Number
Social Chain: €88M revenue, only €4M EBITDA, $222M market cap
Shaan reads Social Chain's H1 2020 report: €88M revenue but just €4M EBITDA (a thin margin), with full-year 2020 forecast at €200M revenue and €9M EBITDA, and a market cap around $222M as a German-listed public company.
$88M
Social Chain H1 2020 revenue · EUR/half-year
“Revenue, €88 million. EBITDA €4 million. So, you know, not, not a huge margin there. Forecast for the full 2020 is €200 million revenue and €9 million EBITDA. The market cap is $222 million for their company now.”
Billy
The Social Chain founder who invented a fake soccer star to prove he runs the internet
Shaan tells the story of his former intern Steve, who built Social Chain into a public company. On stage at marketing conferences, Steve would announce a made-up teenage soccer signing, have his network of meme accounts post about him, and 30 minutes later show the fake player trending #1 on Twitter and picked up by real news outlets, proving his accounts 'run the internet.'
“This guy put a picture on the screen, and it was like this soccer player, and he's like, This guy's name is whatever, like Manny Abyou. Manny Abyou just got picked up by Liverpool. He's the youngest guy ever to get picked up by Liverpool. His contract's €77 million.”
Story
Social Chain: buying meme theme pages to 'control the internet'
Shaan tells how 19-year-old Steve, too broke to advertise his college Craigslist, started buying student meme pages for $500 each (or partnering with their teenage owners) and built an agency that could make any audience-suggested word trend on Twitter by the end of a talk.
“And so he started to accumulate these. He started buying them when he could, like, hey, I'll give you $500 for your page. And people were like, all right, cool. And then when he couldn't buy them, he would partner with them and say, hey, can I add you to my network of theme pages? And when we get some advertising money, I'll give you, uh, you know, I'll pay you to post.”