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

Slack’s Shares Plunge After It Predicts a Larger Loss

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 224 posts

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

#81

Post by rchaud »

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…

Slack is different from those companies of yore. Back then, if you created a chat program and went to an investment bank, they'd laugh you out of the office, or advise that you take whatever acquisition offer you can get, because a chat program with tons of competitors isn't enough to build a profitable business on.

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

#82

Post by mytailorisrich »

danenania wrote: post #78
mytailorisrich wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're a cloud-based software company. Where is this "heavy investment in growth" going to? It's not like if they needed huge capex expenditure to grow.

Sales and marketing.

If they need to spend more on sales an marketing than it brings in they are even more doomed than I thought...

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

#83

Post by mattmanser »

w8rbt wrote: post #54
squeaky-clean wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't sound that different from Gmail to me.

Gmail was not the first email program (which is what the OP asked about). Gmail came several decades after email was invented and already in widespread use. You may or may not realize this fact (depending on your age).

I'm the OP, it doesn't really matter which was the first, my point was that we've had plenty of new "categories" of software. And in reality many that are just like Slack.

In some ways Google Apps for Business is a really good example of a sort of "new category" of communication software. You could plugin apps online, rather than have to host it your self.

A bit of googling shows he's called Slack a "brand new category of software" many times before, but I'm not clear what he thinks it is.

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

#84

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

swarnie_ wrote: post #51
mattmanser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might say the same about ICQ, Skype, Messenger, etc. All communications platforms so far have come and gone in vogue. I remember in 2005 when everyone in our office communicated over MS Messenger. Maybe Slack is to instant messaging as Facebook was to social networking and will get some longevity. But it's too early to tell yet.

I use Skype daily and have never had a problem with it, I've never understood the hate if i'm honest.

Skype seems so ugly and confusing from first glance. I miss the old-old-old Skype where the UI didn't appear as formidable.

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

#85

Post by dorian-graph »

kaushikt wrote: post #42
s_Hogg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can figure out how to get cash out of the gigantic amount of people who use slack without anyone paying for anything, it'll be phenomenal. Really hope the answer isn't ads!

Slack doesn't seem to be the sort of company who will go with an Ad strategy for monetisation. A number of free users upgrade over time by upgrading their free account or by highly recommending Slack at their workplace.

> Slack doesn't seem to be the sort of company who will go with an Ad strategy for monetisation.

I feel like I've definitely heard that said a few times before.

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

#86

Post by siruncledrew »

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…

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'.

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

#87

Post by squeaky-clean »

w8rbt wrote: post #54
squeaky-clean wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't sound that different from Gmail to me.

Gmail was not the first email program (which is what the OP asked about). Gmail came several decades after email was invented and already in widespread use. You may or may not realize this fact (depending on your age).

Yes and slack is not the first instant messaging program. /snarky quip about your age and IRC/

How many corporations use G suite for their email? How many roll their own email systems and use thunderbird?

To the average user, email is a proprietary non-federated system filled with tracking.

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

#88

Post by mattmanser »

rchaud wrote: post #81
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…

Slack is different from those companies of yore. Back then, if you created a chat program and went to an investment bank, they'd laugh you out of the office, or advise that you take whatever acquisition offer you can get, because a chat program with tons of competitors isn't enough to build a profitable business on.

Skype got investment from VCs in 2003, 16 years ago. is that "yore" enough for you?

https://www.vcgate.com/Bessemer_Venture_Partners.asp

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

#89

Post by gamblor956 »

lvh wrote: post #33
chucknelson wrote: post #2

I'm surprised investors aren't more scared of the competition, particularly Microsoft and its Teams product that is part of Office 365. Maybe it's not a huge deal because the overlap of Slack customers and Office 365 customers isn't that big?

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.)

My company tried slack, Hangouts, and teams. We're standardizing on teams because it's the easiest for non-technical users to understand and use.

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

#90

Post by rchaud »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #23
DylanDmitri wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams isn't going to directly take market share from Slack, but it forms a hard barrier limiting Slack's future growth. Large established organizations are switching to Teams, and finding it good enough that they'll never want to pay for Slack.

Never underestimate the power of workplace bureaucracy. At organizational size X, integrating with new Microsoft product Y, single sign on working and easy deploys to all office machines, support from Microsoft and Microsoft lackeys pitching new ideas to IT people, of course they're gonna pick teams.

One man's "workplace bureaucracy" is another man's "it just works".

To everybody who isn't a software developer and will likely never need Jira integrations and Slackbots, Slack is just another chat app.

For a paid software, Slack needs to win those people over too.

Post reply on HN