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Slack Bot Business Tutorial: From zero to $25k per month
- alexxtomsk 8y agoHi folks! Just in 8 months, we grow our Slack bot from zero to $25,000/mo. Moreover, it keeps growing like crazy. Based on our learnings we prepared a step-by-step guide on how we did that. I hope it will be useful to you. Feel free to ask me questions here.
- tabtab 8y agoRe: "we grow our Slack bot from zero to $25,000/mo." "Or your mattress is freeee"
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- TobbenTM 8y agoWe've seen plenty of people going all in building their business on a platform they don't control, then getting mad when the platform they depend on changes how things work. With that said, are you guys also targeting other platforms than Slack? I'm sure MS Teams, Discord, etc provide the same foundations for an even larger reach?
- pavel_lishin 8y agoDo enough companies use Discord to make it worthwhile? I thought that for any sort of semi-corporate use, it was either Slack, Hipchat or Teams.
- bmelton 8y agoI think it depends on what you consider a worthy market -- My daughter, 16, doesn't know a single friend who doesn't have a Discord account. Moreover, the 'group chat' in subreddits is, more often than not, powered by Discord. Of course, those users are probably using it for its free service, and aren't a terribly attractive market on their own, but if they're at all representative, there are a lot of people using Discord, so maybe a low-effort MVP to prove out the market might be worthwhile.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoI think the problem (or should I say "the difference") with Discord is that they don't position it for business communications. However, the product is fully capable of doing that. So there are some teams using Discord for business communications, but it's not the default use-case. You can prove that by looking at Discord bots on the market and feature requests at https://feedback.discordapp.com https://feedback.discordapp.com
- eksemplar 8y agoThey would have privacy concerns if they did. We’d never use facebook for business for instance, the same is true for Discord. Maybe it’s different for American companies but in they EU you’d be hard pressed to sell something that monetizes privacy data.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoAgreed.
- greysteil 8y agoFWIW, I'm not sure I'd recommend that. For things outside your control, you've got to deal with the world as it is, not how you would like it to be. Slack own the game for chat bots right now - I think the advice you got from Des Traynor to double down on it is spot on.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoThat is so true. We were building for Telegram before Slack and was very disappointed business-wise about it. Now we're fully focused on Slack and it helps us in building a great product for the narrow use-case. However, of course, we're looking for ways to expand our market. I'm not sure about Discord (how many of you guys are using it?), but MS Teams, Google Chat, and Stride are the other players that in my opinion will be able to compare with Slack in terms of features and market size.
- hhh 8y agoI've used Discord since sept 2015. It's been an interesting journey (my friend develops a bot and has reached 26,000 servers and 3 million users.) It's quite good, but still does not support stereo audio input inside of the client. Canary build has a new experimental audio subsystem so it may be now, haven't tested yet.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoCould you tell us about monetization of that bot? Does it make any money? It would be interesting to see whether Discord is already a platform to build a business on.
- hhh 8y agoHe doesn't make any money at all as far as I am aware. I think he may have 1-5 patrons on patreon, otherwise it's only ads on his control panel from a small ad company.
- palisade 8y agoDuring an interview I had at Discord recently the lead engineer mentioned they had exceeded 130 million users. Though, there was also a recent bump by almost 70 million people that left Skype and joined Discord in the news recently as well. He told me that Skype is the 800 pound gorilla to beat and that they have around 300 million users or something. They're definitely gunning for them, and Microsoft has changed Skype so much that they've alienated much of their user base in addition to having lots of security flaws. Discord touts their security, two factor auth, IP address hiding, plus having all the features of Skype in addition to the concept of slack-like chat rooms. More than just gamers are starting to use it. https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/discord-turns-three-1202810983/ https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/discord-turns-three-120... At the moment, Discord is ad-free and other than Nitro subscriptions which let you have animated profile images and use emoticons in any server, which he admitted was an almost unnoticeable revenue stream at the moment, they don't really have a way to monetize the platform. When I asked how they were planning to generate revenue and whether my job would be secure he said they haven't settled on any ideas yet but have a few bouncing around that he wouldn't tell me. He mentioned that once they reach 600 million users they consider that the break-even point where they've succeeded as a platform and can start considering putting possible plans into action. My guess is that advertising will play a big part, and possibly various other techniques like microtransactions, platform integrations, affiliates, partnership deals, content distribution (movies, music, games), etc. It is probably the break point at which you can afford to anger a percentage of your users in exchange for enough revenue to establish themselves as a self-sufficient organization.
- Tehchops 8y ago>We've seen plenty of people going all in building their business on a platform they don't control, then getting mad when the platform they depend on changes how things work. I've always wondered about this. When you depend on another, already-monetized platform to build on, your livelihood depends on a variety of factors not in your control. What if they decide to make your functionality part of their core product? Charge for API access? Limit/remove API access?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoYou always depend on something: traffic acquisition channels, competition, market size, etc. Choosing Slack doesn't mean it's the only platform you're developing for. You can expand the same value proposition to other platforms with the same business users (I can't say the same regarding other b2c chatbots/platforms, though).
