Building 0-1

We are an exceptional software development team. But, we now also need be an excellent customer development team. That’s why, in the first section of this doc, I said “build a customer base” rather than “gain market share”: the nature of the task is different, and we will work together to understand, anticipate and better serve the people who trust... See more

We are unlikely to be able to sell “a group chat system” very well: there are just not enough people shopping for group chat system (and, as pointed out elsewhere, our current fax machine works fine).

That’s why what we’re selling is organizational transformation

Q: Is it better to target a small market or a large one? In the clip below, Peter Thiel (billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir) describes his framework for evaluating markets: “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1. That’s… Show more

A genuine interest in something is a very powerful motivator — for some people, the most powerful motivator of all. [3] Which is why it's what Jessica and I look for in founders.

The downside of lead generation businesses is that they can be a race to the bottom if they're in a crowded and competitive market. The barriers to entry are essentially aggregating supply (i.e. buyers of leads or businesses willing to pay for new customers) so there is little in the way of defensibility. The other downside is that they are very... See more

The hard part about figuring out what customers want is figuring out that you need to figure it out

Just as much as our job is to build something genuinely useful, something which really does make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive, our job is also to understand what people think they want and then translate the value of Slack into their terms.

This is the overall promise of your startup. Expert level performance through appropriate use of your software to speed up a defined part of a businesses’ key workflow.