SLACK” stands for “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge” which is a beautiful way of explaining exactly what Slack does for an organization.

In case you are short on time, read the summary whimsical below & then jump to the Conclusion 🧠

​

Introduction to Slack 💻

Slack’s Co-Founder Steward Butterfield had previously sold Flickr to Yahoo for $25M in 2005 within a year of founding the company. Steward had initially set out to build a videogame called “Glitch” which shut down in 2012. Slack emerged from the ashes of Glitch - it was the internal communication tool used by Glitch staff & Glitch users.

​

Some initial encouragement from friends convinced Steward & team to repurpose the tool for external use - it was launched on Product Hunt & got MAD traction. Slack was acquired in 2021 by Salesforce for $27bn - it had gone public in 2019 via a Direct Listing

​

​

​

Slack’s acquisition by Salesforce comes at a time when MS Teams as surpassed Slack’s MAU by almost x10. MS Teams is bundled into the MS Suite offering. Salesforce has similarly bundled Slack into its Customer360 platform and has positioned the same as “Slack First Sales” [2]

​

About Slack in India 🇮🇳

​

​

Per my calculations, Slack should have ~ 100,000 free accounts (i.e. organizations) in India who are using the FREE plan (600K free accounts per above source & India is the 3rd largest market)

​

Slack’s readiness for ELG (Event Led Growth) 🤔

​

Slack organized a major “Future of Digital Work” event in April 2022 in Bangalore and Mumbai where their Co-Founder Steward was present.

​

I distinctly recall being spammed by e-mail campaigns (since I was a paying Slack customer) and paid promotions across newsletters (such as Inc42)

​

Below is an example e-mail campaign from Slack:

​

​

Given the above, I think it would be fair to say that Slack can invest in ELG (and, is already in fact investing in ELG in India).

​

Objective 🌟

In India, Slack has a FREE to PAID conversion problem to solve i.e. it has a large pipeline at the “in consideration” stage which needs to be converted into paying users.

​

​

​

Although Slack users are concentrated in metropolitan cities such as Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad & Chennai (due to the Tech ecosystem) - it would be advisable to host a virtual event.

​

​

​The Math

1. Slack has ~100,000 organizations on the FREE plan right now
2. We would aim to get ~1,000 unique FREE organizations in attendance

• 1. Assuming there are 1.25 attendees per organization
  2. Note: We are NOT focusing on our already paying organizations​

3. Assume over a 12 month window post this event, 15% of attendee organizations convert to paid
4. ~1000 organizations * 15% conversion * 25 seats * $6 per seat per month * 12 months = $270,000 ARR

​

Slack’s competition in India ⚔️

Based on a few conversations with peers, I was able to establish that Slack has ~ 3 major competitors in India w.r.t workplace collaboration:

1. WhatsApp
2. Google Hangouts (part of GSuite / Gmail)
3. MS Teams (part of Microsoft Suites

​

Note: In community / hobby / interest based collaboration - Slack does face competition from Discord but that is NOT relevant for the this ELG objective of FREE to PAID conversion since we are focusing on workplace collaboration.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Ideal Attendee Profile (IAP) 👩🏾‍💼

​

Broadly, Slack would have ~3 IAPs for this event:

1. Founder or Owner of ITeS company (e.g. BPO / KPO / agency / services business)
2. Founder of Tech startup (e.g. BFSI, e-commerce, SaaS etc)
3. Head of IT / Technology of Mid Market company

​

EACH of the above IAPs would be affiliated with organizations who meet the following criteria:

1. Signed up to Slack
2. Have selected their geography as India during the onboarding
3. Are on the FREE Slack plan
4. Have ≥ 5 active Slack MAUs in July 2023 [7]Note: This was a key product activation criteria as defined by Noah Weiss who is the CPO at Slack
5. 1. I believe a Slack MAU would send more than {X} messages per month (maybe, 50?)
6. {Optional} - Has ≥ 25 employees registered?Note: I think we can use Apollo.io or any other 3rd party CRM tool to guess this?​

​

Therefore, the IAP would be:

1. Someone with decision making authority at their organization
2. Someone who is affiliated with an organization that is a Product Qualified Account (PQA) for Slack
3. Someone who MIGHT be at the evaluation stage for Slack given its usage within their organization

​

Suitable Event Topic 📜

Since we would aim to host this event in early September 2023 - a major topic of discussion in India right now is the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2023 [8] announced in August 2023.

​

​

​

​

​

​

IF we pick Unlocking Efficiency Amid Change as the topic then the attendee will review their internal communication tool stack which will result in free to paid conversion (self serve or sales assisted) opportunities for our company.

