Pax Romana Capital

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Don’t Buy Instacart’s IPO

The only thing worse than Instacart’s IPO is the seemingly infinite number of food-based puns that journalists are using to describe it. I want to see this company fail, just because of headlines like “Instacart: IPO may not deliver the goods” or “Instacart IPO Isn’t Offering Empty Calories.” It’s enough. Before I saw those awful headlines, I was already a hater.

While it is true that Instacart has shown a profit over the past five quarters in a row, I don’t think that the company is primed for a successful next five years. They are going to be facing competition, and they’re going to get burned. They are AOL, Uber, and Doordash Google. They are entering this market, and while Instacart does have a head start, it won’t last very long. The majority of Instacart’s prized profits, what it is being lauded and hyped for, are made up of advertising sales. Those advertising profits will be crushed when this competition gets serious. Instacart will have to charge less, and they will have fewer advertisers knocking at their door.

They also aren’t even the most significant online grocery seller in America. That would be Walmart, which possesses 62% of the US market share. Instacart isn’t the most significant online seller of groceries, they don’t have the money of Uber, Doordash, or Walmart, and their leadership isn’t proven. Before Uber and Doordash even entered this space, they were already getting creamed by Walmart, whose market share is up 8% YoY. On top of that, you should never buy IPOs until at least a year after their debut.

IPOs always debut overvalued, then when the lockup period ends the founders sell, and then they begin their actual journey. Also, IPOs are always overhyped. There is nothing more sexy to CNBC than a popular company finally going public, they are extremely excited for this one in particular. This is one of the first IPOs this year and probably will be the biggest. This hype is before a track record at all. While Instacart is almost undoubtedly going to rocket up as traders look for their next fix of IPO, after going cold turkey for so long. After it rockets though, it will plummet. Do you remember Cava? The Chipotle ripoff that blew the market up for a minute. Yeah, it’s down 21% over the past month. It will shoot up, and you must get out. Operating as a public company is a million times more complicated than just jerking around with a board you paid.

Basically, the conventional wisdom and wisdom you should follow, is that the insiders and the bigwigs know more about this IPO than you. Don’t buy Instacart, and don’t buy IPOs.