Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#41

Post by _jal » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

Blackstone4 wrote: post #6

chucknelson wrote: post #2

I'm surprised investors aren't more scared of the competition, particularly Microsoft and its Teams product that is part of Office 365. Maybe it's not a huge deal because the overlap of Slack customers and Office 365 customers isn't that big?

Work is a non-software company and we asked if we could use Slack and IT responded by saying that we already had Teams installed and included with O365.... therefore we should use that. That's what we've being doing except that no one chats on there....

> That's what we've being doing except that no one chats on there

...Which serves as a demonstration that nobody needs chat.

Isn't it great how that works?

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#42

Post by kaushikt » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

s_Hogg wrote: post #28

skywhopper wrote: post #13

I get that they are the most obvious comparisons for recent IPOs, but it's disappointing to see Slack being conflated with Uber, Lyft, and We, none of which have a remote chance of ever making more than a razor-thin profit in their respective industries. Whereas Slack is a SaaS company, with the real potential (whether it's likely or not) to become highly profitable down the road.

If they can figure out how to get cash out of the gigantic amount of people who use slack without anyone paying for anything, it'll be phenomenal. Really hope the answer isn't ads!

Slack doesn't seem to be the sort of company who will go with an Ad strategy for monetisation.

A number of free users upgrade over time by upgrading their free account or by highly recommending Slack at their workplace.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#43

Post by ginko » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive, said in an interview that it would take time for the market to understand his company since it had created a new category of software, unlike soda or cars We've had public business software companies for decades, they all created a new "category" of software, why does he think his is something new? Fundamentally speaking, how is Slack any different to the first email prog…

Why do people keep comparing slack to email? It's nothing like email. It's just an instant messenger.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#44

Post by Ididntdothis » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

lvh wrote: post #33

chucknelson wrote: post #2

I'm surprised investors aren't more scared of the competition, particularly Microsoft and its Teams product that is part of Office 365. Maybe it's not a huge deal because the overlap of Slack customers and Office 365 customers isn't that big?

Have you used Teams? I've had to once, to talk to people and Microsoft, and it was _hilariously_ bad. I don't know anyone who uses it in earnest, and I know people who have used Google Chat. (I do most of the sales calls for Latacora, which feels like a decent representative sample of startups, and I think all but one, maybe two, of the companies we have ever spoken with used Slack. Order of magnitude a percent.)

I agree that Teams is pretty bad but a lot of companies use it because they have office 365. Your view is probably skewed by looking at Silicon Valley it startups. A lot of big companies use Teams.

In my company Teams was actually a big improvement because we had nothing before.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#45

Post by magashna » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Well if they’d just implement dark mode or a dark theme on desktop...

You can hack it in

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#46

Post by squeaky-clean » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

w8rbt wrote: post #39

mattmanser wrote: post #10

Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive, said in an interview that it would take time for the market to understand his company since it had created a new category of software, unlike soda or cars We've had public business software companies for decades, they all created a new "category" of software, why does he think his is something new? Fundamentally speaking, how is Slack any different to the first email prog…

Slack is nothing at all like email. It's proprietary, non-federated and has built-in data discovery/spying mechanisms to record every click/keystroke made by users.

Doesn't sound that different from Gmail to me.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#47

Post by swarnie_ » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

conception wrote: post #17

mattmanser wrote: post #10

Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive, said in an interview that it would take time for the market to understand his company since it had created a new category of software, unlike soda or cars We've had public business software companies for decades, they all created a new "category" of software, why does he think his is something new? Fundamentally speaking, how is Slack any different to the first email prog…

It loses money. A lot of it.

Isn't that the majority of modern tech companies? Take something which is marginally profitable, scale it beyond all comprehension and make it unprofitable.

I didn't see the need for a global digitised cab company but it didn't stop two companies burning $30 billion to try and make it happen.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#48

Post by dageshi » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #14

bluedino wrote: post #8

>> Revenue rose to $145 million from $92 million a year earlier. Slack said it had more than 100,000 paying customers, a 37 percent increase over last year. They should be fine. $307m of the loss was stock-related compensation. How could you screw up a business who has a product as popular as Slack?

Might say the same about ICQ, Skype, Messenger, etc. All communications platforms so far have come and gone in vogue. I remember in 2005 when everyone in our office communicated over MS Messenger. Maybe Slack is to instant messaging as Facebook was to social networking and will get some longevity. But it's too early to tell yet.

Did any of those really have paid tiers that people actually used? People do pay for slack in a way that I don't ever recall them paying for those, partly I think because there are many more online only/remote businesses now than back then.

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#49

Post by kaushikt » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #35

kwerk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m out of the loop. What’s happening with Patreon?

They got a big pushback after deciding that they (wrongly) thought that they were a content provider platform and not a payment platform and started banning users with political views they didn't like.

Genuine question: How could a company confuse of what they mean to their users by such a huge margin? A content provider vs payment platform. Woah!

Re: Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

#50

Post by flixic » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #10

Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive, said in an interview that it would take time for the market to understand his company since it had created a new category of software, unlike soda or cars We've had public business software companies for decades, they all created a new "category" of software, why does he think his is something new? Fundamentally speaking, how is Slack any different to the first email prog…

What an arrogant take on the impact of Slack from Butterfield.

Even if he says that Slack is "not about tech but about making work happen", there has been countless of other programs that, while being "tech", made work happen. I just can't see this "category innovation" at all.