A Slack Story tells the best stories from my 7 years and 5 jobs at Slack, from starting as #9 on the team in June, 2013. Here’s an introduction to the project.
What you get for subscribing
One chapter per week, in text and audio formats. Those chapters will be organized into 5 sections rooted in the 5 jobs I had at Slack:
Marketing – Launching a weirdly named software product (Slack?) from the ashes of a failed video game named Glitch.
Chapters: So, what is Slack? Launching with beliefs, 1,000 Slack invites
Accounts – Working with customers to help them understand the product, get their teams successful and pay us money.
Chapters: Saying No Nicely, Socks, Slack’s Wall of Love
Sales Manager – Hiring people, then defining and scaling how we did what we did, on the team and in the company overall.
Chapters: Hiring Good Hybrids, Billion with a B, Onboarding culture
Head of Sales, EMEA – Moving to Dublin to start almost from scratch, introducing Slack to Europe, hiring, creating culture, finding a leader.
Chapters: Stone upon stone, A very Stewart visit, Expansion goes both ways
Executive Programs – Working with Slack’s largest prospects and customers to help them understand the product and its impact at scale.
Chapters: Innovation tours, WORK on NYSE, Accepting less ambition
Throughout the story I’ll try to keep it tight, honest, useful and entertaining.
“I loved it. Great progression — each chapter made me curious for the next.”
Read this far? I get the sense that you’ll like A Slack Story. You should sign up and see.
How it works
Here’s a rough outline of how A Slack Story works.
1 Chapter / week — Starting on February 12, 2025 (11th anniversary of Slack’s launch), you’ll get 1 chapter / week in your email inbox or app.
Missed the start? Catch up on all chapters in the Archive.
~50 Chapters — With ~50 total chapters, I anticipate the project will take a year.
Podcast — Each chapter will be a podcast episode too, should you prefer audio.
Free — Cost will be $0 for you fine subscribers. If there’s ever a paid component of the project, the cash will go somewhere good.
Q&As — For subscribers, I’ll do Q&As in the comments section of each chapter. Ask questions and hopefully get more value.
“Really great. Everyone I know uses and loves Slack, I think the behind the scenes story from Day 1 will be incredibly compelling to a ton of people.”
Know someone that might like A Slack Story? Tell them about it now.
About James Sherrett
I’ve worked in software for 25+ years. I got my first Internet job in 1998 because I wanted somewhere to write.
Most relevant to A Slack Story, I joined Slack as the ninth person on June 5, 2013. Over the next 7 years I served in 5 marketing then sales jobs and left on June 5, 2020.
A few steps prior to Slack, I failed for 6 years at my own startup called AdHack and I wrote a novel called Up in Ontario, among other adventures. Details on LinkedIn.
Now I spend most of my work time advising early-stage B2B software companies and writing here. Mix in some dad jobs, fishing, cooking and coaching and that’s my headlines.
“I loved it, thank you for sharing! I really enjoyed reading about the early days, especially hearing different parts to the story that otherwise weren't covered in media.”
You should sign up for A Slack Story and try it out. I’d love to have you along.
