Pivot · United States · 2009–2021
Slack: the failed game that produced a workplace giant
Stewart Butterfield's game Glitch failed, but the chat tool his team built to work on it became Slack — sold to Salesforce for about $27.7 billion.
By Shivam Bhandari · Reviewed 31 October 2026 · How we write
by the numbers
- Glitch shut down
- late 2012
- Public launch
- 2014
- Daily users (2019)
- over 10 million
- Salesforce acquisition (2021)
- about $27.7 billion
What happened
Butterfield's company Tiny Speck spent years building Glitch, a whimsical online game launched in 2011. It never found enough players, and it was shut down in late 2012. The team still had money and an internal tool they relied on daily: a chat system that kept all their conversations searchable.
They rebuilt that tool for other companies. Slack launched in preview in 2013 and publicly in 2014, positioned as an end to endless internal email. It was easy to start with one team for free, and teams spread it across companies. Its playful tone came straight from its games heritage.
Slack grew to more than 10 million daily users by 2019 and listed directly on the NYSE that year. In 2021 Salesforce completed its acquisition for about $27.7 billion.
Timeline
- 2011
Glitch launches.
- 2012
Glitch closes; team pivots to its chat tool.
- 2014
Slack launches publicly.
- 2019
Direct listing on the NYSE.
- 2021
Acquired by Salesforce.
what made it work
- Turned an internal tool they used daily into the product.
- Free entry for teams led to bottom-up adoption.
- Personality and design made business software enjoyable.
the lesson
The tool you built to solve your own problem may be more valuable than the product you set out to build.
Apply it to your business
- 1Look at the internal tools and processes your team couldn't live without.
- 2Shut down failing products while you still have money to pivot.
- 3Make adoption by one team easy.
Laws at work in this story
Figures are rounded and drawn from public reports, company filings and widely cited coverage at the time. Check the company's latest filings before relying on any number.