Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by code4tee 3357 days ago
750 employees? I don't get it.

Slack is great, but it's also incredibly easy to copy. To the big tech guys this is just a feature, not a product, and that's Slack's challenge. It's totally fine if they don't take the enterprise by storm and remain a niche product, but then they can't be a 750 person company.

That stupid full page add thing they did when Teams came out also makes the leadership team look a bit clueless about the situation they are now in.

UPDATE: Some saying it's not super easy to copy Slack. I see what you are saying but the truth is that it's easily to copy Slack to a "good enough" state. If you think the "best" and "most brilliant" software wins the enterprise market then you don't understand the enterprise market. Wish it wasn't like that, but it is and that's Slack's challenge (and what the article is saying).
3 comments
superquest 3357 days ago
> incredibly easy to copy

I feel obliged to post this tweet https://twitter.com/mathowie/status/837735473745289218

link
stagbeetle 3357 days ago
If that's all Slack does, then it is incredibly simple (I realize this is only one part). It has saved me the time of figuring out what pieces make the whole and how they interact with each other (i.e the skeleton). Now, I just I need to slap the nervous system (code) onto it and call it alive.

Do it in a weekend? A codemonkey could do it in a day.

This argument would be different if it were for something like Dropbox, where the internals are really "something else."

But, I agree, with what I believe you're implying, that HN users throw around "I could code it in a weekend," even if it doesn't apply here.

link
sumedh 3357 days ago
> but it's also incredibly easy to copy.

I used to have same attitude but what I have learned over the years is that sometimes the big Co just does not get it. Just look at Google with its 100 chat applications, it's like watching Titanic hitting an iceberg in slow motion.

link
seppin 3357 days ago
yeah, it's not. simple things always look "easy" to copy, the brilliance of them is how they have become simple.

For example, I had to roll out MS Teams (a slack clone) for a company event. Big company, big budget, terrible software.

link
stagbeetle 3357 days ago
I agree, it is easy to copy slack into a "good enough" state, but not if you're trying to compete with Slack, which is the main point here.
link