Shutterfly (SFLY), the online photo company, recently declared first quarter results. Their revenue for the quarter of $34.3 million missed the market’s views of $34.8 million, even though it was 29% higher over previous year Q1 revenues. Their GAAP net loss at $0.15 per share met market expectations and was higher than GAAP net loss
Slide, founded in 2005, is Max Levchin’s second baby. Levchin, founder of PayPal, sold the online payment site to eBay for $1.5 billion, and he intends to do even better with his current venture, Slide. Slide, however, doesn’t look like a great second act to me!
SM: The TAM is huge. JH: It’s a $150B TAM worldwide, and $50B in the US. SM: I am not worried about the growth opportunity at all. JH: The key for me and the management team is, and I think for any small business in any space, is how do you focus?
SM: Zazzle and CafePress are not going after personal memories or families. JH: Not in the same sense. It is personal publishing. They use different backend technology, being heat transfer method versus digital print technology. From a ecommerce standpoint, there area lot of similarities. We advertise online, run a ecommerce company, own our manufacturing and
SM: Travel is a “context” that has great relevance for your business. JH: We think about that opportunity a lot. What is nice about our business is our customers engage with us frequently throughout the year. We drive our business in a couple of ways. First, you have your typical holidays.
SM: What are your margins on the photo book business? JH: We do not disclose margins specifically. What we report to Wall Street are prints which are all prints from wallet size to the 20×30 pictures, and personalized products and services, and that’s how cards, calendars and photo books are counted. What we have said
SM: You are focusing on personal memories and personal experiences exclusively. JH: Exactly, things which are near and dear. We have always been a password protected environment. I am not going to put the pictures of my three young boys across Flickr for everyone to see.
SM: Before we move on with your Shutterfly story, can you shift gears for a second and tell us the history of Shutterfly? JH: Shutterfly was founded in 1999 by two employees of Silicon Graphics – Eva Manolis and Dan Baum. Eva was a product person and Dan was a technology person. They teamed up