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Is point #1 necessarily true? (Asking upwards, not down) I would imagine that most companies that are gearing up for IPO feel well-known to the tech community,

Is point #1 necessarily true? (Asking upwards, not down) I would imagine that most companies that are gearing up for IPO feel well-known to the tech community, but are mostly unknown to the outside world. For example, with Slack, if I asked my non-tech friends, most would would have no idea what that is.

keithwhor 8y ago
You should ask your non-tech friends before asserting their opinions. I would have thought the same, but I spent the past winter holidays speaking to a number of interested friends / family members about our company, which is fairly technical. The first question I always asked as a lead-in was, “have you ever heard of or used Slack?” The answer was yes across the board. They’re the fastest growing SaaS company ever. Don’t underestimate the power of exponential growth over the period of even a few months.
throwawaymath 8y ago
Most of my "non-tech" friends are familiar with Slack as a company, even if they haven't professionally used it themselves.
mavelikara 8y ago
Anecdata: I have seen advertisements for Slack on magazines like Economist. Also, my HoA community has a Slack workspace.
- nathancahill 8y ago
  How often do they use @channel, @here and @everyone? ie the bane of my existence?
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    You can configure by channel to ignore those in your notifications preferences.
justadudeama 8y ago
I am not so sure about this. I think more and more non-tech things are going towards Slack. A lot of non-technical companies use Slack, and it is in constant use as a University student as a improved group chat.
charlesdm 8y ago
You can approach institutional investors yourself, vs going with a banker and paying them up to 10% of the offering gains + risk them pricing your shares too low (i.e. 30% first day pops). The amount of money a company potentially loses is massive.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stanfordkid 8y ago
The key is awareness with large institutional investors which is more about building trust. The banks have a monopoly in terms of trust with sovereign wealth funds or mutual fund managers... since they do multiple deals over a long period of time.. they are incentivized not to screw them on any single deal. Increasingly though these entities are more interested in direct connections with management teams, thus cutting out middle men like Goldman Sachs. This dynamic is what drives entities like Goldman Sachs to invest in late stage rounds so as to build a deep understanding of the business prior to IPO. It’s so great that more companies are going “straight to the money”.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > banks have a monopoly in terms of trust with sovereign wealth funds or mutual fund managers Deep well, not monopoly.

keithwhor 8y ago

You should ask your non-tech friends before asserting their opinions. I would have thought the same, but I spent the past winter holidays speaking to a number of interested friends / family members about our company, which is fairly technical. The first question I always asked as a lead-in was, “have you ever heard of or used Slack?” The answer was yes across the board. They’re the fastest growing SaaS company ever. Don’t underestimate the power of exponential growth over the period of even a few months.

throwawaymath 8y ago

Most of my "non-tech" friends are familiar with Slack as a company, even if they haven't professionally used it themselves.

mavelikara 8y ago

Anecdata: I have seen advertisements for Slack on magazines like Economist. Also, my HoA community has a Slack workspace.

nathancahill 8y ago
How often do they use @channel, @here and @everyone? ie the bane of my existence?
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  You can configure by channel to ignore those in your notifications preferences.

justadudeama 8y ago

I am not so sure about this. I think more and more non-tech things are going towards Slack. A lot of non-technical companies use Slack, and it is in constant use as a University student as a improved group chat.

charlesdm 8y ago

You can approach institutional investors yourself, vs going with a banker and paying them up to 10% of the offering gains + risk them pricing your shares too low (i.e. 30% first day pops). The amount of money a company potentially loses is massive.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

stanfordkid 8y ago

The key is awareness with large institutional investors which is more about building trust. The banks have a monopoly in terms of trust with sovereign wealth funds or mutual fund managers... since they do multiple deals over a long period of time.. they are incentivized not to screw them on any single deal. Increasingly though these entities are more interested in direct connections with management teams, thus cutting out middle men like Goldman Sachs. This dynamic is what drives entities like Goldman Sachs to invest in late stage rounds so as to build a deep understanding of the business prior to IPO. It’s so great that more companies are going “straight to the money”.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> banks have a monopoly in terms of trust with sovereign wealth funds or mutual fund managers Deep well, not monopoly.