Flipagram keeps its focus on growth
And sock start- up Stance completes a new $ 30- million round of funding.
With venture capitalists more guarded about where to put their cash amid a global economic slowdown, many technology start- ups are having to shed costs and generate profits sooner than expected. Not Flipagram Inc. “If you want to become profitable at all costs, you’re leaving users and growth on the table,” said Farhad Mohit, chief executive of the image- sharing app.
His Los Angeles company raised $ 70 million from investors about a year ago, a big haul that’s still fueling the business today.
The app enables people to create a slideshow from photos and videos, place samples of popular music in the background, add effects and share it with friends. Flipagram can get a small cut of sales if users buy a full song.
Though Flipagram laid off workers and slowed hir- ing, it has largely maintained course and not faced a push from investors to make money, Mohit said. There are conversations with advertisers and some experimentation with what ads might look like, but any rollout of a big moneymaker is far off.
The opportunity he’s chasing is one reason he has been given f lexibility. Social media apps usually seek revenue through selling ads, but they need a huge number of users or incredible data about them to interest advertisers.
Budding social network Flipagram, at 40 million registered users, just isn’t there yet. As long as Flipagram reports growing viewership with costs in check, investors are saying “good, fantastic, onward,” Mohit said.
Focusing some of Flipagram’s 50 employees on developing advertising tools would distract from the larger goal of adding users, and “it’s too early” to make those trade- offs, Mohit said.
In putting off significant revenue generation, Mohit is betting that users will continue to post on Flipagram without getting anything of value in return. Mohit said people gain “love and attention” from their “Flips” and that the company can play “kingmaker” by highlighting the best stuff.
Then comedians, beautytip givers, cooks and others who become widely followed could privately seek endorsement deals to promote a product within their videos. It’s already happening in rare cases.
Still, it’s much easier for amateur and professional video makers to make money from Instagram and YouTube because advertisers are more familiar with the services.
Flipagram expects its distinguishing feature will keep users coming back: the background music library, f illed with 60- second clips acquired through licensing deals with the top record labels. Time limits on Snapchat and Instagram videos don’t make background tracks worthwhile, said Mohit, who had a record player and crates of vinyls behind him in his office and a “Keep Calm and Jingle On” mug by his hand. YouTube videos tend to be too long for the samples that record labels are willing to license.
That’s why many Snapchat users download their posts from that app ( which otherwise would be automatically deleted after a day) and then combine them into a Flipagram video, set to music.
“Everyone has stories worth telling, and we have to work to get all of those people,” Mohit said.
Mohit has been cautious even when the company has chances to aggressively grow. Flipagram could have new users automatically send out download invites to their friends as part of the sign- up process, which quickly could reel in other newbies. Instead, the app encourages users to select particular people they want to invite to try Flipagram when they elect to share a post with a small, private group.
“That’s a more organic, slower way to grow,” Mohit said. “But it’s better than spamming.”
Last year’s huge funding round could have been used to advertise Flipagram. But Mohit has avoided spending money to sign up users because apps that can’t spread by word of mouth “don’t de- serve to live,” he said.
“The unicorns and companies shielding crap products with paid marketing are going to go away,” he said, referring to the small number of start- ups valued at more than $ 1 billion.
Flipagram has been cautious with expenses for a while. Mohit described the company’s office as “modest” — there’s a ping- pong table, and he keeps a paddle at his desk. But it lacks the “frivolous nonsense,” including massage chairs and gourmet cappuccino machines, that other tech companies have, he said.
Since launching in late 2013, Flipagram has evolved from a photo- editing tool to a social network unto itself. Recently, the company launched direct messaging within its app and reached 40 million users. Last month, Flipagram introduced its own photo- taking tool within the app. This allows people to snap a series of photos to use in a Flipagram, but quickly delete all of them after they’re included to free up space on the smartphone.
Mohit wouldn’t discuss upcoming features. He did make clear that one thing absent from his vision is becoming a media company. For instance, Snapchat has hired producers and journalists to generate videos using internal and user- f ilmed clips. Many of their creations are called Stories, and they bring together multiple perspectives from events such as fashion shows and sports games.
Flipagram is unlikely to copy the playbook because its users are already creating complete stories. Mohit thinks it should be up to users, not company editors, to decide how to tell stories — with software promoting the ones that gain the most interest.
Flipagram offers variety, Mohit said, pointing to dueling Flipagram videos after a Baltimore police shooting of a young black man last year. One favoring the black man was set to a Rage Against the Machine song, while the other had the song “Why Can’t We Get Along?”
Stuff ing money in luxury socks
The downturn in venture capital funding apparently doesn’t apply to luxury socks.
Stance Inc., a San Clemente start- up with a host of celebrity designers — including Rihanna, Big Sean and James Harden — closed a $ 30- million Series D funding round last week led by Mercato Partners.
“We made this investment largely because Stance is not just about lifestyle or performance, men’s or wom- en’s” categories, said Greg Warnock, Mercato’s cofounder and managing director. “The brand is scalable across both genders and multiple categories.”
The company has now raised a total of $ 116 million at a time when the financing spigot has tightened.
Los Angeles start- ups, for example, experienced their weakest quarter in two years for investment earlier this year.
The latest round of funding for Stance includes bigname f irms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Menlo Ventures.
Stance features socks with wild patterns and colors that can cost as much as $ 50 a pair. The company signed a multiyear licensing agreement with the NBA to include team logos.
Stance’s co- founder and president, John Wilson, is the former president of Reef and has been an executive at Oakley.
Coming up
Riot Games co- founder Brandon Beck and executives from Twitch and CocaCola will discuss the future of e- sports — the entertainment industry developing around video game competitions — at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Wednesday in Beverly Hills.