Featured Stories
Profitable from Day One : How a Bootstrapped SaaS Found a Successful Exit
“My key priority was securing a buyer capable of both shaping a long-term strategic vision for DropFunnels and seamlessly transitioning ownership. The team at FE International had already identified the perfect buyer within their extensive network, ensuring a perfect match for the company’s future growth. ”
Access our latest Market Reports
EBay Drops PayPal as Default Payments Processor: Newsletter February 9, 2018
PayPal and eBay have announced another milestone in the ending of their partnership this week. Since 2015, PayPal has been strategically extricating itself from eBay and it has now been announced that eBay will be using a new default payment processor, Adyen, over PayPal. From a user perspective, the main benefit of Adyen on eBay is that it allows users to stay on eBay’s website while checking out, unlike PayPal, which redirects the user. This announcement comes after PayPal’s Q4’17 earnings report showed an increase in income to $620 million, up from $390 million a year earlier, but a rather underwhelming outlook for the first quarter of the new year. PayPal has made several strategic shifts in line with their divergence from eBay in the last several years, as they have prioritized the acquisition of small companies like Swift Financial and moved into B2C functions like facilitating payments between family and friends, as well as strategic partnerships with big names like Apple, Google and Mastercard.
Michael Frew
After 20+ years of experience designing, developing, launching, and maintaining both Enterprise-level software projects and SMB online cloud-based applications, SaaS entrepreneur Michael Frew, shares his experience buying a business with FE International.
Facebook Bans Cryptocurrency Ads: Newsletter February 2, 2018
Facebook announced in a blog post on Tuesday that the platform will no longer allow advertisements for cryptocurrencies or Initial Coin Offerings. In their ongoing attempt to limit scams and false information for users, the social media company has been increasing regulations to their advertising guidelines. As part of this effort, cryptocurrencies and ICOs have been categorized as untrustworthy since they are “frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” This news comes in what was an event-filled week for cryptocurrency investors, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issuing subpoenas to Bitfinex and Teather, and falling values which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost market caps.
Stripe Will No Longer Support Bitcoin Transactions: Newsletter January 26, 2018
Stripe announced in a blog post on Tuesday that the company will no longer support Bitcoin as a form of transaction settlement. Back in 2014, the payment processor was one of the first to allow merchants to adopt Bitcoin as a form of payment, with CEO Patrick Collison citing the importance of the cryptocurrency’s universal accessibility as the main motivation. However, “by the time the transaction is confirmed, fluctuations in Bitcoin price mean that it’s for the ‘wrong’ amount,” according to Tom Karlo, Payment Methods and Dashboard Product Manager. The transactions now regularly come with a fee in US dollars that makes Stripe nearly as costly as bank wires. Stripe no longer considers this to be a sound product or strategy. Therefore, the last Bitcoin transactions on Stripe will be processed on April 23, as the company works with merchants to wind down support for cryptocurrency transactions. Stripe remains very much involved with the cryptoeconomy, however, taking an optimistic stance on possible upcoming cryptopayment methods like Stellar (for which they provided seed funding), OmiseGO, Lightning, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or another variant still to come.
Dropbox Files for US IPO in 2018: Newsletter January 19, 2018
Dropbox submitted a confidential application for their US IPO this week, according to sources familiar with the matter. The unnamed informants disclosed that Dropbox is allegedly looking to list in 1H’18. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are reportedly Global Coordinators on the IPO, with other syndicated bookrunners yet to be announced. Wall Street and other tech companies aspiring to an IPO will be closely analyzing the stock performance of the file-sharing company, as it will likely set an important precedent for other large, profitable SaaS companies trying to list in 2018. Dropbox reached its $10 billion private valuation back in 2014, sparking experts to wonder why they delayed listing for so long and is reportedly currently free cash flow-positive and profitable on an EBITDA basis. Dropbox is the second major tech company to file for an IPO this year, following Spotify’s similarly confidential application to list in early January.
Toyota to Support Alexa in 2018 Models: Newsletter January 12, 2018
Toyota’s big announcement at CES is that they will begin offering Alexa in certain car models starting in late 2018. The car manufacturer said that it will launch Alexa beginning with the Entune 3.0 App Suite and the Lexus Enform App Suite 2.0 vehicle system software updates for select 2018 models without requiring additional hardware to support the virtual assistant. Features from Alexa’s capabilities that will be available in the cars include control of the car’s entertainment system, building to-do lists and smart-home device services like remotely setting the temperature in your home before arrival or opening the garage door. While other car companies like Ford and BMW have announced their intentions to offer Alexa support in coming 2018 models, Toyota is the first to announce specifics of the release.
Trump Criticizes Amazon for Taking USPS Subsidies: Newsletter January 5, 2018
Amazon received criticism from the President this week, who accused the company of taking unjust subsidies from the United States Postal Service. Of the deal between Amazon and the US Postal Service a Bloomberg analyst reported that in 2014, the USPS shipped 40% of the “final mile” of Amazon’s packages to consumers’ homes, for which Amazon pays about half as much as it would through FedEx or UPS. According to Citigroup analysis, it would cost Amazon an average of $1.46 more per package if costs were “fairly allocated,” which has invited critics to say that the giant is using their power to leave the USPS with the raw end of the deal. Indeed, the USPS’s most recent quarter shows a net loss of $2.1 billion, so one can see why offering Amazon deep discounts could be met with criticism.
Google Launches SEO Snippets: Newsletter December 29, 2017
Google has this week announced the addition of educational videos to its Webmaster Tools product. Currently, anyone can post webmaster and SEO questions on its forum or via the Webmaster Central blog, but Google themselves had not been addressing common concerns beyond their FAQ. Now, users can subscribe to their YouTube channel for a video series called “SEO Snippets,” where they will pull questions from their forum to offer instructional videos as a starter guide on topics ranging from 404 errors, how and when crawling works, URL structures, duplicate content, and more.
Congress Passes Tax Bill: Newsletter December 22, 2017
On Wednesday, Congress passed the most significant update to the tax code in over 30 years. While the bill is not expected to be signed into law for several days, some companies like AT&T and Comcast have already announced their plans to grant bonuses to hundreds of thousands of workers, and AT&T has added $1 billion to its 2018 capital expenditure budget. This comes in response to the lowering of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% starting in 2018 under the new bill, among other changes to the business tax code, including a 20% deduction on the first $315,000 of joint income for corporate partnerships.
