Rookie report... IPO-Palooza continued with Pinterest and Zoom, which both debuted Thursday. Digital tackboard Pinterest jumped 25% on day #1 of trading, while the video conference pioneer surged 72%. Here are the scouting reports:
Zoom's mission: “To make video communications frictionless.”
- Opportunities: This century's flexible work-from-home rules boost corporate needs for non-brutal video chat.
- Challenges: Google, Microsoft (which owns Skype), and Cisco are resource-rich and have been doing this for years.
- Fun fact: Uber likes to zoom — Its employees clock 14M meeting minutes of Zoom per month.
Pinterest's mission: “To bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love.”
- Opportunities: 80% of US women age 18-64 who have children use it. So do over half of Millennials. That combo sets trends.
- Challenges: Pinterest says it's a social network for positivity — But social networks are ad companies, which means competing with Facebook and Google. Snap's a case study in trying to do that.
- Fun fact: 88% of Pinners purchase a product they pin.
One's focused on the now, the other on the future... The Silicon Valley pair evolved from unicorn status by going public, and they're both worth similar amounts based on their share price ($13B for Pinterest, $16B for Zoom). But Zoom's already profitable ($7.5M in 2018) with 344 customers paying $100K or more per year. Pinterest isn't profitable ($63M loss) with its 250M users. Not all ex-unicorns are alike, so it's best to learn up on their pedigrees.