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business IT

What is so special about Slack?

The other day it went through the news , that slack’s Valuation is now at 2,8$ Billion.

Whoppa you think, they’ve launched in Feb 2012 – isn’t this going crazy? Well, in a way maybe, tough others – lets have a look at the figures (data provided by Slack):

Screenshot 2015-03-31 19.44.17

Table: Prediction for the year 2015, by me

They say, they do have 135.000 paying customers paying $6,67 per month making an average revenue of $900k a month.

In the table above I put in their prediction, to add $1 mio in ARR every 11 days (which is roughly $3 mio. per month) – though I am not quite sure about them using the term „ARR“ which is defined as Accounting Revenue Rate and is more a Return on Investment figure than a figure average revenue return, which would be my interpretation.

That translates to roughly 4,65 mio paying customers and $704k revenue per employe – not that bad.

Given a continous growth, that might even justify the valuation of $2.8 billion as the multiple of 16 would fall throughout the next 4-5 years.

How did they do it? They have no fuckin idea, as Stewart said in munich this year, but let’s have guess:

– they serve a very fast growing segment of business apps: that is, in contrast to the big payers like yammer etc. small and mid-sized companies . These customers typically use other „semi-professional“ apps like Dropbox, Google Apps, Skype and so on. they are in a segment between the typical freelancer and the big corporations. This segment in general, will explode in the upcoming years adding more and more developers and freelancers in always changing (project-wise changing) combinations in the „services-industry“. Btw: all „old-economy“ industries are being disrupted and becoming service industries.

– these customers are the real cloud customers: they want to move fast and flexibel – and they are willing to pay for stable solutions.

– Slack has integrated with the most important other cloud services, and with one click, they are fully integrated.

– Their native clients are fast, stable and of a very nice and intuitive interface – the hashtag style channeling is known by every private twitter user.

– add to that the upcoming „internet of things“ where you want to have ONE system to control them all, and you can guess, why the bet on slack might be a good one

So, slack is doing many things right – and I am really looking forward to see them moving in the future.

And they can do nice gifs, too… 🙂

Daily active user growth:

Daily active user growth
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Allgemein

Die 2 Tropfen…

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business

Me public speaking: New Year event at the Sparkasse

From time to time I am invited as public speaker – and at the beginning of this year I was invited to the „new year“ event of the Sparkasse Worms-Alzey-Ried. I spoke in front of 400 bankers (with ties) about our digital classical music magazine VAN and how it transforms media of the past (age old classical music) to todays digital reading, listening and reception habits. There are similiarities to the Sparkasse, because it’s quite an old german bank – the first one was founded in 1778 in Hamburg and with their core business model (being a public-near institute) hasn’t changed much ever since. So they ask themselves how their brand should conduct a change (or more an adaption to new habits and needs), but also the core business model is at stake, due to shrinking interest rates together with rising labour cost.

Sparkassen_Jahresauftakt_2015_Bornholz03

 

As Sparkasse traditionally is a very regional (and personal) bank my advice was to be the central, personal partner, regarding everything money: this includes crowdfunding for regional projects, all in one API for everything online, and a „genius / sales“ approach: Have a „product genius“ help you with everything you need, but you do „sales and business“ with a different guy. This eases the tension of having bankers, trying to sell you something.

Thanks very much for the organizers for having me – it was really exciting getting an inside view of their business and needs.

 

 

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business IT

Zusammenarbeit 2.0: collaboration software der motionet

Seit der Gründung der motionet AG in 2007 haben wir verschiedene Frameworks und collaboration software tools erst für die B2C Kommunikation (facebook hat uns dann irgendwie überholt) und dann für die B2B Kommunikation entwickelt: hubber.it ist eine der beiden Plattformen, die wir sowohl selber hosten, bei Partnern hosten als auch auf dem Telekom Business Marketplace. Doch tools sind nicht das Einzige: die Frage ist doch: wer braucht collaboration tools wirklich und isses dann eher ein Slack oder so etwas wie ein facebook-nahes hubber.it wie von uns gebaut. Mit dieser Präse gehen wir manchmal auf Kundenfang: viel zu viele Buzzwords, aber: was drin steht is nicht ganz blöd und wenn man genau hinschaut sieht man, dass es nicht nur um die Tools geht-die sind im Zweifelsfall nämlich eher unwichtig.

Ich selber finde das Thema collaboration im Unternehmenskontext wirklich spannend, gerade wenn man es nicht nur als „was gibts heute in der Kantine“ Austauschtool integriert sondern mit anderer Software über API’s verzahnt: „Weil Maschine XY gerade das Produkt fertig gestellt hat, kannst Du jetzt mit einem Klick hier den Versand triggern und die Kollegen informieren“. Dafür muss man aber verstehen, wie das eigene Unternehmen funktioniert und tickt. Das immer wieder herauszufinden und die wirklichen Mehrwerte zu finden macht mir dann in einem Beratungsprojekt Spaß.

Disclaimer: ich bin Vorstand und Gründer der motionet AG

 

 

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IT

One of the best Dropbox Settings: Sharing Screenshots

Screenshot 2015-03-19 21.20.25

This might be one of the best Dropbox Settings: if you make a screenshot, it is automatically uploaded into the Dropbox/Screenshots directory and the direct link is being copied to your clipboard. Ideal to share Screenshots with others instantly over #slack #skype or other messengers. Thanks, Alex, for the hint

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Allgemein

Beanz.

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sports

Freeletics: old wine in new, shiny, polished, stylish bottles.

Last summer I was looking for some new sports, helping me to get fitter again, as biking and running got a bit boring by the time.

I then stumbled upon freeletics and I have been sticking with it ever since.

What got me in the beginning were not the fancy „transformation videos“ one can find here and there on the net, but the simplicity of the  exercises: sit ups and „burpees“ are nothing fancy new, but they managed to build a good looking and efficient package they are calling Helios or Dione and like other greek gods.

 

IMG_4460

Since then I really have to say that I got a _lot_ fitter and that it still is fun to plan your day around the exercises. For me it’s the „i don’t want to, but I will“ – motivation part, that gets me going with it.

 

FullSizeRender

Interesting enough, the founders of freeletics have now more time to concentrate on their fitness, as they’ve successfully retired. Funny: they started off selling PDF for exorbitant prices – and so financed their first app. The rest is history…

 

 

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IT life

Watchever – never.

kciTyeAuu5bZF1McOXtjlsvAhXsO30zIrQ_sWpCWvLc

Been a vivid user of watchever since the very beginning – but  cancelled the subscription now. Netflix DE just got the default streamer, along with Amazon Instant Video Prime and (and you didn’t read that here) http://www.couchtuner.eu/tv-lists/

Maybe I am not the only one, switching to netflix:

google trends

Google Trend: watchever.de / netflix.de 

Its mostly about the interface, I really like with Netflix, though search is a pain…

 

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Allgemein

Bus. Not mine.

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Allgemein

Never turn around.

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