You can now invest in Slack & Trainline in the Freetrade app 
Thereās been some great debate about whether Microsoft will beat Slack back or if this is the (internal) email killerās moment 
And also, whether Trainlineās really offering anything new here 
Let us know your thoughts & check back here whenever thereās another US tech IPO 
As much as I use slack extensively I do think they are going to come up against some very stiff competition from other collaboration tools (Microsoft Teams & Spaces) - had a run through of the roadmap of Microsoft in this space recently through work and it was very clear they are looking to squeeze Slackās domination in this space.
While I completely agree it will be tough for Slack - I think MSFTās issue (and others as well) is playing nice with other stuff. I freelance quite a bit with other companies and Slack to date has been the only comms tool that works across companies without causing drama. But I appreciate my line of work isnāt in the majority just yet 
that is very true - everything I saw from microsoft was about drawing people into the MS āworldā as opposed to Slackās more open approach of integrate your solution into slack or let us become a part of your worldā¦ which could be their saving graceā¦
Yep I saw the FT article where they said they wanted to be the āgreat connectorā - if they can realise that ambition it could be pretty formidable.
Speaking of connecting, itās pretty impressive to see the kinds of workflows that can be automated with the help of Slack by tech companies e.g.
It feels like itās still early days for Slack, in terms of enabling teams to do this sort of thing without code. So thereās a lot of potential left here, as long as they focus on this enough.
Edit
Monzo just published a blog post explaining their Slack app in more detail here -
Iām taking a small punt, I have a decent core position of stable dividend payers now. I can afford to take a few risks with a smaller proportion of my portfolio
Good luck and keep us updated on how you get on!
Same here, small positions in Uber, Slack, Beyond Meat, Zoom and Trainline just to see where they go. I have a feeling Pinterest is/will be the best of the bunch. Still favour the slightly more settled Spotify and Draper Espirit.
I also betting on Pinterest and got small position out of all the new IPOs list.
I havenāt bought BYND because I think they are overvalued at the moment, although I do think they have a good chance of being a success. Might buy if thereās a decent pullback. Uber I just donāt believe they will ever live up to their current valutation. I have small positions in the rest
Much the same, BYND is very overvalued I believe and Iām already down 7% but thereās enough hype and volatility I could be +20 next week (or down more) which I see as worth a small punt.
Iām really intrigued by the current price of Slack stock. Just still pondering about when to buy, Iām not sure it will drop much further or not yet. Sitting at roughly -9% since IPO?
Maybe they came in with an overpriced valuation and itās dropping down to where they need to be.
IMO Slack has little competition for what they provide. Slack is all about user-friendly tooling, and Microsoft has forever been the opposite of that 
The user base Slack will be its driving force, theyāre only just getting to grips with their pricing offerings and this should improve over time.
Every technical based work team Iāve encountered uses Slack. Which is essentially every modern company. Iām sure that theyāll make it through and think itās worthwhile - just not sure when as yet.
There are some others on their heels like Mattermost which recently
announced the closure of a $50 million series B funding round. The round was led by Y Combinatorās Continuity Fund, with participation from new investor Battery Ventures, as well as existing investors Redpoint and S28 Capital. The capital infusion follows a $20 million series A in February and a $3.5 million seed round in February 2017 and brings the Palo Alto, California-based companyās total raised to roughly $70 million.
Uber use them
Mattermost is an important contributor to Uberās internal productivity. It is our internal standard for chat, empowering collaboration for our employees and internal contractors,ā said Uber senior engineering manager Ben Booth.
And so do
Other Mattermost clients and users of note include Tesla, Boeing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), ING Bank, CVS, Bungie, Johns Hopkins, Tesco, Cigna, Samsung, McKinsey & Company, Affirm, Deloitte, Valve, Airbus, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Intel, AIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb, SAAB, Bosch, Daimler, the United Services Automobile Association, and countless others.
Source: Mattermost raises $50 million to advance its open source Slack alternative | VentureBeat
So thereās competition in the market, granted. Thatās good.
Sounds like the user bases/target audiences between the two are different. All those corps are pretty huge, and Slackās hoovering up the startups and smaller teams through ease of use and ease of uptake.
Slackās success is further going to rely on building up a very large user base under their SaaS model. SaaS is still strong enough, I just think theyāre (Slack) not great at it yet. But matter of time.
