Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Asana files to go public via direct listing

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#31

Post by core-questions »

ummonk wrote: post #14

I previously worked at Asana (and own shares), and am glad they’re going the direct listing route. It’s good to normalize the practice of cutting out middlemen in the IPO.

Yes. Far too many financial instruments seem to be explicitly designed to enable the already-moneyed to skim a cut off of every single operation; and while you could have made the argument decades ago that it was a somewhat laborious process, I don't really buy that anymore. Transparency and automation may yet help rid us of rent-seeking behaviour.

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#34

Post by karmelapple »

purerandomness wrote: post #13
thebitguru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a not a very helpful feedback, especially for folks that might be looking into using them. Any chance you can share more on what you don't like?

Not the original commenter, but for me, several things made me despise it: * No way of entering code blocks renders the product completely useless for technical teams. (JIRA also makes it particularly complicated with their "code block" element) * The clunkiness of the heavy-weight JavaScript frontend is inducing a very negative feeling the moment I think about having to open Asana. * The user interface breaks common…

Small note, but JIRA’s latest redesign did introduce easier code block support. Just hit three backticks in the editor and it switches to code entry.

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#35

Post by ummonk »

graphememes wrote: post #21

Honestly, I bet the employees would much rather it just got acquired. Many companies should do an internal poll, I bet more than 50% want acquisition.

Why would employees prefer acquisition to IPO? Asana has a pretty unique culture which would be in jeopardy after an acquisition. But even without that, I don’t see why employees wouldn’t prefer an IPO.

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#36

Post by TylerE »

ummonk wrote: post #35
graphememes wrote: post #21

Honestly, I bet the employees would much rather it just got acquired. Many companies should do an internal poll, I bet more than 50% want acquisition.

Why would employees prefer acquisition to IPO? Asana has a pretty unique culture which would be in jeopardy after an acquisition. But even without that, I don’t see why employees wouldn’t prefer an IPO.

Because they think the stock will tank after IPO and before their shares vest?

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#37

Post by adventured »

runawaybottle wrote: post #17

So hold up, is this just project management software being listed on the stock exchange? Or are they offering like a suite of tools like Atlassian?

Historically small technology companies would IPO. Dell went public and was worth only $85 million in 1988. The last 10-15 years is an abnormality where tech companies wait a long time to IPO.

Slack is just team communication software, trading with a $12 billion market cap.

Shopify is just a modern remake of Viaweb handling site building and shopping carts, trading for $56 billion.

Snap is just a chat app trading with a $26 billion market cap.

Twitter is just a micro blogging service trading with a $26 billion market cap.

Zoom Video is just a video conferencing software company trading for $20 billion.

And so on. It's obviously a very good time for Asana to go public.

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#38

Post by zweep »

nbevans wrote: post #23
thebitguru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a not a very helpful feedback, especially for folks that might be looking into using them. Any chance you can share more on what you don't like?

We tried to move to Asana when Trello announced their restrictions a while back. At the time Asana had no production grade way to migrate from Trello. The tool they had was just an extension build by a third party and it did a poor job at migrating your boards over without losing detail. For something so critical to Asana's business model - in capturing Trello evacuees - it sure felt a bit weird. Has things improved…

What did Azure DevOps do for you that Asana didn’t, and what are the problems it created? At what stage / situations would you recommend it?

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#39

Post by mszcz »

awa wrote: post #28

I have tried to use Asana for personal use cases multiple times over the years and it just feels "slow". Unfortunately, wunderlist is going away and I will need to keep hunting for a good alternative.

Try RememberTheMilk. I've been using it for years and highly recommend it.

The killer feature IMHO are the smartlists that you define by logical arguments, eg. "tag:home AND priority:1 AND dueBefore:tomorrow" creates a list of tasks that autoupdates as soon as something changes.

Re: Asana files to go public via direct listing

#40

Post by toomuchtodo »

core-questions wrote: post #31
ummonk wrote: post #14

I previously worked at Asana (and own shares), and am glad they’re going the direct listing route. It’s good to normalize the practice of cutting out middlemen in the IPO.

Yes. Far too many financial instruments seem to be explicitly designed to enable the already-moneyed to skim a cut off of every single operation; and while you could have made the argument decades ago that it was a somewhat laborious process, I don't really buy that anymore. Transparency and automation may yet help rid us of rent-seeking behaviour.

Direct listings don’t cut Investment Banks out; it just changes the fee dynamic. You’re still paying “the middle man”, just for different services.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-04/how-to...

Post reply on HN