Slack Platform Launch

#1

Post by thejosh » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 2:23 AM UTC

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#2

Post by chuhnk » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 2:50 AM UTC

I feel like the world has lost it's mind slightly. When a 2 year old startup launches an $80m fund. I mean I understand they want to be a platform and can see the strength in funding projects that will empower a platform model but still. This is the point at which I think we're really in a boom heading in that bubble direction, and I was never one to fall in to the trap of calling it a bubble before. Love slack, love the platform play, but my God this is getting crazy.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#3

Post by cowsandmilk » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 2:56 AM UTC

chuhnk wrote: post #2

I feel like the world has lost it's mind slightly. When a 2 year old startup launches an $80m fund. I mean I understand they want to be a platform and can see the strength in funding projects that will empower a platform model but still. This is the point at which I think we're really in a boom heading in that bubble direction, and I was never one to fall in to the trap of calling it a bubble before. Love slack, love…

I think it is a useful way to double down on an investment.

Rather than putting more money into the mothership, you bet on external tools that will help the mothership grow.

It is also a way to reduce the costs of acquisition of the best integrations. If the majority of slack shareholders hold the majority of the shares in the best integration, it effectively lowers the price of acquisition to turn the tools built on slack into internal products/features.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#4

Post by nubela » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:14 AM UTC

Please guys, no. Don't build your startup on top of another platform. Remember Facebook? Remember Twitter? That 80M is a farce by the VCs that actually re-contributes back into Slack, not so much for you.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#5

Post by jaksmit » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:15 AM UTC

Kind of funny for people to say that a new startup launching a fund means there's a bubble. That's exactly what Twilio have been doing even since 2010: https://gigaom.com/2010/09/23/got-a-twilio-based-app-get-som...

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/01/twilio-and-500-startups-lau... http://recode.net/2015/05/20/twilio-launches-50-million-deve...

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#6

Post by dsg42 » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

chuhnk wrote: post #2

I feel like the world has lost it's mind slightly. When a 2 year old startup launches an $80m fund. I mean I understand they want to be a platform and can see the strength in funding projects that will empower a platform model but still. This is the point at which I think we're really in a boom heading in that bubble direction, and I was never one to fall in to the trap of calling it a bubble before. Love slack, love…

Slack has an insane amount of money, and they don't need any of it. They've put massive amounts of cash in the bank to stay safe in a downturn, and are well on their way to profitability. They really DO have the cash to burn, and this is a great way to spend it on many fronts.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#7

Post by pkrumins » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

Does anyone know how you can apply for a Slack Fund grant?

I'd love to create a Browserling integration. Browserling (www.browserling.com) is a live interactive cross-browser testing service and this integration would let you embed a live browser directly in Slack.

Use case: Let's say a user reports a bug in IE10 on Windows 7 in your webapp. You just use `/browserling windows7 ie10 URL` command in Slack and that will embed a real interactive IE 10 on Win7 that runs your webapp at `URL` directly in Slack.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#8

Post by anonfunction » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:32 AM UTC

Really like the announcement of botkit[1], I was just looking at adding a vote bot to our slack and only found a really old example that ended up not working.

1. https://github.com/howdyai/botkit/

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#9

Post by ossreality » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:35 AM UTC

I'm sorry, I've scoffed at other valuations and investments, but I'm just completely beside myself. Why does a chat room need "apps"?

It's kind of weird actually. There's two sorts of people that defend these announcements, I've found:

The first thinks that they are going to build an "amazing" platform some day and that they'll follow this model for "growing revenue". So of course they defend it.

And then there's the second group that has some "great idea" who plans to build on Slack's platform. Personally, I look forward to 2 years of stories about how Slack was unfair to them, or changed the rules on them, or broke an API. Or didn't review fast enough, or any of the other complaints that pop up monthly about other closed platforms.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#10

Post by abrkn » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 3:35 AM UTC

Every program attempts to expand until it has an app store. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.