Slack’s parent company was developing the mobile game Glitch before Slack became its main product.
The company, Tiny Speck, was founded by Stewart Butterfield and created Glitch as a browser-based multiplayer game. During development, the team built an internal messaging system to coordinate work and share information quickly.
Glitch launched publicly in 2011 but was shut down in 2012 because it did not gain enough users to continue. Tiny Speck then focused on the internal communication tool, refined it for outside teams, and launched Slack in 2013.
This origin story illustrates a famous startup pivot: software created for internal use became the commercial product. Slack is therefore not simply a game company that added chat; it emerged when the team recognized that its collaboration tool had stronger potential than its original game.