3 ms·
Wasn't Slack a gaming company that accidentally became a chat company?
by debo_ 7mo ago
Wasn't Slack a gaming company that accidentally became a chat company?
- aaronbrethorst 7mo agojust like Flickr was a game that accidentally became a photo sharing website. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/27/633164558/slack-flickr-stewart-butterfield https://www.npr.org/2018/07/27/633164558/slack-flickr-stewar... Stewart Butterfield is absolutely terrible at making games, but incredibly good at building successful companies.
- mezzode 7mo agoYou're thinking of Discord
- gspetr 7mo agoAndreessen Horowitz was a major backer of Slack's predecessor, Tiny Speck, which was originally building a game called Glitch. When Glitch failed in 2012, founder Stewart Butterfield offered to return the remaining $6 million to investors. Ben Horowitz instead encouraged Butterfield to pivot and build out the internal communication tool the team had developed for themselves, which eventually became Slack. I saw an interview (don't have the link at hand unfortunately) where Horowitz said he didn't much care for the $6M as he had already been set at that point moneywise, and essentially wanted to gamble on an off chance Slack succeeds. Horowitz continued to support the company through its rapid growth and eventual direct public offering (DPO) in 2019.
- xyzsparetimexyz 7mo agoNo wonder the game failed, they were busy focusing on some internal chat tool
- khaosdoctor 7mo agoPrecise argument here
- lesuorac 7mo agoSo what you're saying is I should build a game engine first before making my game and then I can pivot into selling game engines?