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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

#211

Post by lvh »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #44
lvh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh sure: I didn’t mean to imply nobody does, I’m definitely just talking to startups.

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

#212

Post by icedchai »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #201
icedchai wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growth companies don't make a profit this early on. They put it all back into sales and marketing.

"Growth company" does not mean anything at all. If they were just putting it all back in sales and marketing they wouldn't have losses this high.

Actually, it does. It means they're focused on revenue growth, not profitability, at this stage. Sales and marketing is very, very expensive. Have you worked at any SaaS companies with tons of inside sales?

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

#213

Post by koffiezet »

repolfx wrote: post #209
Slartie wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "was/is", just "was". A customer that decides today doesn't care much about the iPhone legacy, but only if he/she can satisfy all their personal requirements with today's phones and ecosystems. And on that metric there's just as many people preferring iPhones as there are preferring Android devices, because none is clearly superior across the board, but each of them has different strengths and it is a question of…

Well, not exactly. Android has mich higher market share than iOS. There's not just as many preferring iPhones, not even close, though it may feel that way in certain geographies.

Not that many preferring iPhones? People not having iPhones has mostly to do with the 'luxury' aspect of them. Many want an one, but can't/don't want to spend the money on it. The absolute majority of Android devices sold is the sub-€300 market, many subsidised. It's mostly the tech-savvy crowd that on purpose buys an Android from what I see.

Just look at the insane secondhand value of any iPhone. Even my perfectly working old iPhone 6S I use as a backup would still sell for €240 today - which is absolutely nuts...

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

#214

Post by hajile »

viraptor wrote: post #161
siruncledrew wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a cop-out answer from the CEO to be honest. Slack isn't a confusing novelty the market has never seen; foundations of Slack have existed for quite some time (eg. using AIM with chatbots 15 years ago as a kid). It's not the market's fault Slack's revenue/sales expectations don't match their goals. That's entirely on Slack to either do a better job or be more realistic with their 'ceiling'.

Foundations existed for years, not even the same product existed before them: hipchat. It was pretty much equivalent. Slack had a nicer mobile app and some other improvements, but otherwise they're almost the same thing.

Slack bought hipchat from Atlassian and shut it down.

https://slackhq.com/atlassian-and-slack-partnership

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

#215

Post by kbos87 »

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…

Agree - that’s a total cop out. Whether or not they are a novelty product or creating a category is a separate issue and isn’t as important in this context once it’s clear that they have strong product market fit.

What matters to the market now is that they are a subscription-based software business model not unlike thousands of other SaaS companies. It’s a very well understood space watched by investors who can compare what they are seeing to many other examples.

Slack needs to adjust to life as a public company - how to set expectations, how to manage to those goals. In fairness they also were saddled with hugely inflated expectations before the media and some investors likely realized that they are just like a lot of other SaaS businesses.

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

#216

Post by collyw »

judge2020 wrote: post #69
collyw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is what you're referring to[0]; it only happened because Visa, MC, and Paypal can dangle their source of revenue over their heads any time they want something changed or a creator removed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801

That appears to be about adult content (porn I assume).

I was referring to Carl Benjamin being removed. Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, who were two of Paterson biggest earners removed themselves as a result and encouraged others to do the same.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/17/jordan-peterson-sam-harri...

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

#217

Post by j8014 »

srirachafari wrote: post #153
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…

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).

How has Slack completely changed the way you communicate? You can chat, share files and do a lite screen share in a single app? Integrations? I guess, I don't see it and I've used Slack for years, before that HipChat, and I used IRC for a very long time too.

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

#218

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by kerng »

New category of software? Such a statement shows how disconnected leaders can be from reality.

Collaboration and communication software has existed basically since computer networks exist. More specifically icq, MSN, even Skype falls into the same category of software...

They created a succesful startup - a lot of kudos for that. The company, as so many others this year, fails to proof itself in the public market.

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

#220

Post by repolfx »

koffiezet wrote: post #213
repolfx wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not exactly. Android has mich higher market share than iOS. There's not just as many preferring iPhones, not even close, though it may feel that way in certain geographies.

Not that many preferring iPhones? People not having iPhones has mostly to do with the 'luxury' aspect of them. Many want an one, but can't/don't want to spend the money on it. The absolute majority of Android devices sold is the sub-€300 market, many subsidised. It's mostly the tech-savvy crowd that on purpose buys an Android from what I see. Just look at the insane secondhand value of any iPhone. Even my perfectly w…

That's not what prefer means. By your logic just as many people prefer to fly in private jets as fly economy, but that's a meaningless statement - they don't prefer it, they prefer cheaper options and to spend the money on other things. Clearly by any definition the vast majority prefer to buy phones cheaper than Apple sell them, but the high end Android market does great too. Really Android just dominates completely in every market and has done for a very long time, which is why Apple fans like to talk about Apple taking most of the profit (as if this is a good thing!).
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