Building 0-1

Here's a common startup situation. A team busts their ass for months building the first version of their product. It's almost done. Now a big question emerges -- how do you get the first people to use your product? Hmm... If you find yourself at this moment, then you are already… Show more

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

The fact that there is a newthing has come to feel like a certainty, even as we cannot fully perceive it. This will spark a search for underlying structures, analogs, and ways of being that feel natural to this newthing.

Does the newthing exist in this context or some other one?

Is it a newthing that’s meant to run all the time or is it more seasonal... 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

The beginning is not with an idea but with the feeling towards an idea. Something you feel but do not know. It makes you anxious and gives you somersaults inside if you try to explain.

If you ignore this feeling it will go away, finding another soul open to its directions.

If you pay too much attention it will also go away, being made nervous by such... See more

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.

A central thesis is that all products are asking things of their customers: to do things in a certain way, to think of themselves in a certain way — and usually that means changing what one does or how one does it; it often means changing how one thinks of oneself.

You and your ragtag team of engineers likely won’t be able to create something that is competitive with any big incumbent product. However, you can build features, seed content, and brand it in a way that is so obnoxiously relevant for a particular group of people that their… Show more

Turns out no amount of fundraising, press, buzz, amazing employees, and/or cool tech guarantees you product market fit.