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Snap, The Perishable Picture Company: Valuing The IPO

Snap will not and should not try to be the next Facebook, but also avoiding becoming Twitter Redux.

Snap Inc. signage is displayed on screens outside of the Morgan Stanley building in New York, U.S., on February 16, 2017. (Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)
Snap Inc. signage is displayed on screens outside of the Morgan Stanley building in New York, U.S., on February 16, 2017. (Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)

Toward the end of 2016, Snap (formerly known as Snapchat) became the latest social media company to enter the public market. With 161 million engaged users but little in terms of current revenues and big operating losses, Snap fits the bill as a company with lots of potential but plenty of peril. In this post, I tell my story for Snap and the value that emerges from it. It is, for the most part, an optimistic story of a young company that has found a niche in the crowded social media space. In my story, Snap will not and should not try to be the next Facebook but I also see it as avoiding becoming Twitter Redux. Tell your own story and make your storyline into a value!

Aswath Damodaran is an academician and management expert who is currently a professor of finance at the NYU Stern School of Business.

This video was originally published on his YouTube page.

The views expressed here are those of the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of Bloomberg Quint or its editorial team.