For retail businesses, people once said "the customers vote with their feet," meaning that if they're not happy they'll just walk somewhere else. Today, customers vote with their thumbs, especially as the app economy is set to take center stage in the American economy, as people practice social distancing and local and state legislators weigh 'shelter-in-place' orders that might require people to stay in their homes.
The votes are in for Robinhood ($PRIVATE:ROBINHOOD), and they're not spectacular.
March 9 is already a day of infamy, depending on your musical tastes. But, for Robinhood, it's a date likely be remembered in a different kind of infamy - that's both when Robinhood's Apple ($AAPL) Store Ratings began to drop, and when it had yet another outage that led users to vote with their thumbs, in a manner of speaking.
Is it that bad? Robinhood is certain to see user attrition as a result of the outage, but from a rating of 5-out-of-5 (where it's been for more than two years), the app still has a solid overall rating and a valuation that was, at one point, closing in on $8 billion.
Robinhood is getting plenty more attention these days on social media, after a number of trading platform outages effectively locked users out of their accounts when US markets began their freefall. And, Robinhood is clearly working to prevent yet another outage - its 'Engineering' job postings, depicted below, are hovering around all-time highs. The question that remains is whether the app can engineer a comeback, next.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
Further Reading:
- Insurers are racing to get consumers' data - and they need automakers to help them gain scale
- Credit Karma data shows it was engaging more users - and weighing M&A
- Morgan Stanley will buy E*Trade - see the chart that foreshadowed the deal