
Andreessen Horowitz Leads $1.75M Round In Freebie Marketplace Listia - pg
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/19/andreessen-horowitz-leads-1-75m-round-in-freebie-marketplace-listia/?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Twitter
======
citizenkeys
Listia is YC S09: <http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies.php#listia>

------
rishi
I'm a huge fan of Listia. It is really impressive how they have turned giving
away free stuff into a real business. Listia seems to really understand giving
away badges and coins.

~~~
klochner
Does that mean you use the service?

------
izendejas
There is no such thing as a "free". And even though people aren't paying cash
for these things, they're still having to earn money (listia credits) one-
level removed from cash.

Having said that, these marketplaces make sense. It'd also be great if they
offer even more interesting data to understand just how far consumers'
irrationality goes. Understanding that alone makes this a valuable business in
my mind.

------
bcx
Congrats guys.

------
mrwhy2k
A&H has been making some big investments, but this looks to be smaller, safer
and perhaps a better bet for them.

~~~
hnsmurf
In general the big investments are "safer" since they're in later stage
companies. For instance I'm pretty sure Zynga will IPO, Listia's a long shot
right now.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure they won't make 1000x on Zynga. If Listia
IPOs they might do better than that.

Smaller bets are higher risk, higher ROI.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Usually people talk about ROI in terms of percentage, but that does not mean
much. 3x return on a $50M investment is much better than a 100x return on a
$0.5M investment, but in terms of percentage, the latter soudns nicer.

~~~
okaramian
I'm confused by how the percentage doesn't sound as nice. It's about risk vs.
reward, raw monetary return doesn't really give you that. Raw profit
completely ignores the risk the investor put in initially. I'd rather have the
100x return since I risked a lot less to get get it.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I think there are more risks on the 1M dollar level. If a company raises north
of 25M (in our industry) this is likely to be a C round at which point they
are likely to have proven a market and a solid income.

------
clofresh
Who pays for shipping?

