StockTwits Gets Stocked

My friends Howard and Roger have teamed up once again, this time to fund StockTwits, the stock service built on top of Twitter.

Roger’s got a great post on his blog about it in which he calls stocktwits (and other services like it) "a long tail meritocracy". I like that phrase.

Roger also details a long list of super connected power users who made up the financing. I love the idea tht the company was financed by its biggest users. Something is just so right about that. Well done guys.

#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. howardlindzon

    thanks much. Wallstrip I called in favors for, not this time. wierd how it works.

  2. timothysykes

    I love being part of an all star cast but not so sure its as much of a meritocracy as Covestor…integrating the two would be interesting…

    1. TradeIdeas

      As Roger mentioned in his post covering this good news, it’s just the beginning for StockTwits. Congratulations to Soren, Howard, and the rest of cast for achieving the means to propel onward and upward!

  3. Ed

    “I love the idea tht the company was financed by its biggest users. Something is just so right about that. Well done guys.”Here here!

  4. infoarbitrage

    Thanks, Fred. After a high-profile mistake where I was too far from the users Stocktwits is a breath of fresh air. I’m learning. The entire Stocktwits team appreciates your support and guidance.

  5. abbashaiderali

    I think this is a great idea and lots of startups would benefit from this model. Depending on the minimum $ investments, you could raise from a lot of users. Congrats to stocktwits. It’s a site that’s on my short list of reads throughout the day!Abbas.

  6. upsidetrader

    hi fred and thanks

  7. Soren Macbeth

    Thanks for the love, Fred.

  8. gregory

    Congrats to the StockTwits team! They’re not leading the Financial Shorty Awards for nothing: http://shortyawards.com/cat

  9. curmudgeonly troll

    is ‘long tail meritocracy’ is a euphemism for ‘idiocracy?’

    1. infoarbitrage

      ctroll, you clearly don’t use the service because there are a lot of smart freaking people contributing ideas. We know they’re smart because people care. This isn’t a comedy site; it’s an investment site. Time is money, especially in investing, which is why the Stocktwits medium is so powerful. The community determines who should be followed and who should be avoided. How this translates into idiocy I’m not sure.

  10. raznick

    thanks for the write-up and i am excited to be part of the team.

  11. TradeIdeas

    As Roger mentioned in his post, http://www.informationarbit…, this is just the beginning for StockTwits as it positions itself for good things. Congratulations to Soren, Howard, Phil, and the rest of the cast for achieving the means to propel themselves onward and upward!

  12. Derek Skaletsky

    “I love the idea tht the company was financed by its biggest users.”In some way, I celebrate this and in another way I wonder why a business would sell equity to its biggest users instead of turn them into revenue generating customers? Hmmm…

    1. infoarbitrage

      The reason is not for the money. The reason is to get some of the top early adopters and community influencers on board to help us stay close to the community as we roll out new features and functionality. Having a handful of these people more tightly coupled with the company does not adversely impact our economics. To the contrary, they will help us avoid mistakes that we’d surely make by not being close enough to the community. There is zero downside to having some of our most prolific and respected community members as investors.

  13. Mark

    Looked like a great deal; hated I missed out! Well done.

  14. gregorylent

    many communities can fund the sites they use and are a part of. seesmic comes to mind, user-generated advertising for brands, paid demographic study groups … not big money, but cash flow ..

  15. JoeDuck

    It’s great to see “usership” and ownership intersect in this fashion. At one level users do get great free tools, but I think it’s good if there is some sharing of the monetary wealth as well.

  16. T. AKA Ricky Raw

    This is one of the few genuinely useful Twitter apps I have ever seen!

  17. lawrence coburn

    Also interesting is the fact that a company that sits on top of another company’s API is getting funded. It seems to me to add another level of risk to the equation, but I guess it’s not unheard of – we also saw it with those FB apps getting funded.

  18. jonbrosnahan

    Not to be negative nancy, but I signed up for the site yesterday and I don’t see how it is any different from google finance or yahoo finance message boards in terms of useless banter. The medium is interesting and potentially powerful if the posters were truly knowledgeable (research anaylsts, technical analysts, etc). I just don’t see much value in reading opinions of amateur “traders”.

    1. ppearlman

      Hi Jon,There are already some incredibly experienced, knowledgeable and successful market participants on StockTwits. I have been trading professionally for a number of years and am blown away by the talent that simply showed up unsolicited.Perhaps, you would like some assistance getting started with filtering so that you can access exactly the type of information you will find most valuable.Please email me at [email protected] or heck just call if so inclined at 9176858316 and I will personally get you grooving on @StockTwits so that you have the awesome experience.Phil PearlmanHead of Community Development

  19. laptapos

    I hope this startup will b ecome successful during this economic downturns or crisis.

  20. liza

    FYI : about 3 or 4 years ago the guy that first developed Textpattern raised money to create a hosting company for his users. As I remember it, he was able to do it with about 200 people and if am correct, part of the deal was that in return these superusers would have lifetime service and support from the company.Textdrive was actually quite nifty –I used it for a while. Am pretty sure he sold the company because now it’s called Joyent.On that note : I can’t believe people are VCing a service based on a “service” that is basically a feature waiting for an actual platform. I honestly can’t understand venture capitalists.

    1. fredwilson

      If you are talking about stocktwits this was not a vc deal

      1. liza

        sorry, right. angel.i do love the idea of user-owned services that go beyond just throwing people a bone in the guise of ad revenue. if a user’s value to a web service can be calculated in actual ad income, why not make sure those users stay as long as they can by giving them actual ownership of the service?