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How did Slack blow up so quickly? I remember when I first read about it on TheVerge, that same morning the head of our sales team messages the CTO and suggests

by dntrkv 12y ago

How did Slack blow up so quickly? I remember when I first read about it on TheVerge, that same morning the head of our sales team messages the CTO and suggests our company try it out. Next thing I know, every other company is using it. From my perspective, it went from nothing to huge success overnight.

joshmlewis 12y ago
This article was posted a couple months ago here and should answer your question: http://www.fastcompany.com/3041905/slacks-founder-on-how-they-became-a-1-billion-company-in-two-years http://www.fastcompany.com/3041905/slacks-founder-on-how-the...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
petercooper 12y ago
I'd certainly find some analysis of this interesting to read. Campfire was popular throughout my more technical social groups up until a couple of years ago but never came close to the intensity around Slack. I imagine having a rather powerful free plan helped a lot, although Hipchat might disprove that.
- ch4s3 12y ago
  Yeah, but the consensus seems to be that Atlassian ruined HipChat. I'm not sure if that's true, but everyone I know that switch lists that as a top reason.
  - georgespencer 12y ago
    Still using Hipchat. Seems fine.
    - jcruiz 12y ago
      Ever since Atlasssian started a HipChat marketing campaign in San Francisco. The servers have gone down a couple of times at least. Dunno if there is any correlation with that. But in general it works as expected.
  - optimusclimb 12y ago
    Been using HipChat for almost 3 years (so I believe, pre Atlassian, and post.) It seems well suited to purpose, and works fine for me. The only gripes I have are minor (for instance, their iOS offering has this infuriating behavior that it will notify you for direct messages, and throw up the old red dot on the app icon, but then provide no ability to see where the message came from when you open the app.) In light of how well it works, I am mystified as to how slack has managed to come in to the exact same space and carve out such a massive valuation. If there was ever an industry ripe for disruption, the "modern chat client with goofy icons that allows you to post gifs and search your chats without arcane IRC syntax" did not seem like one to me.
    - ch4s3 12y ago
      The search actually feels really nice. I'm mostly indifferent to them on the web, but Slack native and on iOS is a bit nicer.
- jcdavis 12y ago
  > Campfire was popular throughout my more technical social groups up until a couple of years ago but never came close to the intensity around Slack Slack is a substantially better experience than Campfire
gooseus 12y ago
Yeah, I remember hearing about it, using it and loving it all in the span of a few hours /days. Then within a month every other team I talked to was also using it... blew HipChat right out of the water. I would attribute it to the amazing UX and well thought out feature-set. Integrations and per-channel notifications were both essential features and easy to find and figure out how to use. I also wouldn't discount the design, their choice of color palette and styled stripes with the # managed to set them apart while still looking professional. I don't know what contributed the most to my adoption personally, but whatever it is, they've got it.
- bqe 12y ago
  Could you expand on why it's so much better than HipChat? I haven't used Slack yet, but I'm interested in trying it out. It sounds like it's the same thing as HipChat.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    I use both (HipChat with a small group for some side projects, Slack for my local maker space), so I can summarize my experiences with them: For the general functionality, they're the same thing. It's IRC rooms and direct messages with persistent state across devices and support for pasting images and files. HipChat does have a native Windows client, but it's months behind the OS X version, doesn't work with touchscreens and has known issues that take months to get fixed. I generally end up using a Chrome wrapper on their web client, which is how Slack does multiplatform anyway. Not a great solution (Chrome has a tendency to pop the software keyboard up all the time, even when you have one plugged in), but it works. If you're an OS X shop, the native clients may be a plus for HipChat. As far as functionality goes, one feature that (AFAIK) is missing from HipChat is the ability to log in to multiple organizations. If you use it at work and at home, you'll be logging out and in on every device every time you want to change modes. One of my side project HipChatters uses it for his day job and has this issue. Slack's client lets you sign in to multiple teams (haven't tried it, but I see it in the menu). I've spent much more time in HipChat, so I've experienced a lot more random issues there. Stuff like several hours of chat history being skipped when I scroll up (fixed by relaunch if you notice it happened), constant failures to reconnect after waking from sleep (again, fixed by relaunching), phone notifications popping up for every message even though you're currently in the chatroom on your phone having a conversation with someone, etc. It's possible that Slack has similar bugginess that I would have hit if I used it as much as I use HipChat, but I don't have enough time in it to say.
brentm 12y ago
It's just a great product that is viral by nature. The chat itself is nothing revolutionary but the ease of third party integrations into an everyday environment blows comparisons out of the water.
- jgalt212 12y ago
  Yes, I find the seamless integration with Yo the gamechanger for me. https://slack.com/integrations https://slack.com/integrations All snark aside, the lion's share of the integrations seem geared toward technology workers.
31reasons 12y ago
>>How did Slack blow up so quickly? I am pretty sure even founders don't know. It just happens with a combination of lot of luck and a very good product.
pbreit 12y ago
I think there's a bit of a gap between perceived and actual size. While 750k users is certainly impressive, it's really quite small in the scheme of things.

