3 ms·
Slack has a huge opportunity in front of them (become the messaging platform for every business that exists). They’re investing a lot of money to acquire all of
by toasterlovin 8y ago
Slack has a huge opportunity in front of them (become the messaging platform for every business that exists). They’re investing a lot of money to acquire all of that business (salespeople, travel, etc.). That is literally one of the main purposes of capital and access to capital is why you would take a company public.
And, specifically re: Slack. Unlike, say, Uber or Lyft, Slack has customers who have demonstrated that they are willing to pay what the service actually costs. The ride-sharing companies have not. The entire investment thesis for them is that they will somehow be able to increase prices at some point in the future, but they don’t actually have any indication that this is true. And I agree that they are most likely a bad investment. Slack, on the other hand, has a huge and rapidly growing book of extremely sticky business. To turn on profitability, they turn off their expenditure on sales people. They’re very different models.
- lispm 8y ago> Slack has a huge opportunity in front of them (become the messaging platform for every business that exists). How about: being bought by Microsoft.
- toasterlovin 8y agoYeah, I actually think that’s a likely eventual outcome. I would be shocked if they haven’t already had discussions to that effect. It seems like a natural fit to me.
- dylanmclark 8y agoI don't think Microsoft would buy Slack given the money they've dumped into developing and promoting Teams. Seems they're too far gone at this point. Disclosure: Work at MSFT, not on Teams.
- lispm 8y agoNot because of the software, but because of the customers and the dev team?
- scarface74 8y agoHopefully they are smart enough not to fall for the sunk cost fallacy. But three other examples come to mind. They bought Github even though they already had VSTS aka Azure Devops that offered free git hosting and they just abandoned their own browser engine for Chromium. Also they bought Xamarin.
- dredmorbius 8y agoWhatsApp. Microsoft would buy to prevent someone else from doing so. Though its hold has weakened greatly, the Outlook, Exchange, and AD behemoth still own enterprise communications.
- irishcoffee 8y agoI was under the impression Facebook owned WhatsApp...?
- dredmorbius 8y agoWhy they own it, and what they paid to do so, is the point.
- baby 8y agoI’m pretty sure people are getting more and more used to uber, ditching their car or not looking to get a driver license. It is becoming an essential part of our lives and I use it way more today compared to years ago when rides used to cost close to 0$ Due to their promotions or agressive pricing.
- toasterlovin 8y agoMost people are extremely constrained by costs. Take out the VC money and Uber is a taxi company that is easier to use. Difficulty of use is part of the reason people didn’t use taxis all that much. But a huge part of the reason is that taxis are really, really expensive.
- inkaudio 8y agoSlack has some customers that are willing to pay, there are millions of people who use Slack for free, Slack needs to find a cost effective way to cover those expenses. Slack service is not remotely unique, their competitors both large and small are profitable ie Basecamp/Microsoft/Google
- scarface74 8y agoSlack has a huge opportunity in front of them (become the messaging platform for every business that exists). Isn’t that pitch what every startup tells investors? “We only need to get a small share of this very large market”
- kerng 8y agoI'm not sure... in the old school enterprise Microsoft might be crushing them long term with O365 bundling.