Nice deductions. I think more discussion and analysis needs to focus on advertising revenue and reach--so your post was great. How much is each 100K additional users worth--What would an advertiser pay for prime Web presence when we're at a million users etc.?
I believe a number of investors are waiting on the sidelines for specific financial guidance until they fully dive-in but it is obvious that the BUNM/hypster brand is growing in value by the day. It's firmly in usership numbers and best of all-- advertiser's dollars are only one stream of income. Looking for balance sheets before you invest isn't exactly bad--but not always the way it happens here in penny land.
Perhaps future investors will be delighted to buy shares at current levels for .012-.05 upon the release of full financials .All the power to them--maybe these will in turn sell several years later for dollars. There's a place for everyone depending on time horizon and goals.
Liquid cash coming in for any startup like this is a great advantage since TIME needs to be on our side. Cash-flow opens the door for financing, diversifying and acquiring other valuable properties. It also affords diverse options for allocating dollars to improving parts of the machine that need further refinement.
Usership growth is coming through a number of mediums--we're barely scratching the surface and yet any reasonable person here would conclude growth is significant. I wonder what would happen if we as shareholders simply handed out 1000 business-type cards to people in our communities that would simply say hypster.com--'join today' and see what the result might be with tracking numbers. Howver, with viral networking FB, Myspace, Banner Ads, refer etc. this would be ineffective at best.
Finally in one of my recent posts I speculated on the role of the credit crisis on plays like BUNM. Now a positive flipside I have been thinking on; If this is a deep recession or heaven forbid a depression--I actually think that this works to our favor on the usership growth side.
Why? because the younger crowd particularly 30 and under would be likely to keep their internet service rather than the cable or perhaps stop eating out a few times a month to be able to download songs and share with friends etc. Being online is not just habitual it's where we obtain and learn of financial services, play games, read the news or where our work and school connections are. For many of us under 30 or in close proximity the Internet has become a necessity rather than luxury.
A proclivity for activities at home might see new fervor over burning dollars at restaurants, driving excessively etc. If people continue to have to pull-back I predict internet service/usage will stay relatively stable. Other 'discretionary' items will be axed before the Internet and related services.
If the recession is deep I predict that hypster.com will benefit to the point that usership numbers will continue to command valuable advertiser's dollars. Our 'sponsors' are departing from traditional media because we have departed. They are desperate to find a Web reach--have an audience and inform us of their products and services. They risk irrelevancy and financial ruin if they don't break the mold and do what it takes to find us, reach us and convince us to buy their wares. At the very least they want to raise awareness in prepping their future market.
In the mid and long term I also believe that it portends well for a much larger player to throw huge cash BUNM's way because as the VALUE grows here--it tends to correspondingly bring curiousity and prominence. It encourages competition and sometimes most readily in the form of acquisition. Rather than 'reinvent the wheel' these corporations will pay outlandish amounts of money to capture market share and try to improve results or hold for further markup.