​

Shortlisted Speakers 🗣️

​

​

Notes:

1. Meesho, Razorpay & Zomato are Slack customers [9]
2. All 3 companies are chosen because the founders:
3. 1. Operate in businesses (e-commerce, BFSI payments and delivery) where sensitive non-aggregate consumer data is handled
   2. Have achieved a sizeable degree of scale in operations to attract smaller business owners
   3. Have recently announced some variation of profitability amidst the downturn

Outreach Template 📩

The below email template for outreach will be sent by:

1. The Account Manager for {Razorpay, Meesho or Zomato} to the senior FP&A contact they liaise with
2. The Head of Slack India directly to the founders (optional)

​

Note: For Khaitan & Co - a simple email from Head of Slack India suffices

​

​

​

Broad Event Structure 🗓️

All time slots are in IST

​

How to attract IAPs? 👩🏾‍💼

Reason(s) to sign-up

1. Topic(s) are recent & relevant
2. 1. Data Privacy is an August 2023 topic
   2. Operational Efficiency & Profitability is a March 2023 topic
3. Reputed speakers
4. 1. 3 “profitable” unicorn founders whose companies use Slack - good pull
   2. None of the speakers do extensive interviews so there is some exclusivity

​

Reason(s) to attend

1. NO recording OR PPT available
2. 1. Hearing from India’s TOP authority on data privacy is valuable
   2. Hearing from India’s TOP unicorn founders on achieving profitability is valuable
3. Wild card(s)
4. 1. Lucky draw winner gets Slack Pro upgrade for 6 months for free for unlimited seats in their Org
   2. Detailed PDF (downloadable via QR code) containing insights from speakers on topics discussed
   3. Slack Merch for attendees who stay to the end

​

How to attract this audience?

1. Slack’s own distribution
2. 1. E-mail IAPs on their registered email with Slack as per above criteria
   2. LinkedIn post from company handle
   3. Twitter post from company handle
3. Paid distribution
4. 1. 3rd party news outlets such as YourStory, ET etc
   2. LinkedIn Paid Ads on users following Slack & Salesforce
5. Speaker’s own distribution
6. 1. LinkedIn - personal & company handle
   2. Twitter - personal & company handle

Note: Most of the IAPs would reside on Slack’s existing e-mail list and LinkedIn (where they have 1M followers). On Twitter as well, some of these IAPs would be found (Slack has ~450K followers on Twitter too)

​

Event Design 👩🏾‍🎨

Here, I will just focus on the Keynote on Data Privacy: How to navigate IDPA 2023? session

​

Opening act design

1. Welcome the speaker
2. Punch lines to drop between Supratim & Rahul S.
3. 1. “Razorpay was a Day 0 Slack company”
   2. “Privacy violation has become expensive just at a time when cash is hard to come by.”

​

Middle act design

1. Key clauses in IDPA 2023
2. Implications of IPDA on Tech companies
3. Punch lines to drop between Supratim & Rahul S.
4. 1. “Worst case scenario fine of UP TO ₹250 crore”
   2. “Time to re-think internal communication & data sharing via WhatsApp”
   3. “Example: Meesho started life on WhatsApp but migrated to Slack!”

​

Closing act design

1. Show QR code for insights PDF
2. Thank the speaker
3. 1. Highlight Slack’s data privacy & compliance
   2. Read a quote from {any one unicorn founder} on Slack’s compliance features

​

Leading/ Lagging Indicators ⏲️

Post event sustenance 🔊

Since this is an online event hosted on Zoom (to handle 1,000+ concurrent viewers) - there is HUGE scope for post event promotion in the following format:

1. Written (long format text)
2. 1. Blog on Slack website
   2. Co-branded blog on speaker’s own company website
   3. Re-distribution
   4. 1. LinkedIn post
      2. Twitter Thread
      3. Speaker’s own post from event
3. Visual (long format video)
4. 1. Video on YouTube channel of Slack (~50K subscribers)
5. Edutainment (short format video)
6. 1. Instagram post from Slack (company has ~70K IG followers)
   2. IG post from speaker’s personal profile (where applicable)
   3. YT Short snippets
7. Paid
8. 1. Print article in ET
   2. Digital article(s) on startup news websites
9. CRM
10. 1. Send thank you email to attendees
    2. Send 1-2 emails (a 1 week frequency) linking back to the above content created
11. Other nuances
12. 1. Given the social media reach of these founders - I would create a personalized template containing copy & a creative (showing them in the Zoom Spotlight with audience count visible)
    2. Would ensure that information about event attendance is populated back into Salesforce CRM used by the Account Managers to follow up

Approximate Cost 🏧

Excluding indirect / implied cost of management bandwidth - this event would cost ~ $70,000 for pre & post-event activities

​

​

Conclusion 🧠

ELG can be a potentially useful lever for Slack in India. IF we see success in this implementation - it can be scaled up into a full fledged growth channel with a dedicated ELG pod. If Slack would like to provide my company a discount based on this post - I would happily oblige.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

URL