current leaders.
Given the fact I've proven to myself that I'm not a genius, I have to assume that most of the world's serious investors are thinking along the exact same lines. That means Churley can keep dreaming about an IPO and you don't have to worry about us being in another bubble.
Best,
George