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Comment by anthonygore | Hacker News Reader

The problem with articles and discussions like this is that the "markers of success" pointed out may all be true, but incidental.

Take Slack as an example. Yes, it was a simple idea with low product surface area and easily protypeable etc etc. But other people had built Slack-like products before that met the all those same criteria and were not successful. The critical factors for Slack were the connections the founders had (or made), the VC money, and perhaps a whole bunch of other things.

As much as we'd like for there to be a nice, neat guides for successful businesses e.g. "build a little snowball", the truth is that the reasons for success are often totally unique, contradictory and unrepeatable.

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Slack also has an amazing UX, I haven't used a competing product that was as enjoyable to use. Yes I know this is subjective, but of the people I know that like Slack actually love it. Whereas I've never met somebody that loves HipChat.

I'm not fond of the Slack UI.

First of all I don't want to talk to "@jjm", I want to talk to John Jameson. Why can't it show me the full, human name?

Second, chat is basically the hello world of push based apps, but any other update, like renaming channels, editing documents etc. aren't real time. I have to close the app and reopen it to see the update. Come on!

Third, the document feature is not multiplayer. You have to lock the document in order to edit it. And for todo lists, you can't even tick off a box without locking the whole document.

Slack has an option to display full names, which you can set. An admin can also make that the default.

Secondarily, the reason for @username is because you basically have to use usernames of some kind to ensure you can directly refer to another user consistently. Users can also setup "highlight words" which will notify them if someone says them in a channel they're in. This could be their name for example, or other things.

I set up a Slack channel for the PTs at the gym my wife and I run, and have defaulted it to real names and I get an alert for my first name, our last name, and a handful of other words. Having never used Slack before I was pretty impressed with the customizability of it.

Step one: climb mountain

Step two: build a little snowball

Step three: give your little snowball a little push

Step four: fret about which direction your growing snowball is going

Step one: climb mountain - Does the mountain mean silicon valley :)

There is a startup world outside of Silicon Valley ;-) ...just saying.

> other people had built Slack-like products before that met the all those same criteria and were not successful.

Which ones?

Just because something is similar doesn't mean it nails the features people need, however simple they may be.

I agree, but I still think the advice has a ton of merit. I've seen weaker ideas padded with features as if the cumulative total can somehow make the product special. ("Sure others are in the space, but we'll be the only product that also does this, this, and this.")

That's a hard way to build something and the result is often really hard to sell. This is especially true with software products where additional features never feel as expensive as they actually become.

In the beginning, it's important to be known for one unique, valuable thing that you do very well. That's how people place you in their mental maps of the world. The challenge I think, is that focus does take bravery. You'll be barraged with feature ideas from customers, investors, employees, and even yourself.

Exactly. Timing is of utter importance. Yet, these packed formulas do help to increase the odds of success, don't you agree?

I've been part of at least three organizations that had a running joke of "chat programs suck, I can't believe how stupid their developers are, we could write our own that would be much better". A couple even got as far as writing and using them for a while.

But none of us actually believed it. We all assumed there had to be some good reason that all the chat programs out there were awful - almost an efficient-markets viewpoint. I think Slack's great innovation was the psychological willingness to actually just write a good chat program. (I have no idea how - or if - they figured out the money-making side of things though).

> As much as we'd like for there to be a nice, neat guides for successful businesses e.g. "build a little snowball", the truth is that the reasons for success are often totally unique, contradictory and unrepeatable.

Yes, but I guess the point is that if you start with a little snowball, at least when you fail in the end, you didn't waste too much effort on it.

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