It makes no sense for me. It's just a web frontend on top of an irc chat. $16B for that is a complete insanity. This is an insubstantial business, doing an even more insubstantial product, with a sole criteria of it being a "big thing" being some smart banker analyst saying so — that's a hello from dotcom bubble era At such valuation, it will take them ~100 years just to earn its price from ads sales
Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
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Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stealing WeWork’s thunder... A smart move, though perhaps a little painful for all the existing plans the WeWork marketing department had.
WeWork is rebranding as "The We Company", so the word WORK is probably not their #1 choice https://www.fastcompany.com/90289512/exclusive-wework-to-reb...
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#43I agree they’re a great product org, but not sure I agree they’re a $16B company — messaging apps tend to be cyclical, so I’m not sold on their long term viability. It’s just too easy for new IM platforms to take root inside a company once the old one gets too noisy. Given the growing grassroots backlash against the entire Slack Way, I’m not convinced they have a long enough runway to pivot to a stickier product befo…
Their moat is sticky enough and they know it. They can decide what verticals they want to compete it, but their company mission to make business-communication more effective is still as open a field as it was when they were founded. They may have to acquire their Instagram equivalent some time in the future, but I can easily imagine that their Enterprise Customers are here to stay.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#44I'm not sure how I feel about the valuation. I'd like to see how the user base, especially the ratio of paying users, has been growing. It feels likely that most of the companies that would have been easy to convert have already been converted. I expect CAC to go up and payer conversion to stagnate at best. I don't see how they can 2-3x their revenue this year (unless there are drastic, risky changes).
In addition, the slow iterations on the mobile and desktop clients, and the meteoric rise of Discord are enough cause for concern. I don't see how this investment would have legs.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#45I agree they’re a great product org, but not sure I agree they’re a $16B company — messaging apps tend to be cyclical, so I’m not sold on their long term viability. It’s just too easy for new IM platforms to take root inside a company once the old one gets too noisy. Given the growing grassroots backlash against the entire Slack Way, I’m not convinced they have a long enough runway to pivot to a stickier product befo…
Their moat is sticky enough and they know it. They can decide what verticals they want to compete it, but their company mission to make business-communication more effective is still as open a field as it was when they were founded. They may have to acquire their Instagram equivalent some time in the future, but I can easily imagine that their Enterprise Customers are here to stay.
They were simply the first company to do hosted chat well enough that it didn't constantly piss people off. I wouldn't call that a sticky moat.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#46Venture capitalists are cashing their investments by IPOs - sure sign that the next financial crisis is starting soon :) Dotcom Bubble 2.0 is ready to burst. EDIT: I do not imply that venture capitalists poses some insider knowledge. It is not necessary. It's just the fact that when bullshit companies with bullshit product, that generate losses instead of profit get valued at $16B (other recent examples include Lyft…
It does, however indicate that the VCs think that the company in question has peaked.
Unless the argument could be made that somehow, going public is going to really boost Slack's business going forward and was the only way to do so.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
2018 revenue was $400 million, ~doubled the previous year - Slack isn't a company with just a ton of free users and no monetization
40x still seems like an insane multiple.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#48I agree they’re a great product org, but not sure I agree they’re a $16B company — messaging apps tend to be cyclical, so I’m not sold on their long term viability. It’s just too easy for new IM platforms to take root inside a company once the old one gets too noisy. Given the growing grassroots backlash against the entire Slack Way, I’m not convinced they have a long enough runway to pivot to a stickier product befo…
Their moat is sticky enough and they know it. They can decide what verticals they want to compete it, but their company mission to make business-communication more effective is still as open a field as it was when they were founded. They may have to acquire their Instagram equivalent some time in the future, but I can easily imagine that their Enterprise Customers are here to stay.
I'm not sure that they're not just a feature. Even if MS teams sucks compared to Slack, the MS salesman can talk to the CIO of Megacorp and say they'll add it in for half of what Slack costs. They see X million in savings and suddenly the entire organization is using MS Teams instead of Slack.
Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#49Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation
#50I agree they’re a great product org, but not sure I agree they’re a $16B company — messaging apps tend to be cyclical, so I’m not sold on their long term viability. It’s just too easy for new IM platforms to take root inside a company once the old one gets too noisy. Given the growing grassroots backlash against the entire Slack Way, I’m not convinced they have a long enough runway to pivot to a stickier product befo…
Their moat is sticky enough and they know it. They can decide what verticals they want to compete it, but their company mission to make business-communication more effective is still as open a field as it was when they were founded. They may have to acquire their Instagram equivalent some time in the future, but I can easily imagine that their Enterprise Customers are here to stay.
MS and Google don't actually have to be better with their chat product, they just have to be usable and cheaper.