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Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

nytimes.com

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

#181

Post by ethbro »

8ytecoder wrote: post #151
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…

Why anyone would willingly plug an opaque, overly complicated, poorly optimized, externally controlled failure point into their tech stack is beyond me.

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

#182

Post by s17n »

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?

Google and Microsoft are both offering equivalent products for free. I don't think Slack has established that they can maintain their pricing and continue to grow.

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

#183

Post by astrodust »

anbotero wrote: post #117
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…

Thanks! I mean it, THANK YOU! We were using HipChat at a previous company (2013, I think), and I never understood the switch to Slack. I was like: Wait, but what's the difference? Everybody knew about Slack, and no one about HipChat. I also don't think they introduced a new category of software, they just spent an absurd amount of additional money in marketing. That's it.

My experience with group messaging was MSN Messenger -> Basecamp -> Campfire -> HipChat -> Slack.

Slack's "good enough" for most communication and has better integration with most products, so it stuck. Others always failed in some way.

It's not that Slack is irreplaceable, if anything it's more vulnerable than ever, but that it has momentum. Other platforms like Campfire or HipChat always fell short of expectations.

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

#184

Post by propogandist »

unphased wrote: post #178
GordonS wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, Slack makes it far too easy for orgs to use it for free. I work at a megacorp, and we use Slack without paying a single penny. We have a Slack account setup per project, which typically have 5-50 members. We don't care too much about search or history, we just want a simple chat and audio call solution that isn't horrible to use. Slack fits that bill. To be clear, this doesn't sit well with me; we should be…

I feel like that is an outlier. For most companies the benefits of having all the data logged is worth the cost.

It was GDPR and data privacy that wrangled the megacorp I know to kill all channels and workspaces that seemed affiliated with megacorp with help from Legal... until then everyone was making and using slacks free tier. It's still used to communicate with people outside megacorps SSO environment.

Most users don't know nor care about the paid tier, especially if CHQ isn't footing the bill and the cost for each user license is passed to a business unit or department (which can be how megacorps are setup).

The change over was funded by corporate and it's becoming the standard form of comms in the enterprise.

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

#185

Post by brown9-2 »

pcarolan wrote: post #118

Slack's long-term value prop isn't chat, it's the platform. If you've used any of the great bot apps it hosts (PTO Ninja for example), it's easy to imagine a future where these kinds of apps replace whole swaths of bloated Saas-ware. I'm excited to see more of these and a competitive eco-system emerge within Slack the way Apple built the app store. Slack should invest heavily in building a platform for developers if…

I think some people are wildly overestimating how much of management or timekeeping style apps people want to use inside a chat interface.

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

#186

Post by runako »

nodesocket wrote: post #175
jsherwani wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screenhero cofounder here. I’m working on a successor to Screenhero. It’s currently in private beta: https://screen.so

Interesting, so the acquisition agreement did not have a non-compete clause or golden handcuffs to Slack? If you don't mind me asking, how come you left Slack?

(I'm not affiliated with either Slack or ScreenHero. But I loved ScreenHero.)

It would be common for an acquisition agreement to shackle the founders with non-competes. It would also be common for those non-compete clauses to have limited durations. (I have seen 2-3 years in documents.)

Slack bought ScreenHero over 4 years ago. The non-competes have likely expired.

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

#187

Post by sys_64738 »

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?

I wouldn't be surprised if Slack got bought up by the likes of Facebook or some other big tech.

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

#188

Post by mav3rick »

swarnie_ wrote: post #47
conception wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your view is parochial. A lot of people can't live without Uber and Lyft now. It seems arcane calling a cab company or waiting till one magically appears near you.

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

#189

Post by ghc »

Spivak wrote: post #148
techslave wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

que? how can one not understand slack? it couldn’t be simpler.

Never used Teams. This is not a comparison just some things in Slack that are weird. * Formatting is done with Markdown syntax instead of "word processor" style formatting. In a word processor if you type Hello, Ctrl+b World Ctrl+b! it would produce Hello, World ! In Slack it produces Hello World !* * . * /commands are not discoverable or intuitive to anyone who never used IRC or CLI programs. Non-programmers have no…

Excellent enumeration of the things Slack gets wrong. I’m not sure all of them can be fixed, either. I have more faith in Microsoft getting it right.
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