[waterlesscloud]

I think it's longer than a year. It'll take something really huge to overcome "Well, if Facebook couldn't break out, who can?"

That will ripple back through all investment phases since the ipo is the dream payoff day for many investment rounds.

[malandrew]

I think it's the kind of attenuation that the market needs right now because it basically discourages investors that buy in based on hype instead of intrinsic value.

[tibbon]

I agree with you. For all the startups that wanted to be the "Facebook of X"... if Facebook couldn't do it, why could they?

[malandrew]

Mos' def. They now have a reason to start looking at a revenue sources that aren't based on ads.

Every time I hear about a startup trying to shoe in an ad-based business model where you could make money selling directly or via high value intent-based referral fees to complementary businesses I cringe a bit. A lot of the time ads as a revenue stream are a total cop out that demonstrate a total lack of business sense an ability to spot value.

Google is successful in ads because they are a generalist intent capture platform. Unless your business also happens to capture generalist intent, you should be thinking about referral revenue based on focused intents.

[tibbon]

I just thought we learned years ago that the ago model really wasn't a good one.

[dasil003]

Facebook of B2B durable goods might be a good one to get it on.