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Slack S-1

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Re: Slack S-1

#101

Post by [deleted] »

raldi wrote: post #60
sinatra wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an unnecessarily hostile comment. I want to disable threads for myself so I don’t miss important messages. What’s your use case for disabling vowels? And where’s your list of people genuinely asking for disabling vowels for years?

I'm sorry; I've just seen this attitude so many times in my career of, "Why not just create an option for this thing that would completely upend the way the product works?", which doubles the number of possible things you then need to test for, complicates the product, slows down development, adds technical debt, bloats the software, and clutters up the options screen. I'm on a couple slacks, some where local culture…

[deleted]

Re: Slack S-1

#102

Post by theevilsharpie »

derwiki wrote: post #75
ralala wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Availability

Slack does a lot of things very well, but I've seen a surprising amount of downtime. YMMV of course.

It's been pretty reliable for me, particularly compared to the previous messaging service my company used (HipChat).

Re: Slack S-1

#103

Post by arkitaip »

snypox wrote: post #95
arkitaip wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're already seeing a backlash against the always multitasking, loss of focus culture that Slack has become the poster child for in the SASS space. Just like Facebook or Twitter, Slack is engineered for constant dopamine-fueled engagement, which quickly turns it into a bad and ultimately unproductive habit for companies that use it. I am already seeing competitors like Level use Slack as a warning example an…

Weird opinion. I only know 1 colleague of mine who gets distracted by chat. For me, and for most people an efficient team collaboration tool (Slack) is a game changer though.

Maybe you haven't been following the news but this is a real concerns and there have been several tech companies that have even moves away from Slack.

Re: Slack S-1

#104

Post by tw04 »

cupofjoakim wrote: post #41
maxxxxx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still mind boggling that all these unicorns haven’t found a way to make money even after being in business for years and having a mature product. It’s a strange world.

Well, these guys do have a good way to make money. Enterprise contracts are worth their weight in gold. As you could see from the quote, their revenue has increased more than their losses - which mean that they are on their way to become profitable. Arguably they could be now, if they didn't invest in growth as much.

I'd be curious if it's remotely sustainable. We started on Slack ~3 years ago. We're now moving (albeit slowly) to Teams. 18 months from now Slack will be gone entirely. I can't believe we're the only ones. And unlike Dropbox vs. Ondrive, Slack isn't markedly better in any area than Teams from my testing.

Re: Slack S-1

#105

Post by maxxxxx »

outside1234 wrote: post #99
cupofjoakim wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, these guys do have a good way to make money. Enterprise contracts are worth their weight in gold. As you could see from the quote, their revenue has increased more than their losses - which mean that they are on their way to become profitable. Arguably they could be now, if they didn't invest in growth as much.

I guarantee you that Microsoft has not lost money on Teams at the same growth rate. Why does Slack get a pass for that?

How about Atlassian? Did they lose money for years?

Re: Slack S-1

#106

Post by drb91 »

raldi wrote: post #60
sinatra wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an unnecessarily hostile comment. I want to disable threads for myself so I don’t miss important messages. What’s your use case for disabling vowels? And where’s your list of people genuinely asking for disabling vowels for years?

I'm sorry; I've just seen this attitude so many times in my career of, "Why not just create an option for this thing that would completely upend the way the product works?", which doubles the number of possible things you then need to test for, complicates the product, slows down development, adds technical debt, bloats the software, and clutters up the options screen. I'm on a couple slacks, some where local culture…

What does a good experience with slack look like? Just not getting annoyed by anything?

Re: Slack S-1

#107

Post by [deleted] »

mooreds wrote: post #98
maxxxxx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also don’t have very high barriers to entry for competitors. Replacing SAP is really hard after it has been established in a company. On the other hand replacing Slack is really easy. Same for Uber. Customers and drivers can jump ship anytime.

It depends on how you use slack. (I agree that Uber is pretty easy.) If slack becomes an email replacement (instead of an ephemeral IM client), and a repository for historical knowledge, then it becomes very difficult to replace. In the workplaces where I have used slack, it definitely starts to take on that role (links to discussions are placed in tickets and documents, for example).

[deleted]

Re: Slack S-1

#108

Post by pmohun »

maxxxxx wrote: post #89
est31 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that products like Slack, Uber, Airbnb, etc. all could have basically everyone as their customer. These companies influence the daily lives of millions of people, with comparatively few employees, thanks to the scaling skills of technology. That's why they are valued so high and are still growing. Sure, they might be overvalued and one day the bubble can burst, but neither is it just a ponzi scheme, ther…

They also don’t have very high barriers to entry for competitors. Replacing SAP is really hard after it has been established in a company. On the other hand replacing Slack is really easy. Same for Uber. Customers and drivers can jump ship anytime.

I'm not sure replacing Slack is as easy as you may think. If you have used their product, then you understand the amount of integrations and dependencies that become built into a team's workflow.

When your entire history of communications, way of tracking tickets, and document repository is stored in a desktop application, replacing Slack may not be as simple as switching to another messaging program.

Could you "replace Outlook" -- it's just an email client after all.

Re: Slack S-1

#109

Post by rgallagher27 »

moreira wrote: post #37
douglasfshearer wrote: post #12

Slack has a 5-year, $50M/year minimum commitment with AWS. From the document: > In April 2018, the Company executed an amendment to its existing agreement with Amazon Web Services (“AWS”). The amended agreement was effective as of May 1, 2018 and continues through July 31, 2023. The Company has minimum annual commitments of $50.0 million each year of the agreement term for a total minimum commitment of $250.0 million…

Perhaps I'm just not aware how things work in companies of Slack's size, but... what do you think $4M/mo is spent on, for what essentially amounts to a chat app? I realise there a lot of extras in Slack (attachments cost S3 storage, video calls take bandwidth, webhooks take some processing), but as of January 2019, they had 10M daily active users. $50M/365 gives us $137K per day. $137K per day just to serve 10M activ…

Scale, redundancy/backups and security.

The 10M daily active users are spread across every continent, in different time zones. All with the expectation of near real time delivery of messages, push notifications/emails and file uploads. The expectation that everything is immediately searchable and that you can search across messages and files thought the entire history of your slack usage. The expectation that there is an audit log of every message, whether it's been deleted or not and that data is never lost (due to HR/legal needs). And the expectation that everything is secure.

Re: Slack S-1

#110

Post by freewilly1040 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #33
neom wrote: post #11

"Our revenue was $105.2 million, $220.5 million, and $400.6 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, representing annual growth of 110% and 82%, respectively. Our growth is global with international revenue representing 34%, 34%, and 36% of total revenue in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. We continue to invest in growing our business to capitalize on our market opportunity. As a re…

It’s still mind boggling that all these unicorns haven’t found a way to make money even after being in business for years and having a mature product. It’s a strange world.

Expansion costs money. They’ve doubled revenue three years in a row while keeping losses steady. Solid international growth means they aren’t running out of addressable market any time soon.

The implication is that they could invest less in growth and get to profitability, but then they’d be leaving addressable market on the table.

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