What is Slack?
That is the ultimate question, isn't it? What is Slack and how does it pertain to you? Slack is a business communication platform that allows you and your company to communicate through easily accessible channels and threads to create a simple and efficient working environment.
Communication is an integral factor in any working community. Moreover, in a time where face-to-face communication is not always possible, Slack is a quick and easy way to connect all members of your organization through one simple tool.
Why communication spells success
Whether you are a founder with a small team, a leader with several hundred employees, or a freelancer with dozens of clients, the chances are you that are searching for a better way to keep everybody connected.
You've sat through various TED Talks, MasterClasses, and keynote speeches about leadership that all share the same message: communication is the key to success. There is an excellent reason why this message appears repeatedly. So, let's start this book by stating that communication is the foundation to your success.
Living in the 21st century means that you are continually bombarded with digital communications. Your phone lights up with every notification from a friend, team member, or brand trying to get in front of you. You've been annoyed by receiving the short "OK" messages that seemed pointless to receive. In team communications, that annoyance can quickly permeate a negative culture and breed disassociation across the team. This is the exact opposite of what you want and what this book will teach you.
A simple restructuring of the preceding statement is needed to ensure that digital communications carry importance and value connectivity; that is, intentional connections are the foundation to your success.
Do you want to be the next Steve Jobs and take over a market? How about taking over your street block with a booming small business? You need to nail intentional and consistent communication in order to do all of these things. It's good that you have powerful technology at your fingertips to make this process seamless – after you learn the basics, of course.
The digital communication tool you need
Slack has become a standard tool that is mentioned in every entrepreneurial ecosystem you are likely to come across. It has even taken on cultural significance as the brand name is used as a verb (for example, "Let me slack you when I'm done" or "I'll slack that link over to you"). A tool taking on this kind of importance deserves its own book to explain why and how a platform can be so powerful at keeping people connected.
Voila! The book is resting in your hands now.
Having found this book means that you've heard of Slack. You know it's defined as an online communication tool that allows workplace teams to collaborate with each other. You might even have a Slack profile for a workplace somewhere. But there is so much more to Slack than a high-level glance will show. Slack is the tool that will help you to build the next Facebook, Nike, or Apple.
You can build your company's very culture by utilizing Slack and creating a bustling ecosystem that is unique to the needs and desires of your company. Through customization, team members can feel the mission and values of their company come to life. Through the integration of tools, a team has the information they need at their fingertips. Through the creation of bots, an organization becomes more coordinated than ever.
There is power in having a comprehensive digital workspace that keeps remote and in-office personnel connected. Slack is that comprehensive tool, and, when done right, your team will be one that prioritizes communication for the broader success of your company's vision.
Understanding the platform
Slack is a channel-based messaging platform that connects teams and systems so that they operate more efficiently and effectively. This digital communication tool helps build a company's ecosystem by streamlining communications and processes across the organization to drive the business forward.
Simply put, Slack is the digital communication tool that keeps companies growing and scaling successfully. Take it from the following major brands who utilize Slack to keep their team connected:
- Airbnb
- Lyft
- Amazon
- BuzzFeed
- Salesforce
Have you ever wanted to implement a piece of software into your team's processes to keep everything together? For instance, a storing ground for files, past messages, notifications, and more? Slack is the organized portal that gives you answers with the click of a search button.
Slack is not just useful for the major brands we mentioned earlier (and thousands of others not listed here). Many early-stage start-ups use Slack as the primary communication hub for their thriving ventures, and solo contractors apply its functionality to stay in touch with clients around the world. Slack is a tool that allows you to grow with it, no matter what stage of development you are at.
With a reported 12 million-plus daily active users and over 119 thousand paid customer accounts, Slack has quickly become a leader in its market. Competitor platforms such as Google Workspace, Miro, and Blizz (explained in more detail in an upcoming section) offer attractive functions to teams seeking more on-demand communications, yet Slack has paved the way and has captured a lot of market potential with its user-friendly interface, capability for integration with other tools, and overall simplicity.
Simplicity and familiarity are two qualities that Slack has leaned into for its design. Living in the social media generation means that you want quick access and easy-to-read communications. Think about some of your favorite posts on Twitter. Avid users love the platform for the following reasons:
- They can keep up to date with the latest news and developments.
- They can contribute to conversations in a way that doesn't take up too much time.
- They can create content that isn't time-consuming or overwhelming.
- They can search and share rapidly with a click of a button or by typing in a search word.
These reasons, and more, are not exclusive to Twitter but also Slack and its millions of users. A team can communicate and collaborate in a way that feels very social and quick to manage. Rather than getting into an hour-long meeting to discuss updates on a project, Slack creates a space for that conversation to happen quickly and efficiently – with some of the messages that are shared being no longer than a tweet.
The social aspect of Slack is an outstanding quality, and many teams are attracted to the platform because of this. Building a strongly united team and culture shouldn't take more time out of a busy founder or manager's schedule. Slack's easy-to-use technology creates a connected team through up-to-date and engaging communication; it is as though a social network vibe comes to life for your company.
The founding story
With such a socially driven communication platform, it is no wonder that the founding story of Slack has roots in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) market. Slack founder Stewart Butterfield began Slack as an internal chat tool for his gaming company, Tiny Speck. Indeed, one of the fastest-growing Software as a Service (SaaS) start-ups in the world didn't even start with the mission to help companies "be less busy" (Slack's tagline).
Stewart and his team aimed to revolutionize the MMORPG market with a new, nonviolent game, unlike World of Warcraft and other popular outlets. Their team was spread across four cities and two countries, and they found that the online chat tool at the time, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), wasn't functioning smoothly or offering the type of communication they needed.
As a result, Tiny Speck built an internal chat tool and added functionality on an as-needed basis to improve their communications. It was that ad hoc approach that produced the now majorly attractive search feature within Slack, which transformed how teams connect.
After Tiny Speck's game failed due to insufficient traction and gameplay, Stewart pivoted his team to focus more on the internal tool they had already built, beginning to see how other groups might need this type of communicative functionality at their fingertips. Slack was built through dozens of feedback loops, trial and error analyses with big and small companies, and a founding team who spent an enormous amount of time using the product to identify every angle of functionality.
The early development of Slack allowed the team to discover unique factors that would give them a competitive edge, such as the following:
- A centralized hub of communication that not only brought team members together but also documents, files, past messages, and more
- A transparent and lasting record of all correspondence, so no more thoughts were lost in intra-office phone calls or meetings
From the need for more reliable internal team communications to a company now valued at $17 billion, Slack has taken the market by storm and has shown companies large and small what it means to be less busy.