You're being pedantic about the 5 year thing, if anything Pinterest's current growth outpaces that of Facebook. At 2 years old they're sitting at somewhere around 30M users, even Facebook didn't grow that quickly (per your own graph).
In addition, Pinterest sits much closer to transactions than Facebook does. Facebook currently makes around $5/user/year, just given Pinterest's proximity to the transaction its relatively easy to imagine how they could hit a 3-5x multiple of that. It's feasible that Pinterest could hit Facebook style revenues at 1/4 of Facebook's userbase, and they are already 1/30th of the way there. With this investment thesis $1.5BN is a hell of a deal.
Right now I think there are only two real major risks (neither of which I personally believe to be true): 1. Pinterest may be a fad with no staying power. 2. Pinterest has a much smaller target demographic than Facebook and their growth may soon cap out.
With regards to your argument about Pinspire that's just bogus. There were plenty of Facebook clones that got early traction in other markets, none of them won.
You may be direct, but you're getting down voted because your 'argument' is nonexistent and lacks any real substance. (For one, no pure software company is taking a 1x multiple) The reality is that Pinterest is probably already undervalued at $1.5BN and barring the risks above coming to fruition has a real shot at becoming worth $25BN+ within 5-7 years based on revenues alone.
I don't think the OP is being pedantic: you're wrong to compare the first two years of Facebook with Pinterest.
For one thing, Facebook was .edu limited for its first two years, so its growth was constrained. Rather than that, look at Facebook's growth from 2007-2009.
In addition, Pinterest sits much closer to transactions than Facebook does. Facebook currently makes around $5/user/year, just given Pinterest's proximity to the transaction its relatively easy to imagine how they could hit a 3-5x multiple of that. It's feasible that Pinterest could hit Facebook style revenues at 1/4 of Facebook's userbase, and they are already 1/30th of the way there. With this investment thesis $1.5BN is a hell of a deal.
Right now I think there are only two real major risks (neither of which I personally believe to be true): 1. Pinterest may be a fad with no staying power. 2. Pinterest has a much smaller target demographic than Facebook and their growth may soon cap out.
With regards to your argument about Pinspire that's just bogus. There were plenty of Facebook clones that got early traction in other markets, none of them won.
You may be direct, but you're getting down voted because your 'argument' is nonexistent and lacks any real substance. (For one, no pure software company is taking a 1x multiple) The reality is that Pinterest is probably already undervalued at $1.5BN and barring the risks above coming to fruition has a real shot at becoming worth $25BN+ within 5-7 years based on revenues alone.