Yeah, what is going on at Asana?
R&D costs outpacing revenue in the year before IPO really surprises me (from ~54% to ~62%).
For comparison, Atlassian went from ~38% to ~36% in the year before IPO.
R&D costs outpacing revenue in the year before IPO really surprises me (from ~54% to ~62%).
For comparison, Atlassian went from ~38% to ~36% in the year before IPO.
Almost none of these project management tools are built with full functionality for a freelancer who manages projects and people doing the tasks/projects, but doesn't need them to log into the project management tool.
Edit: re-read your comment. It seems like you clarified or I missed about the five person being the minimum thing for that.
I simply put tasks in Asana and want to view it on a timeline like a Gantt chart. I can't do that unless I pay 5x10.99/month. There is a huge gap between $0 and $70/month.
What revenue are they cannibalizing if I'm not going to go from $0/month to $70/month when I'm only one person? They just lose me as a customer going forward.
The thing is, they don't care. Companies don't make their money from individual users, they make it from other big companies.
I mean, there are nice guys as well, but statistically it's just not worth it.
Most single-seat customers are fine, of course, but a very vocal minority can cause a lot of problems.
I believe it's due to the mindset shift. If a team or company decides to use a specific software, people are more likely to accept the decision and learn to work within the tool's features and limitations. The cost of switching tools is high, so they tend to stick around for a long time.
Single-user freelancers can change tools at any time, because they don't have to negotiate with anyone else. As such, they feel they have more leverage in threatening to cancel their subscription if the company doesn't cave to their demands.
Most of them don't realize that the company isn't making much, or any, money off of their single-seat license when they're consuming hours of customer support or social media engagement time every month. It's better to see the squeaky wheels just leave the platform.
For another data point: At scale, you get a lot of threats from people claiming they're going to Tweet about how bad your product is to their thousands of followers, or write a newsletter about how much they hate your product, unless you implement the specific feature they're demanding. These threats exclusively come from the single-seat users, because no company is dumb enough to try to extort another company with threats of tarnishing their reputation in public.
It's unfortunate, but it's true. It's vastly easier to just deal with enterprise customers or larger teams who have better things to do than tie up customer support time for every little complaint or suggestion (or demand)
we also sell to both single users and to companies
single users will write things like
I will destroy your business
you have no idea how many followers I have
etc etc
A single user with 10,000 followers on Twitter thinks they should be treated like they are GM or GE or Ford
Have always admired Atlassian on how it was run, at least till 2016 they had no sales team and grew the product with self serve.