Hardware Podcasts

Slack & Flickr: Stewart Butterfield

How I Built This · 30 Jul 2018 · 1h 03m

What this episode covers

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack and Flickr, recounts his journey from building the failed online game Game Never Ending to creating Flickr, which he sold to Yahoo, and then pivoting from the second failed game, Glitch, to build Slack. He details the specific challenges of raising capital for enterprise software, the difficulty of selling a communication tool that requires network effects, and the rapid scaling of Slack from an 8-person team to a massive organization. The episode also highlights the importance of organizational performance over individual genius and the role of luck in startup success.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Yahoo, Communicate.com, Andreesen Horowitz, Dell, Google, Ask Jeeves, Audio, Wegmans, Lowe's
Products
Slack, Flickr, Glitch, Game Never Ending, Gradfinder, Blogger, Abby's Better

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