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I find it's closer to the norm that a company doesn't begin the product design process correctly, and shifts to a period of quality-impacting chaotic whitewater

I find it's closer to the norm that a company doesn't begin the product design process correctly, and shifts to a period of quality-impacting chaotic whitewater where the product is considered 'sellable' and it becomes more of a marketing and sales game to make the company successful. Slack, at least during its rise to fame, had not yet hired a sales or marketing team. I think they have remarkable product focus, and it's a testament to how unbalanced business thinking generally is in the spectrum. I think the status quo is a little too far past "the product won't sell itself," and Slack is a good example of a company balanced more toward the quality side of the equation. To me, that's the core reason for their success so far, and it's surprising that more companies haven't dawned on this way of operating (well, not surprising when you consider mainstream American business ideas). It does remain to be seen if they can keep up the solid quality as they grow. It requires an orchestration that is very deliberate and well intentioned, and if they came upon their initial strategy by luck, it won't last.

brandnewlow 12y ago
Translation: 1. The Slack team didn't need to generate revenue at all for a solid year so they could ignore commercial considerations that would harm product development. 2. The Slack founders had the industry clout and interpersonal relationships to not just get beta users for their app, but to get the RIGHT beta users for their app, ones that would give valuable, relevant, on point feedback reflective of the concerns of a large valuable addressable audience.
- deleted 12y ago
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- dasil003 12y ago
  This comment is so reductive, and the GP is so dismissive of Slack's accomplishment that it is actually making me angry. This is like all the kids in 2006 claiming they could build Basecamp in a weekend because it was a "simple" app. What you're saying here is technically true, but these things are only 20% of the story. Most companies given these gifts (and let's face it #1 is pretty easy in today's fundraising environment) would not be able to create a product with the polish of Slack. To paraphrase calinet6, it's not just the feedback, it's knowing what it means and using it to drive a cohesive UX vision. I've worked on some extremely talented teams, and I've created some great products, but let me tell you it's very very difficult to actually take a large amount of feedback and polish something so it works as well as Slack. It's difficult because if you pay attention to the wrong comments, or you come up with the wrong solution you end up off in the weeds with a product that can never regain its cohesion. Even if you have a strong visionary making all the calls, it becomes increasingly difficult for that one person to maintain the whole picture as the userbase and use cases grow. Even if you have all the right people and no poor decision makers, you still find things can get lost in the communication layers and you end up with a suboptimal product. If you actually use Slack in anger with multiple teams and purposes and you pay attention to the UX, it is at a level of polish that is astounding. We've seen apps with this level of UX before, but they tend to me much simpler (eg. Instagram), there are also more complex apps with impressive aspects in their UX, but they reach anything approaching this level of cohesion (eg. Facebook). Slack is not just a story of good strategy and positioning, it's a story of phenomenal execution, and people who miss that are not going to take away the right lessons.

brandnewlow 12y ago

Translation: 1. The Slack team didn't need to generate revenue at all for a solid year so they could ignore commercial considerations that would harm product development. 2. The Slack founders had the industry clout and interpersonal relationships to not just get beta users for their app, but to get the RIGHT beta users for their app, ones that would give valuable, relevant, on point feedback reflective of the concerns of a large valuable addressable audience.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dasil003 12y ago
This comment is so reductive, and the GP is so dismissive of Slack's accomplishment that it is actually making me angry. This is like all the kids in 2006 claiming they could build Basecamp in a weekend because it was a "simple" app. What you're saying here is technically true, but these things are only 20% of the story. Most companies given these gifts (and let's face it #1 is pretty easy in today's fundraising environment) would not be able to create a product with the polish of Slack. To paraphrase calinet6, it's not just the feedback, it's knowing what it means and using it to drive a cohesive UX vision. I've worked on some extremely talented teams, and I've created some great products, but let me tell you it's very very difficult to actually take a large amount of feedback and polish something so it works as well as Slack. It's difficult because if you pay attention to the wrong comments, or you come up with the wrong solution you end up off in the weeds with a product that can never regain its cohesion. Even if you have a strong visionary making all the calls, it becomes increasingly difficult for that one person to maintain the whole picture as the userbase and use cases grow. Even if you have all the right people and no poor decision makers, you still find things can get lost in the communication layers and you end up with a suboptimal product. If you actually use Slack in anger with multiple teams and purposes and you pay attention to the UX, it is at a level of polish that is astounding. We've seen apps with this level of UX before, but they tend to me much simpler (eg. Instagram), there are also more complex apps with impressive aspects in their UX, but they reach anything approaching this level of cohesion (eg. Facebook). Slack is not just a story of good strategy and positioning, it's a story of phenomenal execution, and people who miss that are not going to take away the right lessons.