The virtual event platform you’ll host your event in.For example, event registration software can help with marketing and promotion by allowing event planners to automate emails about important speakers and sessions.įor a fully customized and branded virtual event, there are three common expenses that planners should consider budgeting for: The costs attributed to each of these line items will vary based on the scale of the event you are organizing. In many cases, there are do-it-yourself design options for the platform, or you may want to have your event space custom-designed to embody the essence of your brand. You can use ZOOM to self-produce at a low cost, or some virtual event platforms (like Eventmobi) have built-in DIY live streaming tools that will allow you to create live streams from within the platform. This tends to be a mid-level price option. Alternatively for higher-end budgets, you may prefer to hire a full-service professional production team like Eventmobi’s GoLive! Production Team, or an outside A/V company. Professional live stream and video production costs (if you prefer to be hands-off).Fixed costs for virtual events tend to include: There are a number of fixed costs for virtual events that need to be accounted for when calculating your cash flow. You will also have some variable costs such as speaker fees and engagement items including swag boxes. Backblaze's CEO says he wants to prove high revenue and VC backing aren't needed to go public.Ĭloud backup and storage service Backblaze debuted on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday, priced at $16 per share and popping 24.38% by the end of the day.The company sells itself as an affordable cloud storage solution, competing with the Big Three.Backblaze IPO'd at $16 per share after taking in little funding and revenue for a cloud company.Unsurprisingly, hybrid event budgets are a mixture of line items typically found in an in-person-only and virtual-only budget. But unlike most cloud software startups, it got there without taking on the bonkers levels of venture capital that has become commonplace in the industry. By the closing bell on Friday, Backblaze was trading at $22.04 a share, giving it a market cap of $645.18 million.īetween its founding in 20, San Mateo, California-based Backblaze raised less than $3 million in outside equity, followed by $10 million in convertible notes in August. And regulatory filings show that last year, Backblaze booked a net loss of $6.6 million on revenues of $53.78 million - nothing to sneeze at, but it only represents a small piece of a market worth tens of billions. So what's the motivation for Backblaze going public now? "We're actually hoping this shows that it is possible for companies to successfully become public companies without having to wait as long as some companies are feeling they need to wait today," Gleb Budman, CEO and co-founder of Backblaze, told Insider.įor comparison, DigitalOcean, which offers cloud storage competitive to Backblaze's B2 offering, raised $456.4 million before going public earlier this year. Another competitor in the backup and storage space considering an IPO, Veeam, was funded to the tune of $500 million. And they each far surpassed Backblaze in revenue, reporting $318 million and $1 billion last year, respectively. From B2 to IPOīackblaze sells itself as the affordable cloud storage alternative. Its B2 storage service is comparable to that of cloud giants, but is much cheaper. According to Backblaze's website, B2 costs $0.005 per gigabyte of storage each month compared to $0.021 with AWS, $0.017 with Azure, and $0.020 with Google Cloud. Now fourteen years after its founding, Backblaze believes its established the product and cultural foundation to go public, partially because of B2. Revenue for the service grew 65% year over year, bringing in $14.2 million for the company in 2020.īackblaze, however, isn't alone in IPOing with limited funding and revenue. Spanx, though in another industry, went public just last month without taking a dime in outside funding. And 16 companies valued at $1 billion or more have gone or are expected to go public in 2021 despite having zero revenue, marking an all-time high since the dot-com boom. On the flip side, other companies like Uber and WeWork, which have each raised billions only to struggle to find business models and turn profits, have shown that VC dollars don't guarantee a road to success.īackblaze intentionally sought to avoid VC funding, even though it took some over the years, according to Budman. The decision was partially a cultural one, as Budman thought employees would be more motivated to focus on efficiency and the product. It's hard to do so "when you're sitting on a large pile of cash on day one," he said.īesides making a statement, an IPO provides the opportunity to raise additional funds and invest in the company's products and go-to market strategy.
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