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, it 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 Slack. There's a dread when opening them after a long meeting or the overwhelm first thing in the morning. For those of us in leadership positions or running teams, there is the increasingly feeling of being a bottleneck for others.
Slack has become a runaway horse.
We could try to fight it, declaring a new zen way to do messaging as many 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 (and Slack) will only get faster and more abundant. Especially as we start to manage AI messages too.
Instead of fighting this reality, let's find ways to tame these horses.
Saddle is a new way to stay on top of your Slack messages.
It combines all your Slack messages in one inbox, ranks and prioritises them by urgency, ownership, and relationship so the right people get answers first. It puts you back in control.
Saddle is 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 if you're running a team, a company or working across timezones, you will find Saddle much better at staying on top of your Slack messages and enabling work for your team.
If you care about replying quickly, but not getting overwhelmed. Moving fast to unblock your team, but not being chained to Slack, then Saddle is for you.
It's time to rein in your Slack messages and enable the original version of Slack. It's the future.