Launching A Slack Story on Quitter's Day

In 2013, I started as #9 on the Slack team. Today I’m starting to tell people about A Slack Story, a writing project that tells stories from my 7 years and 5 jobs at Slack.

Apparently today, the second Friday of the new year, is called Quitter’s Day. It’s the most popular day of the year for abandoning new year’s resolutions.

So, what better day to launch a new project? (Or, better yet, to quit not launching this project.) Here goes.

Today I’m starting to tell people about A Slack Story. It’s a writing project I’ve been working on that tells 3 stories:

• A personal story. As the ninth person to join Slack I really didn’t know what I was getting in to. The journey that followed covered 7 years, 5 jobs and multiple continents. It’s a story of relationships and doubts and rollercoaster emotions and failures and learning to do what needed to be done by doing it.

• A comeback story. Slack didn’t start as a success. It started as a failure of a video game riddled with burned cash, layoffs, disappointment and tears. Then, nearly the same band of outsiders regrouped from that failure, and transformed a failed game into a blockbuster workplace tool.

• A business / tech story. The business, funding, fundraising, venture capitalists and capitalism that helped create companies like Slack and propel it to be worth $28-billion dollars in less than 9 years.

I’ve already shared early drafts of chapters with ~50 readers and their responses have been enthusiastic and incredibly helpful and deeply appreciated. The work is much better as a result. Thank you to them.

“I loved it. Great progression — each chapter made me curious for the next.”

Now on Quitter’s Day I think we’ve got something going and there’s no better time to get out of the way.

Why I’m doing this

It’s a good question. And one that I ask it myself often enough. So fella, why?

To tell a story. To thank some folks. To share some lesson I think we learned along the way. To try to understand the advantage of the place I happened to be in at the time I happened to be there. To keep milking that Slack cow.

“Really great. Everyone I know uses and loves Slack, I think the behind the scenes story from Day 1 will be incredibly compelling to a ton of people.”

To celebrate and share the excellent people at Slack. I met and worked with remarkable people and collectively they created a remarkable company.

To give some insight into my journey in tech, business, startups and beyond so it helps others on their own journey. Could your journey be like Slack? Maybe, partially, but incredibly unlikely. Could there be lessons from Slack? I’d vote yes.

To entertain family and friends and acquaintances and myself. Seriously. It’s been so much fun writing these stories. I have found myself laughing out loud while working. I hope others find themselves having some fun too.

Why might you care?

Because I think it could help. There’s so much good work and high hope going into speculative startup ventures, I’d like to see them succeed at a higher rate.

• Because I talked with Mishti at a startup called Clay the other day and she was unsure of how she could get their team all behind some product positioning that made sense and allowed them entry to a larger market.

• Because Emma at HelpTexts is trying to hire a sales person and keen to learn how we did it at Slack – our scoring matrix, our process, how we found and evaluated candidates.

• Because Mike at ThoughtMetric is building a business through inbound growth and wondering how to think about creating a virtuous cycle to drive new customers, successful customers, referrals and reputation.

In short, I’ve seen how the stories of A Slack Story can help people make sense of their own working worlds. Or at least feel like they’re not alone in their struggles. And I want to help more people.

And it’s to entertain. I hope you agree and enjoy.

What you can expect

Here’s how I imagine it going and what you get from it all.

Chapters will get published roughly weekly. There’s about 50 chapters so it’ll take about a year to publish.

Chapters will get sent out by email and published here on Substack.

If you’re a subscriber, you can comment and ask questions and tell me I’m a loathsome tech bro. It’ll be free too.

“I loved it, thank you for sharing! I really enjoyed reading about the early days, especially hearing different parts to the story that otherwise weren't covered in media.”

Will there be more? Yes. And photos too. But first, to begin. Let’s go!