<story><title>Slack Plans to Follow Spotify on Unconventional IPO Route</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/slack-planning-to-pursue-direct-listing-11547202723</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joecasson</author><text>One of the big roles an Investment Bank plays in organizing an IPO is building brand awareness and product understanding with potential investors. Places like Slack and Spotify likely feel that 1) their product has sufficient market awareness and 2) is fairly intuitive to understand. So, why spend the $$$ on an expensive middle-man if you don&amp;#x27;t need it? (Provided that you can hire a competent legal team to organize the process for you!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rrdharan</author><text>Spotify ended up spending the same amount of money on expensive middle men:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2018-01-16&amp;#x2F;spotify-will-pay-banks-to-cut-out-the-banks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2018-01-16&amp;#x2F;spotif...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;To me it just seems like a form of fancy marketing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Slack Plans to Follow Spotify on Unconventional IPO Route</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/slack-planning-to-pursue-direct-listing-11547202723</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joecasson</author><text>One of the big roles an Investment Bank plays in organizing an IPO is building brand awareness and product understanding with potential investors. Places like Slack and Spotify likely feel that 1) their product has sufficient market awareness and 2) is fairly intuitive to understand. So, why spend the $$$ on an expensive middle-man if you don&amp;#x27;t need it? (Provided that you can hire a competent legal team to organize the process for you!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neom</author><text>Banks also provide medium term price stability for high volume IPOs, these are not high volume IPOs however, so there is an inherent stability.</text></comment>