Ending Marketing, starting Accounts
From Part 1 to part 2 of A Slack Story. Thank you. A quick recap. Are you listening? I'm listening.
Right then. That brings us to the end of the first part of A Slack Story. Let me take a second to step out of the flow of the narrative and say a few things. Hopefully quickly.
The first part of A Slack Story focused on my time doing marketing at Slack. The second part starts with the new job I started in Sales, which we called Accounts at the time.
The second part will cover things like saying no nicely, launching Slack’s paid product, creating the Slack Wall of Love, actually doing Sales at Slack when we didn’t have Sales, inventing Slack socks and more. More!
That’s the preview of part 2, coming to your inbox starting next week. Before then, 3 things looking back.
Thing 1: Thank you
For the reading. For the replies and comments and feedback. For the listening. For the times when we’ve ran into each other and you mentioned how much you’re enjoying reading the story. Thank you!
I’ve really appreciated it all, even (especially?) the catches on typos. It’s been super encouraging and helpful. Onwards!
Thing 2: A quick recap
In case you missed it or joined part way through, here’s what we’ve covered so far.
Before the story even started I did some preambling.
Launching A Slack Story on Quitters Day — Announcing the start of the story.
Introduction – What if the startup myth comes true? The macro picture of Slack. The 3 stories of A Slack Story. Why now? Find the beginning.
Pre-Slack: Meeting Stewart — A first memorable talk with Stewart Butterfield at Northern Voice, 2009. A connection from a mutual friend. A failed game called Glitch. A newer new thing called Slack.
Post-Slack: Polytropos — After Slack, a new project. A sculpture inspired by an article about a translation of an ancient story. Finding home.
Then the story started, on February 12, just 11 years after the launch of Slack's paid product (something we'll cover soon in Part 2) and went like this.
Day 1: San Francisco — A first day in SF. Finding the first Slack office. Meeting the team. Getting started on some work. Piecing together the problem to be solved. Coffee time.
Day 1: Vancouver — First day in YVR. Finding the first YVR Slack office. Meeting the team of 1 other person. Working with Stewart. Working with the team at Slack. Wanting to belong.
Missionary vs Mercenary — How to answer the key question — What is Slack? The missionary vs mercenary model of startups. Working with Stewart. Finding a 3rd way. Meatball restaurants don’t last.
So, what is Slack? — Creating 5 options to answer the question: What is Slack? Learning about each option. The MAYA principle. Finding our tone and market.
Something we all work on — Finding Slack's go-to-market. We didn’t sell saddles. But we needed to sell Slack. Getting over the Suck Hump.
Preview releasing Slack — First launch of Slack to the world. Burndown to Preview Release. The Status Game of Silicon Valley. Now what, Slack?
#zork — How a classic text-based game informed how we built Slack. The single-player experience sucked. Work as role-playing game. From Zork to Slackbot.
Talking with customers — Mostly, listening. Hopefully, learning. Finding our frame. No one pays for chat. Earning a speaking role. What I heard you say.
You put your name on every job you do — $20 to stack a cord of wood. What is culture? Starting to define Slack culture in stories.
Learning from the first 1,000 Slack invites — 16 observations from the first 1,000 Slack invites. What seemed to work? Who had we invited? The lies that hindsight tells us.
Please sit next to the money — Slack starts to take off. Is that with or without me? The polite struggle for control. I get hired, fired, not hired, then — what? “Please sit next to the money.”
Thing 3: Are you listening?
Because there is a podcast for listening to the chapters as audio. They’re my dad’s favourites, so I’m going to keep doing them.
And you can always subscribe by RSS in any podcast player with this link: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/3721181.rss
Lastly: I'm listening
I’m trying to blend together fun stories, practical knowledge and thoughtful reflections. How is that working for you?
If you had a most favourite part so far, what would it be?
How about a least favourite?
Reply to this email, post a comment, email me directly — sherrett@gmail.com. Whatever works best for you.
I’d love to hear from you. Should take about 1 minute. Thank you!
