Slack is a messaging app or teams on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Slack's product is an app for your phone so you are notified when a team member messages your group and/or shares a file. Another one of Slack's goals is to have the experience of being able to search back on all of your team's communication, whether it's a message or a file. Slack is socially and ethically responsible because they made an app that not only makes communicating with your work-teammates easer, their app is free!
According to Business Insider, Slack is the fastest company to receive a billion dollar valuation. The CEO of Slack - Stewart Butterfield - mentioned that diversity among employees is key. Having people on your team from different backgrounds and experiences will help you meet the needs of your customers. When Butterfield interviews potential employees, his first question is "tell me your story" because he wants to know how much of their success came from luck and how much came from hard work. Slack's low-key headquarters is located in San Fransisco and it started from a small team of eight to now 380 with team members also located in Vancouver and Dublin.
The type of people Slack hires has a wide variety because as mentioned before the more diverse their company is the more needs will be met by their customers. Butterfield wants his employees professionally successful along with their talents, character, and other qualities. Butterfield also wants his employees to be humble and empathetic; since they are a very successful, fast-growing company. Pros: Slack gives their employees free coffee, phones, good health benefits, and a relaxed dress code. Cons: According to Glass Door, average annual raise is 1.3% despite Slack's fast growing profits. If you read the reviews, you will learn there is a lot of micromanaging within the company with no comp time even if you put in an 80 hour work week.
Key outcomes of Slack's innovative management is that they push their workers hard to continue to be an effective company. In April 2015, Slack raised $160 million with the help of four new investors. Even though Slack has a high turnover rate with their employees, people are eager to work for the company and take on the challenge of working long hard hours to meet deadlines. Even though Slack has some cons in their work environment, they must be doing something right. Only being launched for 24 hours, Slack had 8,000 companies sign up with them. Now Slack has 360,000 users daily and is valued at $2.8 billion! Apparently winning a "Crunchies" award (yes that is how it is spelled) is a big deal these days. Slack won a Crunchies award for the Fastest Rising Startup company. So the next time you download a work app, feel free to do a little background check so you can appreciate the company behind the product.
The views expressed in this blog are those of Tony Kasmiski and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gumption Entertainment.
