Above the Crowd

On June 18, Aswath Damodaran , a finance professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, published an article on FiveThirtyEight titled “ Uber Isn’t Worth $17 Billion. ” This post was a shortened version of a more detailed post he had written for his own blog titled “ A Disruptive Cab Ride to Riches: The Uber Payoff .” Using a combination of market data, math, and financial analysis, Professor Damodaran concluded that his best estimate of the value of Uber is $5.9 billion, far short of the value recently determined by the market. This estimate of value was tied to certain “assumptions” with respect to TAM (total available market) as well as Uber’s market share within […]

Over 13 years ago, in March of 2000, I wrote a blog post titled “ The Most Powerful Internet Metric of All. ” The key thesis was this: if an Internet company could obsess about only one metric, it should be conversion. No other metric so holistically captures as many critical aspects of a web site – user design, usability, performance, convenience, ad effectiveness, net promoter score, customer satisfaction – all in a single measurement. Yet despite the remarkable power of this metric, it is alarming how few companies today truly understand conversion and how to optimize it. As such, it is time to pound the table […]

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” — Freewill, Rush If you happen to be a sports fan (I am), one of the coolest features to emerge in our lifetime is the ability to program your DVR remotely. The game is about to start, and you forgot to record it. No problem — you can simply talk to your DVR remotely. It’s like magic. When you get home your game is there. DirecTV has supported this feature for some time, initially on the Internet via the browser and more recently via their smartphone application. Ironically, the smartphone […]

In a casino, the term “rake” refers to the commission that the house earns for operating a poker game. With each hand, a small percentage of the pot is scraped off by the dealer, which in essence becomes the “revenue” for the casino. While casinos use the term “rake,” a plethora of interesting word choices exist which all describe the same thing – keeping a little bit of the revenue for the company that is running the service. Examples include “commission,” “fee,” “toll,” “tax,” “vig” or “vigorish,” “juice,” “the take”, and “graft” (although this last one is typically associated with […]

Earlier today, DogVacay, an exciting new startup in Los Angeles, announced that Benchmark has led its most recent round of financing . DogVacay is an online marketplace that links dog owners with passionate dog care providers who open up their own home as an alternative to the traditional cage-oriented kennel. At first blush, a web site that allows owners to book a “Dog Vacation” for their esteemed pet may seem like an unusual choice for a venture investment. However, a more analytical and detailed look at the market uncovers that this is a high potential, high probability online marketplace opportunity. The most recent Above the Crowd blog post, titled All Marketplaces Are Not Created Equal , outlines […]