Uber's IPO flop a wake-up call for investors that the bottomline matters

UBER Technologies Inc's brandname has become synonymous with the new sharing economy that it has dominated, thanks to its first-mover advantage.

Launched in March 2009, the ride-hailing service - which has disrupted traditional taxi services around the world - is available in more than 700 cities across 63 countries, with the US its biggest market. Its 3.9 million Uber drivers serve 91 million monthly active passengers, completing 14 million trips a day.

Uber's recent initial public offer (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange allowed investors to bet on their vision of the future and gamble on possibly the next Facebook or Amazon. Unfortunately, while Uber's IPO made many of the company's early investors and founders millionaires, the general public who poured in their savings at its big launch were not so lucky.