Okay, Yahoos...Time To Help Fix The Company!
(Yes, believe it or not, I'm a Yahoo now! That was me in the Sunnyvale chow hall last week. I'm contributing to a forthcoming Yahoo Finance / Video project--at least until Jerry gets sick of my bellyaching and tosses me onto the layoff heap. I've loved/admired this company since 1995, so it's great to finally be a part of it).
We peons know better than anyone else what needs to be done to fix Yahoo, so let's give Jerry, Sue, and Blake some free advice. They could pay McKinsey a few million bucks for the same info, but then 2008 cash flow would be even worse. So, we'll just weigh in here. (Just post to the comments below, or send me an email at hblodget@alleyinsider.com and I'll add to the post). For obvious reasons, anonymous contributions accepted. I'll start us off with a simple suggestion below and add more in the following days.
(We did this with AOL a while back, by the way, and it was a huge success. Dozens of passionate, smart ideas from inside and outside the company, including those of ex-employees. Hopefully we can get a good exchange going here, too.)
HOW TO FIX YAHOO: YAHOOs and OTHERS WEIGH IN
Provide exact financial details on "core businesses". Jerry, Sue, and Blake talked a lot about the strength of the "core businesses" last night--that is, the owned-and-operated properties, excluding Overture Japan, the broadband deals, etc. They threw out lots of sexy numbers--query growth 10%, revenue-per-search growth 20%, search growth 30%--but without exact details, it was hard to put these numbers into context. If there's really a pony in there, let's show it to the world. So...
- Provide a "pro forma" financial statement with an 8 quarter trending schedule showing the revenue and cash flow of the "core businesses" as you define them. Provide footnotes showing exactly what is included and excluded (i.e., how to reconcile with the GAAP statements). That way, if the core businesses really are strong, we'll all be able to see it.
Company's in great shape and doesn't need fixing! You've got to be kidding me - approx 7.2B revenue, 500M (audience per month) - and only $18/19 per share?? We have all the talent and tools necessary to capitalize and monitize a sound strategy - that is able to compete with and surpass that of Google. 2008 will be the defining year for Yahoo! By the way - we do love Tim. He is very well respected throughout the organization.
If SAI and Blodget shut up, Yahoo will be fine: In the past, you bashed Yahoo everyday, please stop bashing Yahoo, and they will be fine. Yahoo is still a good and solid company.
Hire consultants and/or buy software. Ever heard of the Adaptive Enterpise work done at IBM? It has saved IBM literally billions of dollars through a project called Workforce Management Integration. In an industry all about the future, it might be what Yahoo! needs to make swift, effective changes in their organization.
Either develop your properties/brands, or kill them off. Stop letting your properties stagnate, i.e., Yahoo Mash, Kickstart,
Bix, Jumpcut, MyBlogLog. They all seem to have disappeared off the face
of the earth. If they are not part of the solution, dump them. Concentrate on aggregating information and building online
communities, both of which Yahoo is known for. Reestablish your
identity and stop playing the role of Google's ugly stepsister.
Figure out what people like about you and shoot everything else. And outsource search to Google. How the hell could it take 10,000 people [14,300, ed.] to operate this company? They
have 4 or 5 things people value and about 100 things nobody knows or
cares about. Clean things up. And the most obvious idea----outsource search to Google and get back
to the portal content business. Take your medicine and at least make
some money
Just put your ad units in better places on the page--and collect another $500 million a year. One thing they can do for sure to increase revenue significantly is to work on ad placement in terms of getting higher click rates. As someone who buys remnant media regularly from them I can guarantee they can increase revenue by making more prominent placement for remnant ads, by at least 500% on remnant, which is definitely over $500 million a year.