by dntrkv 12y ago

joshmlewis 12y ago

This article was posted a couple months ago here and should answer your question: http://www.fastcompany.com/3041905/slacks-founder-on-how-they-became-a-1-billion-company-in-two-years http://www.fastcompany.com/3041905/slacks-founder-on-how-the...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

petercooper 12y ago

I'd certainly find some analysis of this interesting to read. Campfire was popular throughout my more technical social groups up until a couple of years ago but never came close to the intensity around Slack. I imagine having a rather powerful free plan helped a lot, although Hipchat might disprove that.

ch4s3 12y ago
Yeah, but the consensus seems to be that Atlassian ruined HipChat. I'm not sure if that's true, but everyone I know that switch lists that as a top reason.
- georgespencer 12y ago
  Still using Hipchat. Seems fine.
  - jcruiz 12y ago
    Ever since Atlasssian started a HipChat marketing campaign in San Francisco. The servers have gone down a couple of times at least. Dunno if there is any correlation with that. But in general it works as expected.
- optimusclimb 12y ago
  Been using HipChat for almost 3 years (so I believe, pre Atlassian, and post.) It seems well suited to purpose, and works fine for me. The only gripes I have are minor (for instance, their iOS offering has this infuriating behavior that it will notify you for direct messages, and throw up the old red dot on the app icon, but then provide no ability to see where the message came from when you open the app.) In light of how well it works, I am mystified as to how slack has managed to come in to the exact same space and carve out such a massive valuation. If there was ever an industry ripe for disruption, the "modern chat client with goofy icons that allows you to post gifs and search your chats without arcane IRC syntax" did not seem like one to me.
  - ch4s3 12y ago
    The search actually feels really nice. I'm mostly indifferent to them on the web, but Slack native and on iOS is a bit nicer.
jcdavis 12y ago
> Campfire was popular throughout my more technical social groups up until a couple of years ago but never came close to the intensity around Slack Slack is a substantially better experience than Campfire

gooseus 12y ago

Yeah, I remember hearing about it, using it and loving it all in the span of a few hours /days. Then within a month every other team I talked to was also using it... blew HipChat right out of the water. I would attribute it to the amazing UX and well thought out feature-set. Integrations and per-channel notifications were both essential features and easy to find and figure out how to use. I also wouldn't discount the design, their choice of color palette and styled stripes with the # managed to set them apart while still looking professional. I don't know what contributed the most to my adoption personally, but whatever it is, they've got it.

bqe 12y ago
Could you expand on why it's so much better than HipChat? I haven't used Slack yet, but I'm interested in trying it out. It sounds like it's the same thing as HipChat.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I use both (HipChat with a small group for some side projects, Slack for my local maker space), so I can summarize my experiences with them: For the general functionality, they're the same thing. It's IRC rooms and direct messages with persistent state across devices and support for pasting images and files. HipChat does have a native Windows client, but it's months behind the OS X version, doesn't work with touchscreens and has known issues that take months to get fixed. I generally end up using a Chrome wrapper on their web client, which is how Slack does multiplatform anyway. Not a great solution (Chrome has a tendency to pop the software keyboard up all the time, even when you have one plugged in), but it works. If you're an OS X shop, the native clients may be a plus for HipChat. As far as functionality goes, one feature that (AFAIK) is missing from HipChat is the ability to log in to multiple organizations. If you use it at work and at home, you'll be logging out and in on every device every time you want to change modes. One of my side project HipChatters uses it for his day job and has this issue. Slack's client lets you sign in to multiple teams (haven't tried it, but I see it in the menu). I've spent much more time in HipChat, so I've experienced a lot more random issues there. Stuff like several hours of chat history being skipped when I scroll up (fixed by relaunch if you notice it happened), constant failures to reconnect after waking from sleep (again, fixed by relaunching), phone notifications popping up for every message even though you're currently in the chatroom on your phone having a conversation with someone, etc. It's possible that Slack has similar bugginess that I would have hit if I used it as much as I use HipChat, but I don't have enough time in it to say.

brentm 12y ago

It's just a great product that is viral by nature. The chat itself is nothing revolutionary but the ease of third party integrations into an everyday environment blows comparisons out of the water.

jgalt212 12y ago
Yes, I find the seamless integration with Yo the gamechanger for me. https://slack.com/integrations https://slack.com/integrations All snark aside, the lion's share of the integrations seem geared toward technology workers.

31reasons 12y ago

>>How did Slack blow up so quickly? I am pretty sure even founders don't know. It just happens with a combination of lot of luck and a very good product.

pbreit 12y ago

I think there's a bit of a gap between perceived and actual size. While 750k users is certainly impressive, it's really quite small in the scheme of things.