How a Failed Video Game Sparked the Creation of Slack
Stewart Butterfield and his former Flickr team initially set out to build a massive multiplayer online game called Glitch, but its eventual failure paves the way for a revolutionary workplace communication tool.
Stewart Butterfield and his former Flickr colleagues Cal Henderson, Eric Costello, and Serguei Mourachov found a new startup called Tiny Speck in 2009 with the goal of building an artful, non-combat massively multiplayer online game. After months of intense speculation from tech blogs, the team finally unveils Glitch, a free-to-play game set inside the brains of eleven imaginary giants. When the game officially launches to the public in September 2011, Butterfield proudly praises its unique beauty and authenticity.
This ambitious gaming endeavor mirrors Butterfield's past experience with Flickr, which originally starts as a failed game called Game Neverending before pivoting into a wildly successful photo-sharing service. Tech reporters and investors closely watch Tiny Speck's progress, noting the impressive engineering talent assembled to bring this creative vision to life. Early venture capitalist M.G. Siegler even compares the mysterious project to the production of an animated movie due to its massive scope.
Despite the high hopes and detailed world-building, Glitch ultimately struggles to find a sustainable audience and forces Butterfield to make a difficult decision. Rather than abandoning the project entirely, the team recognizes the incredible internal communication tool they build to coordinate their remote game development. This internal system, born directly from the ashes of the fantastical game, eventually evolves into Slack and fundamentally transforms how modern workplaces communicate.