Advance Takes on TechCrunch’s news article about the Slack/Atlassian deal: 

Slack forms key alliance as Atlassian throws in the towel on chat

We’ve been using Slack at 3Advance since August 2014. Before that we’d been bouncing around between Ghat, Skype, email, and others. We’ve watched as this startup has grown and flourished, and have built our culture around the platform, often referring to Slack as the heartbeat of our company. Slack announcing they’re buying Atlassian IP assets at the core of their own products is big news to us, so here’s our Advance Takes:

1. Slack is awesome. And it is winning the war.

This further cements Slack’s dominance. HipChat was always good. Slack has always been incredible. As well as enabling our company culture across time zones, the effect on operations here is unparalleled: Slack’s off-the-shelf and custom integrations help us keep so much of our other tools in sync. It’s just far better, and the developer community surrounding it so much stronger, meaning integrations are tighter, and more readily available.

2. Being best is more important than being first.

This is further evidence that a fast follower can overcome the first mover advantage. Slack was released in August 2013, HipChat had an almost 3-year head start launching in January of 2010. HipChat proved the model worked perhaps. Slack perfected it. This is a lesson for entrepreneurs out there that you can take on the established competition and still dominate by being the best.

3. Know when to tap out. Know when to sell. Know when to hold.

This is another tale of a more substantial company purchasing a community favorite and ultimately folding it (Atlassian acquired Hipchat in March 2012). Microsoft was rumored to have considered an $8 Billion bid for Slack in 2016 but thankfully (given how Skype has progressed) that did not materialize. Slack is currently valued at $5 Billion. This deal leaves Microsoft Teams and Facebook’s Workplace as Slacks biggest competitors in the field. We won’t be making the switch anytime soon, but the war continues… Regardless, learn how your market is moving, and be proactive instead of reactive.

Read the Article on TechCrunch

“Three Advance Takes” is a blog series where someone at 3Advance reads something interesting and we chime in with our opinion. We develop apps, but we also eat, sleep and breathe technology, believing that the more we know, the better we are. Drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.