How to Create a Billion $ Company in 8 Months

If you want to get a sense of just how crazy the world of technology is for businesses that want to make money you need look no further than Slack.

For those of you unfamiliar with Slack.  They launched a product in February 2014 which is a private communication tool for business inspired by IRC. It has quickly grown to 30,000 teams using the service sending 200 million messages per month. Now, just 8 short months after launch they have raised money at a $1B valuation.

It is astounding growth and an amazing success.  How can you copy Slack’s success?

1. Identify and launch into an under-serviced market.  Internal business communication tools really wasn’t a product category a couple years ago and companies made due with less than ideal alternatives like email and Skype.
2. Look for big scale market opportunities.  Chat is something that could be used by millions of businesses world-wide. A billion users is entirely possible.
3. Minimum Viable Product – most important word is “Viable”.  It’s easy to err on the side of too minimal and end up damaging your branding.  If eager early adopters look at your product and dismiss it, it will take a long time for them to come back and re-evaluate.  Slack was in development for over a year before it launched
4. Create a low barrier to entry.  Slack’s integration features, and free trial made it easy to convince the boss and get buy in from the team.

Of course if it was easy we’d all be billionaires!  Good Luck!