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Wow this is a disaster waiting to happen. They will never generate enough profits to support this type of funding.
by DonnyV 11y ago
Wow this is a disaster waiting to happen. They will never generate enough profits to support this type of funding.
- harryh 11y agoYou don't think they can be as successful as Atlassian?
- ethanbond 11y agoCan a $10m/year chat app be as successful as a $320m/year enterprise software company when they have to justify a nearly identical valuation? No.
- harryh 11y agoMy point was that I think Slack stands a pretty good chance of growing into a company that makes about as much money as Atlassian.
- ethanbond 11y agoSo by the time they do that they'll only have, what, a two trillion dollar valuation?
- harryh 11y agoI'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Is investing at Slack today at a 3.8B valuation a good investment? Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't seem crazy to me. That's all I'm saying. They already make a lot of money, they're growing fast, and they're in a potentially very large market. Only time will tell how far they get.
- orthecreedence 11y ago> they're in a potentially very large market. They're in a shrinking market. It's not like they "discovered" chat. They slapped a good interface over IRC and centralized everything on their servers. Everyone and their dog is now writing chat apps, including existing big enterprise companies. So while slack got a large initial boost from developer-driven teams, other companies with existing large userbases are now catching up (and fast). Slack is one part decent app five parts hype. It's not worth anywhere near 3.8B, and it now has immense shoes to fill because it apparently thinks it's worth that much.
- djloche 11y agoAssuming the latest numbers from TC are correct, they're at annual reoccurring revenues of somewhere between from 70M-140M (depending on average per seat revenue). In the past 12 months they've gone from 100,000+ paid seats to over 800,000+ paid seats. The investors are valuing (and expecting) future growth. For comparison: Atlassian is estimating $440+ revenue for their fiscal year, and has a market cap of $5.5B.
- harryh 11y agoOther businesses writing chat apps increases the degree of competition. It does not reduce the size of the market.
- wj 11y agoHonest question, what do you think Slack is worth as a company?
- wodenokoto 11y agoValuations are based on future value. So todays valuation reflects the actual value of the company in the future, not the company now.
- epa 11y agoIf you raise 150M in debt, 50M in PE, and spend 50M over the next 3 years. You can pay back the 150M+interest because you didnt touch it. You 'raised' 200M.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoYou know my friend at 800,000 users who are paying at least $6 per month, and with their growth rate, they might pull off that valuation.