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

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

#151

Post by 8ytecoder » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:41 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…

The sense I get is that he's trying to differentiate Slack from the general category of enterprise chat and want to communicate it's more than that. I do know small teams that use Slack to automate their business process workflow that require some manual steps. There's a valid argument that it's yet to realize its full potential in that regard.

However, I agree with the general sentiment that Slack must be profitable by now and if their messaging isn't reaching the target audience it's their fault and their fault only. Not to mention the ridiculously high valuation.

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

#152

Post by GhettoMaestro » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

magashna wrote: post #45

geerlingguy wrote: post #3

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

You can hack it in

Been waiting years for official desktop app dark mode support. The lack of it is sheer stupidity, considering they have dark mode in the iOS Slack app.

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

#153

Post by srirachafari » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

mping wrote: post #122

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…

People always forget about UI/UX and ecosystem. You could argue that we had cellphones for ages, why would someone need an iPhone? You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone? The new "category" of software is about how people relate to software, not the software itself. IKEA created a new category of furniture, or it did not? I think Uber creat…

This exactly. You can tell a lot of the above commenters likely havent spent more than a few hours using Slack. Slack has completely changed the way I, and many of my colleagues, communicate with one another at work. (not saying its better or worse, just absolutely different).

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

#154

Post by asah » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

gamegod wrote: post #134

w8rbt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail was not the first email program (which is what the OP asked about). Gmail came several decades after email was invented and already in widespread use. You may or may not realize this fact (depending on your age).

Gmail's a bad comparison because it never had to make money directly - it was just there to help Google build and maintain their search monopoly by acting as another data source and shutting out competitors. Slack, on the other hand, needs to make money because chat is their only product.

Gmail is the overwhelming reason that businesses pay for Google Apps.

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

#155

Post by frequentnapper » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

I don't understand. They are already back up. Is this even relevant anymore?

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

#156

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

SeeDave wrote: post #104

I don't know enough about the Slack product or business model to comment authoritatively, but I'm really confused how they're losing money (and so much of it) and I sense a bit of "weirdness" around unit economics/user conversion/pricing. I've long thought that they've essentially built beautiful native/mobile/web clients for IRC-type chats and provide hosting/IRCOp services. Charging per-seat to enterprise seems lik…

> 100,000 paid users

It can't possibly be just 100,000 paid users. That's clearly nonsense. Oracle uses it and they have 80,000 employees alone!

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

#157

Post by ivalm » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

mping wrote: post #122

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…

People always forget about UI/UX and ecosystem. You could argue that we had cellphones for ages, why would someone need an iPhone? You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone? The new "category" of software is about how people relate to software, not the software itself. IKEA created a new category of furniture, or it did not? I think Uber creat…

> You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone

Having used both I think it is a legitimate question. iPhone vs android is just arbitrary preference at this point.

I think the same thing with Slack. Whether you use Slack, Teams, Hangouts Meet, or something else is becoming entirely a preference. For a company that is losing money this is not a good thing.

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

#158

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

ivalm wrote: post #157

mping wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always forget about UI/UX and ecosystem. You could argue that we had cellphones for ages, why would someone need an iPhone? You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone? The new "category" of software is about how people relate to software, not the software itself. IKEA created a new category of furniture, or it did not? I think Uber creat…

> You could also argue that an android has the same functionality as an iPhone, again why would someone need an iPhone Having used both I think it is a legitimate question. iPhone vs android is just arbitrary preference at this point. I think the same thing with Slack. Whether you use Slack, Teams, Hangouts Meet, or something else is becoming entirely a preference. For a company that is losing money this is not a goo…

On an individual basis, it's a legitimate question. On a bigger scale, the iPhone was/is a game changer.

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

#159

Post by thorwasdfasdf » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

I'm sorry but comparing it to Uber is highly misrepresentative. Uber has serious Cost structure that can not be removed: the cost of the driver is essential to the operation of it's busienss. Slack on the other hand is just a SaaS. Why are their costs so high? They said stock based compensation, but that doesn't begin to tell what it's for. Their user acquisition costs don't need to be really high, as far I know they started off with a great deal of virality and without too much paid acquisition. Between then and now, what happened? Naive question: Couldn't they simply cut most of their engineering/marketing and be wildly profitable?

If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say it was they tried to grow too quickly and overspent on marketing, getting a barely decent ROI on ad spend.

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

#160

Post by rhizome » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 10:23 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…

If you want to hear some world-class puffery, check out this interview with Ev Williams that I heard last night on NPR:

https://mastersofscale.com/ev-williams-never-underestimate-y...