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Tushar Aher Patil
Trying to do better • 22d
Day 3 - Startup Surprise How a Side Project Accidentally Became a Billion-Dollar Business: The Untold Story of Slack Did you know Slack, the workplace communication giant, was never meant to be a company? It began as a side project, an internal tool built by a team creating something entirely different. In 2009, Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield was building a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) called Glitch. As the team grew, they built their own internal messaging system to streamline communication. By 2012, Glitch failed, not attracting enough users. Yet, the internal chat tool they built "actually worked better" than anything else on the market, boosting team productivity and organizing conversations. Recognizing this, the team made the bold decision to "pivot entirely". In 2013, they launched this internal tool publicly as Slack (Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge). The growth was explosive: • 8,000 companies signed up within just 2 weeks of launch. • It quickly surged to 120,000 daily users in the next 6 months. • Slack became the fastest-growing SaaS company at that time. • By 2015, it was valued at over $2.8 billion, and ultimately, Salesforce acquired Slack for a massive $27.7 billion in 2021. What can we learn from Slack's surprising journey? • Side Projects Can Be Goldmines: Internal tools can transform into core businesses. • Don't Be Afraid to Pivot: Recognise what works and change direction; "Pivoting isn’t quitting — it’s evolving". • Solve Your Own Problems First: The best products often emerge from real, personal frustrations. • Failure is Not the End: The failure of Glitch was the "detour that led to Slack". Your next big idea might not be your main goal or even your initial intention. If you're genuinely solving a problem—even for yourself—you might just "stumble into something that the whole world needs".
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