31–40 of 469 posts
Congratulations to the Slack team; a great product that has generally become better over time. Let's hope that going public doesn't change them too much (although things like the new logo debacle don't inspire confidence at times)
"Our revenue was $105.2 million, $220.5 million, and $400.6 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, representing annual growth of 110% and 82%, respectively. Our growth is global with international revenue representing 34%, 34%, and 36% of total revenue in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. We continue to invest in growing our business to capitalize on our market opportunity. As a re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obligatory “this is literally boilerplate language used in every S-1 filing” comment.
Obligatory “this may be boilerplate nowadays, but there is nothing traditional about unprofitable companies making public offerings” comment. Edit: I stand corrected. https://www.wsj.com/articles/red-ink-floods-ipo-market-15383... provides historical context that this is not a new phenomenon, though it is more common than ever.
"Our revenue was $105.2 million, $220.5 million, and $400.6 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, representing annual growth of 110% and 82%, respectively. Our growth is global with international revenue representing 34%, 34%, and 36% of total revenue in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. We continue to invest in growing our business to capitalize on our market opportunity. As a re…
I get it their “market share” is increasing every year and the loses are staying the same...and even that is not the full picture of a path to profit.
But if the company could turn a profit, then why not do it privately, show that and then go public? My guess like Uber and Lyft...they can’t turn a profit, and for any hope to turn profit they need this continual growth at a loss, and at some point the investors dump the bag on the public getting a return in a bubble they created and let the public fund the losses.
I think to balance the playing field with VC and private investment, companies shouldn’t be able to IPO with loses.
Surprised at Sales and Marketing expense given the low number of Enterprise (>$100k) contracts. Wonder what's baked in there beyond AE compensation? I don't see a whole lot of traditional advertising, but maybe it's out there?
Slack has a 5-year, $50M/year minimum commitment with AWS. From the document: > In April 2018, the Company executed an amendment to its existing agreement with Amazon Web Services (“AWS”). The amended agreement was effective as of May 1, 2018 and continues through July 31, 2023. The Company has minimum annual commitments of $50.0 million each year of the agreement term for a total minimum commitment of $250.0 million…
I realise there a lot of extras in Slack (attachments cost S3 storage, video calls take bandwidth, webhooks take some processing), but as of January 2019, they had 10M daily active users. $50M/365 gives us $137K per day. $137K per day just to serve 10M active users? That's nearly $14 per day (over $400 per month!), for just 1000 users using a simple chat app.
This is not including any staff, development, nothing. Literally just hosting costs, which should already be deeply discounted given the amounts and agreements involved. That seems... excessive?
Edit: It's worth noting that $50M is the -minimum- commitment they have to AWS. One can assume the actual bill is higher.
I like slack, we use it on all the experiments I work on, but I'm seriously considering upgrading my workstation for the privilege of not restarting my slack tabs every day or so...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obligatory “this is literally boilerplate language used in every S-1 filing” comment.
Obligatory “this may be boilerplate nowadays, but there is nothing traditional about unprofitable companies making public offerings” comment. Edit: I stand corrected. https://www.wsj.com/articles/red-ink-floods-ipo-market-15383... provides historical context that this is not a new phenomenon, though it is more common than ever.
"Our revenue was $105.2 million, $220.5 million, and $400.6 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, representing annual growth of 110% and 82%, respectively. Our growth is global with international revenue representing 34%, 34%, and 36% of total revenue in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. We continue to invest in growing our business to capitalize on our market opportunity. As a re…
It’s still mind boggling that all these unicorns haven’t found a way to make money even after being in business for years and having a mature product. It’s a strange world.