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Slack S-1

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Re: Slack S-1

#321

Post by robhunter »

floatrock wrote: post #318
robhunter wrote: post #150

I think historical accounting practices and standards are not great at evaluating SaaS businesses. We came up with the concept of depreciation/amortization as a way to better match up expenses with revenues in a given time frame. I think we need a similar mechanism for allocating sales & marketing costs. My company spends about $1,000/year on Slack. We likely will in perpetuity, as long as we/Slack exists. Slack spen…

> If you "depreciated" Slack's sales and marketing costs over the LTV of the average customer... This is starting to sound very similar to mark-to-market accounting, and the one word associated with "mark-to-market" is "Enron". From http://www.creditpulse.com/accountingfinance/lessons-enron/e... > Basically, mark-to-market is a type of accounting that enables a company to book the value of an asset or a liability, no…

Well, just like there are objective levels of depreciation for certain classes of assets (property vs. equipment), perhaps there could be similar levels of depreciation allowable for sales & marketing costs based on historic customer churn?

Re: Slack S-1

#322

Post by erdaniels »

codedokode wrote: post #313

Their app has compicated and clumsy UI that looks like it was made by programmers rather than by a designer and very high memory usage. Here is an example of memory usage from a small team with little volume of messages, reported by smem on Linux: - 5 processes - over 850M in swap - over 310M PSS (Proportional set size which is the only indicator showing true memory usage) This is over 1 Gb total. Despite high memory…

That’s not surprising at all. Sure it would be great if it had a light footprint but it’s usability far outweighs that.

Re: Slack S-1

#323

Post by omarchowdhury »

harryh wrote: post #220
vital101 wrote: post #3

Zero to IPO in five years. Well done team Slack!

Slack was founded in 2009. That was 10 years ago not five.

Slack the product was launched in 2013. The company, formally known as Tiny Speck, was founded in 2009. Their business and available products before 2013 had nothing with what Slack is today. So not absolutely farfetched to say launch to IPO in 5-6 years, if we're defining it by the relevant incarnation.

Re: Slack S-1

#324

Post by robhunter »

paulcole wrote: post #256
robhunter wrote: post #150

I think historical accounting practices and standards are not great at evaluating SaaS businesses. We came up with the concept of depreciation/amortization as a way to better match up expenses with revenues in a given time frame. I think we need a similar mechanism for allocating sales & marketing costs. My company spends about $1,000/year on Slack. We likely will in perpetuity, as long as we/Slack exists. Slack spen…

> My company spends about $1,000/year on Slack. We likely will in perpetuity, as long as we/Slack exists. What was your company using before Slack and what did it cost?

Nothing - we started the company in 2014 and began using Slack. Were much closer to ~$200/year when we started.

Re: Slack S-1

#325

Post by Kovah »

codedokode wrote: post #313

Their app has compicated and clumsy UI that looks like it was made by programmers rather than by a designer and very high memory usage. Here is an example of memory usage from a small team with little volume of messages, reported by smem on Linux: - 5 processes - over 850M in swap - over 310M PSS (Proportional set size which is the only indicator showing true memory usage) This is over 1 Gb total. Despite high memory…

Probably because those people who use the app most do not care about memory usage. Everytime somebody complains about how resource-hungry Slack is, it usually comes from a developer. I rarely see project managers or designers or even clients complain. And, looking at the company I work for, the developers channel is the one with the lowest usage. This is why Slack became successful: it works for the people who need it most, not because it is very resource-efficient or well coded.

Re: Slack S-1

#327

Post by spullara »

will_brown wrote: post #35
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…

Is there any other industry where a company can go public having lost $500,000,000 over the last 3 years? I get it their “market share” is increasing every year and the loses are staying the same...and even that is not the full picture of a path to profit. But if the company could turn a profit, then why not do it privately, show that and then go public? My guess like Uber and Lyft...they can’t turn a profit, and for…

While you are still explosively growing reducing sales and marketing spend doesn't make a lot of sense. It allows competitors who out spend you to catch up. Instead you should analyze SaaS businesses by the "Rule of 40":

https://saasholic.com/the-rule-of-40-for-saas-and-subscripti...

For Slack, if they grew 84% and their profit was -35% they are well above a net of 40 with 49. It is pretty easy to see that if Slack stopped spending on sales & marketing and stopped growing engineering they would be massively profitable. Instead, they should get as big as they can as fast as they can as most markets are becoming winner take all.

Re: Slack S-1

#328

Post by omarchowdhury »

mrnobody_67 wrote: post #294

Chamath personally owns more of Slack than the founder/CEO....

Not personally. According to the attached footnote (15): consists of shares held by the entities affiliated with Social Capital, it seems the principal's name is identified in lieu of the firm as they are the custodian in charge.

Re: Slack S-1

#330

Post by rlonstein »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #293
huac wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't have a subscription to laundry detergent, nothing stops me from buying a different brand in 6 months, whereas slack has contracts with my company, and has switching costs (we'd lose our message history).

> (we'd lose our message history). You can't export your data from Slack?

> You can't export your data from Slack?

You can. Nicely it can be had as json. But it's really only half useful since there are links and attachments that point within Slack itself and that content is not captured in the export without additional processing.

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