We sell saddles here
A decade ago, Slack was my favorite product and company. The early product they launched, the tone of voice, the release notes, the vibe of the team; you could feel how much they cared.
In my 20s building a startup, I idolized Stewart Butterfield and have read his famous "We Don't Sell Saddles Here" blog post countless times.
Slack changed the way we work forever. For better or worse.
Twelve years after Slack's launch, we now juggle multiple work messaging apps and maintain several inboxes. It's not just email anymore, it's Slack, Teams, Discord. What was our personal messaging space like WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal have been infiltrated by work. Then layer in Google Docs comments, Notion Comments, Linear updates… Ping, Ping, Ping….I could go on.
This feels like the opposite of what Slack set out to do. We have more messages and notifications than ever. We have more information overload and spend even more time in messaging apps. There's a dread when opening them after a long meeting or first thing in the morning. Messaging apps have become runaway horses.
We could try to fight it, declaring a new zen way to do messaging as some have before. But that never seems to work. The internet is the information superhighway and messaging apps are the buses, so let's be realistic, communication will only get faster and more abundant.
Instead of fighting this reality, let's find ways to tame these horses.
Saddle is a new way to stay on top of work messages.
It combines all your messaging apps in one place, automatically prioritising the conversations that matter, and lets you clear your inbox in record time.
Voice is built‑in from day one, so you can talk your way through your inbox whenever that's faster than typing. This time, you can rein in those out of control message apps while replying even faster.
It's not going to be for everyone. You may enjoy your runaway horses and the sound of Slack popping off in meetings, which is fine. But some of you will find voice is much faster than typing and Saddle much better at staying on top of your work messages.
If you care about replying quickly, but not getting overwhelmed. Moving fast but not being chained to your messaging apps. Then Saddle is for you.
Time to rein in your work messages and start talking to your computer. It's the future.