- balls187 8y agoHow many people on the team?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoThere are 7 of us
- ckastner 8y agoNot a question, but some advice: you might want to add a sentence or two to that page describing what Standuply actually is or does.
- alexxtomsk 8y agothanks, I didn't want to be too pushy =)
- samfisher83 8y agoHow did you get the 1st,10th,20th,100th customer?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWe went out of beta offering paid plans. This way sales started to show up.
- samfisher83 8y agoSorry, I mean how did you convince those guys to use your beta.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWe didn't. It was the pain point that drove users to our beta. Actually, a standup bot is one of the most popular bots if its kind on Slack App Directory.
- geekjock 8y agoI love your story! I also have a bootstrapped Slack bot that's been growing well organically. Question – what's been the best way to find customers aside from the Slack App Directory? And, is the Slack App Directory still your #1 driver of new customers?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoThese marketing channels worked the best: Content Marketing, Product Hunt, Social Networks.
- not_a_moth 8y agoI'm curious if you could talk about your unit economics: 14,000 teams are using your bot (including some big brand tech companies), but its translating to what feels small, 25k/mo for a 7 person operation.
- tasuki 8y agoThey're 12000 km away from Silicon Valley - seeing the names, most likely in Russia. $25k/mo feels enough for a 7 person operation.
- confiscate 8y agoThey are from Siberia "You know, it takes a lot to travel from Siberia"
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWhat's small and what's large? We've just started and the business grows. I'm sure we'll hit much larger numbers in revenue. So I'm more concerned about our growth rate rather than revenue numbers. As for unit economics, we're very lean burning less than $20k. So we're able to survive and grow Standuply further.
- lgas 8y agoMy company has a Slack bot product and we've found that we are able to drive lots of clicks the "Add to Slack" button but a very low percentage complete the installation. Our assumption is that this is because most users that get to the "Add to Slack" button are not administrators and most users won't go through the (frankly poorly designed) "find an administrator" flow... but of course we have no visibility into what happens after the user clicks "Add to Slack" as they leave our control at that point. Did you have a similar experience and/or do you any advice?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoHi Igas. There could be several reasons in my opinion: 1. You ask for too many permissions. It makes a lot of sense to ask for less because people don't like to share their sensitive information with the product they don't know/trust yet. 2. It may depend on your target audience, but our users in most cases are able to install the bot on their own. So it doesn't hurt our (not yet perfect) onboarding flow.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoHere's a quick update on the most popular questions. 1. Are those numbers real or fake in favor of content marketing? Numbers are real. Anyone from this forum can book a call with me, and I will do a screen sharing of our Stripe/Baremetrics panel. My email is alex at standuply.com. 2. It's not a trend, but a peak number in revenue. Our revenue breakdown: Feb: $7k Mar: $9k Apr: $19,5k May: $25k June: $13k (as of 20th June). So we'll get a bit less in June. You decide whether it was a peak or it's a trend. 3. It only cost us $23,000/month in advertising In 18 months we spent less than $2k on paid ads and didn't waste any dollar in 2018.
- hangtwenty 8y agoTypo in point number 3 there? Confused
- ggg9990 8y agoHere’s an opinion: it was not very wise to disclose how successful of a concept this has been. It would have been better to cash in under the radar than invite low-end competition from solo developers.
- sireat 8y agoVery impressive! For someone outside normal corporate culture who is actually paying for Slack bots? Middle level managers who have to administer daily meetings? It is amazing that being outside the corporate loop you were able to hit such a pain point.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoI can quote our user: "My team are consisting of remote resources, and scheduling a standup suitable to all timezones was a nightmare. And it always ending up as a regular meeting not a standup. Standuply had solved that." So, for remote teams it can be a huge problem even though it doesn't seem like that.
- bdcravens 8y agoWe use a similar product, and it works great for async "standups". Solve a problem well (I peek at our standup channel - I don't have to screw around with logins or config screens or dashboards), solve it simply (don't try to be Basecamp), and keep it cheap enough - there's a ton of opportunity there.
- esseti 8y agoGlad that you made it, I just checked and I actually joined on November 2016, but I'm not using it anymore. Keep up and good luck.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoThanks, it was almost MVP at those days. Very people from 2016 stayed with us till now.
- bdcravens 8y agoWe use a similar product (Geekbot). It reassuring to see companies like this succeed. A fear is always adopting a great tool into your workflow only to get that "our incredible journey" email.
- matte_black 8y agoAre you guys Slack users yourselves? Could someone really understand how to build a slack bot business without using Slack themselves?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoOf course, we do use Slack. Also, we're very into Agile with deep management background. Here's how we came up with the idea insight.
