Taut
Slack + Google Ventures
Four and a half years ago, when I still wore a reporter hat, I met up with an entrepreneur in the financial district of San Francisco who was ready to unveil an ambitious plan to bring massive multi-player online gaming to the well, masses. Not the massive number of people who were playing games like World of Warcraft at the time, but the actual masses. The mom and pop masses. The project was called Glitch, the company was called Tiny Speck, and the entrepreneur was Stewart Butterfield.
What was particularly interesting about this entrepreneur was that he had actually tried to do this before. And failed — sort of. That “failure” somehow morphed into what would become a huge success: Flickr. Having sold that company to Yahoo in the heyday of the “Web 2.0" days, Butterfield was now returning to his roots.
Fast forward a few years later. Despite its grand ambitions and insanely talented team, Glitch was not breaking out the way that was hoped. Certainly not with the masses. It was time to morph once again. This time, Slack was born.
If history does indeed repeat itself, there is perhaps no greater example in the tech world than what Butterfield and team have managed to accomplish. Not only did Slack gain some good early traction when it launched last year out of Tiny Speck, it exploded on to the scene.
For years, I had worked in environments which used productivity tools which ranged from piss-poor to awful to decidedly mediocre. The aura around Slack was different. People seemed to not only enjoy using this product, they seemed to adore it.
I met up with Stewart again, this time with my investor hat on. Meanwhile, the love for Slack kept popping up all around me. An insane number of entrepreneurs I met with raved about it — often unprompted. It had a buzz on Twitter unheard of for an enterprise product. People didn’t just have it on their phones, they had it on their homescreens.
Then lo! Something truly amazing: I started seeing the Slack icon appear in iPhone homescreen docks! If homescreen placement is like summiting Mt. Everest for an app, dock placement is like landing on the moon.
So it’s with great pleasure today that I can announce that Google Ventures has co-led a new round of investment in Slack with our friends at Kleiner Perkins, alongside a host of other great investors.
The goal is simple: fuel the inevitable. Slack should be a part of every single work organization. It should make these organizations communicate and collaborate more effectively and efficiently. And maybe, just maybe, it will eliminate the need to send and receive so. much. email.
To the moon!
