I do think smart reminders would be interesting as things get lost in context switching between priorities. On the flip side, it might create more noise from low/no priority things that would normally fall by the wayside.
Regarding that latter, one of my issues with slack is it's viral nature within a large company. Someone @'s me in a channel, and I answer. Activity on the channel causes others to click on the channel, and ask more questions. Inevitably, the combo of these things serves as a reminder to ask me about something via DM or e-mail, and all these come in a short time frame. It's kind of like having a desk in a high traffic area causing you to get the unscheduled drop in.
Thanks again Allan for taking up the time write up feedback.
> 1) Your addressable market becomes just those who use Slack. This is a lot, but still a niche.
Yes this is true. For the time being I think this is a good thing as this reduced scope provides focus
> 2) Slack is quite expensive. If you don’t have a clear path off Slack, this is likely to put a cap on your price.
Interesting point. I hadn't thought of this
> 3) You become subject to changes in Slack - pricing, technical or even then building enough of your product that you don’t have one.
+++
> Could you perhaps consider building your product so it could run on top of more messaging platforms, to reduce some of those downsides?
I think in the longer term this will be a good idea. For now I think I have many underlying assumptions and hypotheses that I would need to test first before increasing the scope
On the part Chat VS Posts : I feel like Slack's public channels are for Posts, Slack's private conversations are for Chat and Slack's private groups are for a mix of both. But in fact it's rather a word of mouth rule...
Second part on why it's hard to replace Slack sounds very true !
3rd part on individual task optimiser, I don't think I would be an early adopter because it seems targeted to tasks optimisation nerds (I know a few people I would categorise as such 😁). But the functionalities are indeed covering pain points I have, especially the task reminder ! Messy organisation is rather an issue I have with all the different Notions/Google docs... Not so much painful on Slack.
> I feel like Slack's public channels are for Posts
Yes this is true. I've come across a many companies that are doing this. What I don't like about this approach is that its still difficult to have a good discussion on the post. Threads are okay, but the single layer means it's hard to have multiple conversations at the time in the thread. Also they make it hard to quickly view the discussions in a channel, since you need to click into each thread individually.
I do think smart reminders would be interesting as things get lost in context switching between priorities. On the flip side, it might create more noise from low/no priority things that would normally fall by the wayside.
Regarding that latter, one of my issues with slack is it's viral nature within a large company. Someone @'s me in a channel, and I answer. Activity on the channel causes others to click on the channel, and ask more questions. Inevitably, the combo of these things serves as a reminder to ask me about something via DM or e-mail, and all these come in a short time frame. It's kind of like having a desk in a high traffic area causing you to get the unscheduled drop in.
I like this idea. There are some significant downsides that you’ll want to keep in mind though:
1) Your addressable market becomes just those who use Slack. This is a lot, but still a niche.
2) Slack is quite expensive. If you don’t have a clear path off Slack, this is likely to put a cap on your price.
3) You become subject to changes in Slack - pricing, technical or even then building enough of your product that you don’t have one.
4) Phase 3 is really hard. Building a good Slack replacement can’t be done easily or quickly.
Could you perhaps consider building your product so it could run on top of more messaging platforms, to reduce some of those downsides?
Thanks again Allan for taking up the time write up feedback.
> 1) Your addressable market becomes just those who use Slack. This is a lot, but still a niche.
Yes this is true. For the time being I think this is a good thing as this reduced scope provides focus
> 2) Slack is quite expensive. If you don’t have a clear path off Slack, this is likely to put a cap on your price.
Interesting point. I hadn't thought of this
> 3) You become subject to changes in Slack - pricing, technical or even then building enough of your product that you don’t have one.
+++
> Could you perhaps consider building your product so it could run on top of more messaging platforms, to reduce some of those downsides?
I think in the longer term this will be a good idea. For now I think I have many underlying assumptions and hypotheses that I would need to test first before increasing the scope
Very interesting work, well summed up !
On the part Chat VS Posts : I feel like Slack's public channels are for Posts, Slack's private conversations are for Chat and Slack's private groups are for a mix of both. But in fact it's rather a word of mouth rule...
Second part on why it's hard to replace Slack sounds very true !
3rd part on individual task optimiser, I don't think I would be an early adopter because it seems targeted to tasks optimisation nerds (I know a few people I would categorise as such 😁). But the functionalities are indeed covering pain points I have, especially the task reminder ! Messy organisation is rather an issue I have with all the different Notions/Google docs... Not so much painful on Slack.
Last part, I love the templates idea !
Thanks for the input Axelle!
> I feel like Slack's public channels are for Posts
Yes this is true. I've come across a many companies that are doing this. What I don't like about this approach is that its still difficult to have a good discussion on the post. Threads are okay, but the single layer means it's hard to have multiple conversations at the time in the thread. Also they make it hard to quickly view the discussions in a channel, since you need to click into each thread individually.
I like point 3 in phase 1. Been using reminders more in Slack recently and they can be better.