- tw1010 8y agoI need to start selling shovels.
- swyx 8y agocongrats on your success! Can we see your baremetrics panel? I think for non technical founders you skipped a very important part of the story - how did you find your initial devs and how did you figure out how to work with them? how much should people set aside for this kind of thing? that really matters.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWe haven't decided yet to be among Open Startups, but if you have a particular question, reach out to me at alex at standuply.com As for developers, we have some background working in tech. So it wasn't a problem.
- swyx 8y agono worries. i saw that you used baremetrics so i felt a bit voyeuristic and asked. well, you're very lucky to have that background. some advice for others on how you worked with the initial developers would be very helpful!
- jirenandcell 8y agoCongratulations on your success thus far! How long did it take you guys to create the MVP?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoThanks. I wrote a dedicated post on that: https://standuply.com/blog/saas-mvp/ https://standuply.com/blog/saas-mvp/ It took us a bit less than a year to build the MVP and experiment with the concept.
- sschueller 8y agoCongratulations! What steps are you taking to protect yourself from slack shutting you off? Not that they would but you have all your eggs in someone else's basket?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWhy would a company that relies heavily on bots shut us (or another valuable) bot off?
- icebraining 8y agoMaybe they want to start writing their own instead?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoI'm sure they have core features to work on compared to a narrow bot use-case. Moreover, they will have to invest heavily in a bot that serves only a part of Slack's user base. It's not a logical move from a product standpoint. I don't see any chance of that happening unless it would be on Hooli platform under Gavin's control =)
- andypants 8y agoFor example, they've seen how popular your bot is and have taken your idea and implemented it right into their platform. Even if they might not outright block your bot, it will certainly affect your product's future.
- blihp 8y agoThey decide they want to provide the features you provide directly? See Twitter, Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. It's a very old game at this point and you really should be aware of your risk in being so dependent on what is effectively a closed platform. (i.e. an API does not make a closed platform open) They're providing APIs right now to help fuel their own growth but once that growth levels off, or worse reverses, watch out... they may decide that they want your business and then there will be very little you can do to protect yourself from that.
- boon 8y agoWhat's the solution to the problem of hating the Content Marketing game? I think the fear of having to deal with writing spam blogs/emails is one of the bigger mental hurdles to my eagerness to build a product like this.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agoStop thinking of it as spam and start thinking of it as customer outreach? I mean you have to let people know about this magical thing you've built somehow.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoNo, don't stop thinking of it as spam. It is spam, and you're part of the problem. Unethical practices that work are still unethical practices.
- everdev 8y agoI don't particularly enjoy these articles, but they're hardly unethical. Saying you make X/month is very similar to splashing company logos on your homepage. Service companies typically want to try to demonstrate that they're successful to attract more clients. With startups/apps it's now popular to brag about your revenue. Keep in mind, this isn't profit, so I find the articles pretty useless. I could start a million dollar revenue company by losing money on each unit sold, but what's the point in that? (unless I'm VC-backed and have a long-term strategy for growth) When someone writes an article about how much profit they've made per month, then I'll take notice.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoI'm not sure we understand each other. What's unethical is sending people spam email.
- geekingfrog 8y agoWhy do people need to know about this magical thing? Isn't that enough if you solve a problem? Interested people will look for solution and find your magical thing, no need to add to the general cancerous spam of "hey, I'm sure you're going to find that thing awesome, even if you don't need it"
- siddarthd2919 8y agoI use Standuply. Makes my life easier and the team loves it :)
- alexxtomsk 8y agothanks for your warm feedback :)
- VectorLock 8y agoSometimes I wonder how much of these "we started making $X/mo and heres how" are true and how much are really just more content marketing spam?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoWant me to do a screen sharing of our Baremetrics dashboard? Reach out to me at alex at standuply.com to book a call.
- VectorLock 8y agoGo ahead post a screenshot. And no I would never book a call with you.
- alexxtomsk 8y agoYou will find screenshots in the article which it seems you haven't read.
- VectorLock 8y agoNo when I got the whiff of blatant advertising, I stopped.
- asdsa5325 8y agoNo one wants to call you, please stop this spam.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI'm amazed at the hostility here these days :( It's very accommodating of you to offer to share additional metrics. To be honest, my interest isn't intense enough to warrant my time for a screen share, much less yours. I will keep an eye on your blog, though. ETA: I can't seem to find an RSS feed for your blog :( ETA2: It's at https://standuply.com/blog/feed/ https://standuply.com/blog/feed/, but don't see a link to it anywhere.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- BadassFractal 8y agoInteresting! How does Standuply compare to StatusHero, which seems to do about the same thing?
- alexxtomsk 8y agoStanduply focuses on Slack where it brings all the data and questions. There is no need for you/your team to remember using one more external tool.
- topaztee 8y agohow do you differentiate to geekbot?
- craterdude 8y agonot a tutorial.