Ask HN: How did slack beat hipchat?
I was never a hipchat user, but I'm intrigued by how slack beat them (and others) when they had a headstart of several years. Did slack address a pain point that hipchat didn't, or was it just a case of better marketing?
16 comments
Hipchat just feels really enterprisey. Like those CRMs when you sign up for a trial then suddenly some guy just schedules a meeting - would you be free to Skype Monday or Tuesday? While I don't know whether Hipchat actually does this, part of the reason I don't want to sign up is because there's some worry that some guy in a suit would be sending me lots of emails about when a good time to meet is.
Slack just feels casual, like Trello or Google Docs.
Slack just feels casual, like Trello or Google Docs.
HipChat is a good example of first-mover complacency. They had one of the first really solid workplace chat solutions, grew a big userbase, got acquired, etc. But they never iterated or kept up with changing trends, so they got caught off guard by a well-executed competitor.
Another lesson here is that no established product is too big to go up against. I often see people rejecting startup ideas because there is a single competitor offering the same service. Competition is not a reason to forego building a product. If anything, it's a positive signal that your product has a market.
You can make a solid business just by fixing existing products and/or offering the same service for cheaper because you have some efficiency that the incumbents do not. In fact, sometimes the incumbent has set their prices so high because they have no competition, and inflated their expenses so much that they couldn't match your prices even if they wanted to.
Another lesson here is that no established product is too big to go up against. I often see people rejecting startup ideas because there is a single competitor offering the same service. Competition is not a reason to forego building a product. If anything, it's a positive signal that your product has a market.
You can make a solid business just by fixing existing products and/or offering the same service for cheaper because you have some efficiency that the incumbents do not. In fact, sometimes the incumbent has set their prices so high because they have no competition, and inflated their expenses so much that they couldn't match your prices even if they wanted to.
Much easier signup and onboarding process. Free tier. Mobile and desktop apps. More modern UI that was easier to get non-technical stakeholders to adopt.
Targeting the startup sector, which was more open to using such tools company-wide, rather than the enterprise, where Atlassian had already sold into most of the companies that would consider chat platforms at the time and where chat usage was largely confined to technical teams.
Yes, there was hype and marketing - otherwise nobody would have tried them in the first place. They beat HipChat because they offered a 3x better product with half the hassle. It takes both components to make a software hit in a market that isn't entirely blue ocean.
Targeting the startup sector, which was more open to using such tools company-wide, rather than the enterprise, where Atlassian had already sold into most of the companies that would consider chat platforms at the time and where chat usage was largely confined to technical teams.
Yes, there was hype and marketing - otherwise nobody would have tried them in the first place. They beat HipChat because they offered a 3x better product with half the hassle. It takes both components to make a software hit in a market that isn't entirely blue ocean.
I was an early hipchat user and got an IT consultancy I was working with at the time to use it. It served the purpose well but ultimately hipchat failed to take the successful execution of a focused product and turn it into a platform opportunity while slack was very quick to do so. Also slack's branding was much better, from their design and branding you could get a sense that they were aiming for more than just chat.
I've used hipchat post acquisition by Atlassian. Their android client is shit: it used to absolutely nuke my battery. Post installation, the phone which used to last 24-30 hours was barely making it six. Slack's mobile app has been great to me in this regard. Also, their mobile sign in flow is amazing.
The Android app issue -- and it also happened to another person on my team post acquisition when we were forced to move from Slack to Hipchat -- set up a 6 month long fight over keeping slack. I don't recall ever arguing about a chat app before but this was a dealbreaker.
The Android app issue -- and it also happened to another person on my team post acquisition when we were forced to move from Slack to Hipchat -- set up a 6 month long fight over keeping slack. I don't recall ever arguing about a chat app before but this was a dealbreaker.
Oh, their ios client was plenty terrible too. I remember having to wait 5 minutes before being able to type the first message character - just watching a blank screen while my phone got hot.
How did Slack and Hipchat beat (in the short term at least) Basecamp? Basecamp costs flat $100 per month and has several other tools besides just chatting.
https://basecamp.com/
As an aside, I'd like to see more tools with less predatory scaled pricing.
https://basecamp.com/
As an aside, I'd like to see more tools with less predatory scaled pricing.
Far (far) better UX and onboarding, and the free tier. I've only worked in one place that payed for Slack.
It's easy to underestimate how much UX matters, but it does, as long as the user has a say in the matter. Otherwise we'd all be swimming in Android phones.
It's easy to underestimate how much UX matters, but it does, as long as the user has a say in the matter. Otherwise we'd all be swimming in Android phones.
Have you used Atlassian products before? It’s never very much fun.
That's usually down to whoever manages the Atlassian product for you. We're very happy with the way our Jira and Confluence are set up and wouldn't trade it for any of the alternatives (and believe me, we've trialled them all).
HipChat is actually the only exception, at most it's "adequate". However, with Atlassian introducing Stride as the successor if HipChat I'm curious to see whether they understand what made HipChat fail.
HipChat is actually the only exception, at most it's "adequate". However, with Atlassian introducing Stride as the successor if HipChat I'm curious to see whether they understand what made HipChat fail.
They communicated the vision really well. Better pricing too.
I think, strictly feature wise - search was the only differentiator.
At the time we were using the rather obscure Flowdock[0]. Didn't feel like switching. Felt mostly the same. Before you know everybody was talking about Slack. Everybody understood the value of team chats. They made the competition irrelevant before anybody even cared to look for alternatives.
[0] have to mention the great support though, helped us a lot even as an unpaying customer
At the time we were using the rather obscure Flowdock[0]. Didn't feel like switching. Felt mostly the same. Before you know everybody was talking about Slack. Everybody understood the value of team chats. They made the competition irrelevant before anybody even cared to look for alternatives.
[0] have to mention the great support though, helped us a lot even as an unpaying customer
I though slack give another service than hipchap
Hipchap =chat Slack = integration of all other services, dropbox, chat, etc in one place
Hipchap =chat Slack = integration of all other services, dropbox, chat, etc in one place
Never even heard of hipchat until after I had been using slack for a while. Was a user of Campfire before that so not sure how it didn't get to me. When I finally heard about hipchat there wasn't anything interesting about it.
We moved from slack to hipchat at my old job because it was cheaper. Hipchat is just a terrible product, both on iOS and in the browser. Don't even know where to begin, it was just a pain to use and every employee I talked to hated it. I'll just give a few examples:
- Unreliable notifications. Sometimes it notified you about messages sometimes it didn't, no idea why.
- You could get a push-notification about a message, then open the app and have no clue who had messaged you or in which discussion/group.
- Emojis had really unintuitive shortcuts. I remember people used to send some kind of skeleton dancing all the time, because it's shortcut was a (Y) (which is commonly some affirmative/"yes" emoji like a thumbs up).
- Also it looks horrible.
- Unreliable notifications. Sometimes it notified you about messages sometimes it didn't, no idea why.
- You could get a push-notification about a message, then open the app and have no clue who had messaged you or in which discussion/group.
- Emojis had really unintuitive shortcuts. I remember people used to send some kind of skeleton dancing all the time, because it's shortcut was a (Y) (which is commonly some affirmative/"yes" emoji like a thumbs up).
- Also it looks horrible.
Moved from slack to hipchat, or from hipchat to slack?
Something happened with Hipchat, they re-branded or moved accounts. I never logged back in after that. Moved to discord.