Give up and sell the company. The multi-millionares running this company have been given MORE than enough time to 'right the ship'. The rally cry is now, 'well... we will get 'em in '09'? As a sizeable shareholder, I prefer them put the company up for sale NOW. This should be done publicly. I can only hope and pray for a bidding war to drive the share price up. Jerry Yang should think about his fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders getting creamed as the share price languishes at a 4yr low. Let's go... Microsoft, AT&T, News Corp, Time Warner, Comcast, Baidu, Berkshire Hathaway (OK a reach.. but, Warren-Sue connection???), Private Equity... ANYONE! I dont care.. I want a share price north of 25 and I dont care how we get there anymore. I am sick of waiting!
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"Just put your ad units in better places on the page--and collect another $500 million a year."
Outsource search to Google? Worst idea ever (not to mention the day it happens I might fall over and die on the spot, which might actually please some people - you never know).
Yahoo's search is just starting to get very good, and I'm positive they'll figure out how to make it even better in the future...I would just hold the horses on any outsourcing search idea for now, really. Google search is not that great anyway...anyone used it lately? And paid any attention to what they were looking at in the results? Really?
I'm in agreement on the rest of it, though...streamline, lose all the extrataneous fluff, focus on what you do best and what you want to do best, and no one will be able to hold them down soon enough.
At first I was excited to see this posting... But, then I though about it... It is tiresome. How inept can these multi-millionares running this company be?? From Jerry.. to the board.. to the legions of VPs...
They have been given MORE than enough time to 'right the ship'. The rally cry is now, 'well... we will get 'em in '09'???
As a sizeable shareholder, I prefer them put the company up for sale NOW. This should be done publically. I can only hope and pray for a bidding war to drive the share price up. Jerry Yang should think about his fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders getting creamed as the share price languishes at a 4yr low.
Lets go... Microsoft, AT&T, News Corp, Time Warner, Comcast, Baidu, Berkshire Hathaway (OK a reach.. but, Warren-Sue connection???), Private Equity... ANYONE!!
I dont care.. I want a share price north of 25 and I dont care how we get there anymore. I am sick of waiting!
-SP
Yes, seems absurd but doing some kind of deal with Yahoo either to buy their search division or buy them outright would be in the interest of both companies.
What Yahoo needs right now:
- A visionary leader that can inspire the troops, execute the business/turnaround plan and communicate with the street and media.
- to avoid being taken over by an 'outsider' (ie Private Equity) or other undesirable company (ie Microsoft, Comcast, CBS etc)
- sexy makeover
What Apple brings to the table:
- Steve Jobs
- mountains of more cash
- business experience(battle-tested with Microsoft) , confidence knowing they've gone up against a goliath, initially losing but eventually re-inventing themselves to come back even stronger and richer!
- sexy image/brand - what company could keep their stores open on Christmas day and have them packed with customers?? only one....
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/12/christmas-at-the-apple-store-very-very-crowded.html">
Apple also needs to find the next major source of revenue for the post Ipod/Iphone era to satisfy the wall street machine.
Why would Apple want to battle against another goliath you ask? If they don't Goliath will come to them. Google and Dell are planning to come out with an Iphone rival that will eat into Iphone's dominance.
To head this off Apple first needs to kick out Eric Schmidt from their Board and go into serious discussions with Yahoo on how partnering on search or selling out to Apple would be in both their interests in light of the Google threat.
Yahoo and Apple need to take the fight directly to Google and soon.
Imagine the headlines... Yahpple vs Google smackdown. Its on!! Truly a battle of the web titans.....
And the most obvious idea----outsource search to Google and get back to the portal content business. Take your medicine and at least make some money.
As for Yahoo? They have a different strategy every 6 months. Buzzwords like "start page" for the web that come out of some offsite isn't going to get the job done. We all know people that work there. The morale is so low that it's impossible to overestimate the effect.
They need to be taken private and develop a strategy that puts them back on a growth footing.
Concentrate on aggregating information and building online communities, both of which Yahoo is known for. Reestablish your identity and stop playing the role of Google's ugly stepsister. It is getting tiresome.
Yahoo is still a good and solid company.
By the way - we do love Tim. He is very well respected throughout the organization.