{"id":47150,"date":"2023-10-20T15:52:36","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-slack-was-created-from-a-failed-computer-game-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:36","slug":"how-slack-was-created-from-a-failed-computer-game-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-slack-was-created-from-a-failed-computer-game-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How Slack was created from a failed computer game – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Slack, one of the world\u2019s fastest growing startups, was created by accident and from the failure of a computer game.<\/p>\n

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Speaking at the Above All Human tech conference, Slack director of customer experience Ali Rayl says though failure can seem like the end of the world it offers a wealth of new lessons and opportunity in business development.<\/p>\n

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Rayl says Slack emerged from the failure of a computer game called Glitch<\/i>, where players had to find and grow resources and build communities.<\/p>\n

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It received more than $US15 million in funding by 2011 but was shut down the following year.<\/p>\n

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Rayl credits the downfall of Glitch to choosing the wrong underlying platform, insufficient traction and burning money on a product with no returns.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know why the game failed,\u201d she jokes as she recounts some of Glitch<\/i>\u2019s \u201cfun\u201d activities like waiting, minding and tidying.<\/p>\n

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The failure brought great challenges including the difficult decision to let people go.<\/p>\n

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But it also created a new path, she says.<\/p>\n

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In dealing with the dilemma \u201cwhen your never-ending game ends\u201d, Rayl says the team had to restructure their mindset which led them on a new track to improving the ways people collaborate at work.<\/p>\n

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They began thinking about how people work together, what it means to do a good job, how workers support each other and how people could be genuinely rewarded and motivated as players are in games.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is where gamification creeps in,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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What eventuated was Slack, a business communications product to help people get some slack in their lives so they can be less busy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She says this redevelopment is one of the exciting things about game mechanics and software development.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a perfect medium for infinite play,\u201d Rayl says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re building something we can continue working on forever.”<\/p>\n

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Rayl says the startup was able to rehire a lot of the people they let go and have now started hiring in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCome talk to me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Follow StartupSmart on<\/i> <\/i>Facebook,<\/i> Twitter,<\/i> and<\/i> <\/i>LinkedIn.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Slack, one of the world\u2019s fastest growing startups, was created by accident and from the failure of a computer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}