The case of Stewart Butterfield and his colleagues shows how failure can become the foundation for success. In 2012, Butterfield’s multiplayer online game, Glitch, failed. However, instead of shutting off its lights, Butterfield and his colleagues understood that the tool they had developed to communicate with each other was extremely useful in terms of helping to solve a much greater problem. Today, that tool became a household name called Slack.Slack is an incredibly popular communication platform that allows teams to communicate at work. However, its development was rather unexpected and unplanned. It came about when Butterfield and his colleagues developed the multiplayer online game.According to Slack’s corporate history, the internal messaging system was initially designed to facilitate communication while working on the Glitch game. The more problems the game encountered, the more evident the benefits of the internal system were becoming.A game company finds its new directionGlitch is an innovative multiplayer video game that has been created by Tiny Speck, which was founded by Butterfield. The product has many unique qualities and a loyal user base. Despite all that, the game failed to reach the desired level of success.The shutdown of the product left the company with a challenge: to determine which elements of the business should be saved. At this time, one aspect drew Butterfield’s attention – the internal communication tool, which allowed people within the company to easily communicate and coordinate their work and eliminate misunderstandings.The software was widely used within the team even before the failure of the game. Butterfield saw potential within the communication tool. That is why the focus of the company was switched to the creation of a standalone messaging app.Why the internal tool differed from other productsThe communication system was never supposed to be compared with email or any enterprise tools. It has been made in order to simplify collaboration among employees.That practical approach proved to be Slack’s greatest advantage. Due to the tool’s creation for practical use, it helped to solve problems that the developers were already aware of. The system enabled searchability of conversations, organised communication in channels, and quicker responses than those in traditional e-mail threads.As The Verge pointed out in 2014, one of the reasons why Slack attracted public interest is that it made workplace communication more organised and clear. Later, in an interview, Butterfield revealed that it took the company a while to realise the importance of its tool, once it noticed how much its employees used it for developing games.
One last-minute decision about the internal chat tool became the foundation for Slack. Image credit – Wikimedia
A shift from failure to successWhile many startups pivot as a result of realising some unexpected demand, Slack also did so, although in a rather unusual manner, as it appeared after the company’s shutdown. According to Fast Company, the founders worked on their product for several months before launching it to the market.The task was daunting. The system designed for one company would need to be revamped for organisations with completely different processes and modes of communication. Simplifications and additions had to be made and tested on a wider scale.However, the central vision remained unchanged. Slack sought to minimise workplace friction through proper organisation and access to communications. Forbes later referred to Slack as an example of how companies sometimes stumble upon their best product unintentionally while solving their own problems internally.Why Slack became so popularSlack launched its public version in 2013 and quickly gained popularity within the technology sector. One reason is the timing. Many workplaces were struggling with crowded email accounts and broken communication platforms.Slack provided simplicity. Users could organise projects in channels, easily search previous conversations, and communicate in real time. Butterfield felt that communication in the workplace had become too inefficient, and this guided Slack’s design philosophy. The growth of the platform was also influenced by cultural changes in the office setting. Companies wanted something more collaborative than slow-moving corporate tools.Reasons for Slack’s continued relevanceSlack’s origin story remains highly relevant as it illustrates an important principle behind innovation. The most useful product that comes out of any company is often not the product itself but the tool that assists in creating the product.According to various experts, Stewart Butterfield’s team succeeded because they were able to spot value early on and capitalise on it instead of forcing their initial idea. In addition, the origin story of Slack makes sense because it deals with problem-solving rather than genius inspiration. The founders had a simple problem – to build a better messaging app for a struggling company. This need gave birth to one of the most popular business communication platforms on the Internet.What is truly unique about this story is that Slack did not come out of an innovative strategy but out of an innovative decision made when faced with failure.
