
Secret raises $8.6 million Series A - patrickod
http://recode.net/2014/03/14/social-app-secret-raises-8-6-million/
======
goatforce5
It's a beautifully designed app with tons of attention of detail to tiny
little things.

How the hell you monetize it to turn $8.6m in to an even bigger pile of cash
is beyond me though.

I guess that's why i'm not an entrepreneur.

~~~
enjo
It used to be that investors said "I want a part of the next Compaq". Then it
was "the next Google".

What this shows is that investors now want to be a part of the next Instagram
or WhatsApp. They are literally throwing away the notion of profitability or
monetization. Now the model is to get as popular as possible as quickly as
possible. If you win that lottery Facebook or Google will sink BILLIONS of
dollars into you.

My bet is these investors are looking at an app that has existed for less than
two months and think they are getting in early on the next one of those. I'd
love to know what the valuation was (north of $17M at least).

~~~
qq66
You realize that WhatsApp has hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue?

~~~
nandemo
Remember, on HN "I and my friends don't use it" implies "that company can't
possibly have revenues". Just look at any thread about Yahoo.

~~~
w1ntermute
Or Microsoft.

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fsk
The formula is:

1\. Create a new app that's a slight variation of something popular that
already exists.

2\. Hype it like crazy.

3\. Find someone clueless to buy, either a large corporation or have an IPO.

4\. Repeat with the next idea.

It's basically the same model for hyping celebrities. Is Lady Gaga popular
because she's a great singer, or because the media hypes her all the time?
Similarly, is Secret popular because it's good, or because it's being promoted
all the time?

~~~
grinich
Lady Gaga (aka Stefani Germanotta) is actually an incredible musician. She
studied at the prestigious NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and was one of the
few students given early admission at the age of 17.

It's an ignorant jab to discredit anything popular as being without merit.
Loads of people said Facebook was a just silly toy for college kids.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM)

~~~
fsk
Credentials and Education != talent and ability

I'm judging Lady Gaga based on brief fragments of recent songs I heard. Of
course she may be pulling a "Jay Leno", using talent to produce the mediocre
garbage that the mainstream media likes to promote.

Also, I _DON 'T_ use Facebook and Twitter. I never saw the point. Also, you're
an IDIOT to build a web presence on Facebook, because then Facebook controls
your ability to interact with your audience. Better to have your own site
where your audience follows you directly and you control it 100%.

~~~
prawn
"I'm judging Lady Gaga based on brief fragments of recent songs I heard."

Well, that seems fair.

~~~
fsk
I could never stand to watch her for more than 30 seconds, because she's so
awful.

~~~
coralreef
"I don't like it, therefore they are awful and untalented"

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ulfw
Hype = Money seems to be the take-away lesson to be learned.

~~~
grinich
Has that ever _not_ been true?

~~~
ulfw
Sadly yes. I just wonder how far to spin it. So rather than hiring good
product people, designers and engineers - just build a company out of PR
people and hype the shit out of something totally average?

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onedev
Anyone who's used the app can back me up when I say this:

It is one of the most beautifully designed apps I've ever seen. Every
interaction _adds_ to the functionality. The balance of beautiful and
functional is amazing. Sure, many of the interactions may have been done
before in other apps, but it's the whole package that blows me away.

The whole "LOL THEY AINT GON MAKE THE $$$$" is a tired argument. The more
interesting conversation to be had centers around the design.

~~~
anon808
It's not an argument, it's a prediction. I welcome them to prove it wrong.

Unfortunately when you take money from someone else, the conversation changes
to how much money you're going to make from that initial money.

~~~
ryanmerket
Secret is basically a news feed. I'm pretty sure news feeds have proven to be
heavily monetizable.

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cemregr
It's hard to make anything that people want to open and use every day, that's
why I commend the folks behind secret.

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zbruhnke
Their Monetization strategy? Thats simple ... Blackmail

I kid, I kid, but oh the things they could do lol

~~~
jkestner
They only had to blackmail a couple of investors.

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angrydev
Here's the company's blog post on how the service works:

[https://medium.com/secret-den/12ab82fda29f](https://medium.com/secret-
den/12ab82fda29f)

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singularityyy
I wonder where the future of 'social' is going. If history is any guide,
Facebook will soon be out of the 'cool' factor and younger, nimbler startups
with take over. It's not clear to me though what kind of experience these will
provide, i.e., what features will attract the next generation and form that
critical mass. I do like the social app ecosystem to be fragmented though, it
makes for good options and interesting new ideas to be tested.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
I think Facebook is already out of the 'cool' factor and has been for a long-
time. It has become, as Zuckerberg also likes to point out, a utility. Cool
things and fads die out (a la MySpace).

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richard_cubano
Bubble Alert.

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jmathai
I think investments like these which appear to be the most illogical are the
most interesting for venture capital. The more people who thinks _that
investment seems solid_ the less likely it is to unearth something entirely
new (perhaps a whole market).

I agree that hype is a large part of this investment. But remember that hype
is about 1000x as difficult to create than a product.

~~~
wensing
Hype is harder to create than a product? For what set of products?

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unclebucknasty
Secret may be hugely profitable someday.

Still, as for today, I wonder how we'll know when we've jumped the shark?

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jtfrench
Another win for #firstWorldProblem apps. Hell, you could argue that Secret
doesn't even solve any problems, and probably creates more.

But damn, that stylish hipster UI and all these cool Silicon Valley cats
talking about how they hate Dave Morin....who doesn't want to ride that gravy
train?

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jgalt212
If you can somehow validate these posted secrets as True of False, then it's
worth every penny.

