Snapchat's money machine looks a lot like Facebook in the early days

Snapchat expects to ring up between $300 million and $350 million in revenue this year, according to a report in Re/code.

That's a nice haul for a company in its fourth year of existence and which didn't start selling ads on its service until October 2014.

Snapchat's money-making trajectory looks a lot like Facebook's after four years. Twitter, in contrast, took a couple years longer to get to $300 million.

Check it out:

Snapchat

• Time from founding until roughly $300 million in revenue: 4 years
• Founded: 2012
• 2016: $300 million to $350 million (projected)
• Valuation: $16 billion, or 49 times projected revenue at midpoint of range.

Facebook

• Time from founding until roughly $300 million in revenue: 4 years
• Founded 2004
• 2007: $153 million
• 2008: $272 million
• Valuation in 2008: $15 billion, or 55 times revenue.

Twitter

• Time from founding until roughly $300 million in revenue: 6 years
• Founded: 2006
• 2010: $28.3 million
• 2011: $106.3 million
• 2012: $316.9 million
• Valuation in 2012: $8.5 billion, or 27 times revenue

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