Should I Build It Should I Build It
04 May 2025
Slack Productivity

An app to easily store, categorize, and centralize links to your Slack ...

...messages or threads

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Competitive Terrain

While there's clear interest in your idea, the market is saturated with similar offerings. To succeed, your product needs to stand out by offering something unique that competitors aren't providing. The challenge here isn’t whether there’s demand, but how you can capture attention and keep it.

Should You Build It?

Not before thinking deeply about differentiation.

Your are here

You're stepping into a competitive space with your idea for an app to store and categorize Slack links. There are already quite a few similar products (n_matches = 12), which means that while there's demonstrated interest, you'll need to think hard about how to differentiate yourself. The good news is that similar products have decent engagement (n_comments = 15). However, this also implies that competition for user attention will be fierce. Since we don't have specific buy/use signals, it's difficult to know exactly how the products we found perform, and it's all the more important to find ways to make your app unique in the competitive landscape. This means you need to focus on offering something that those existing solutions don't do well or don't do at all, or else your product might be dead on arrival.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with an in-depth analysis of existing Slack link management tools. The products, 'LinkFlash,' 'Slacksift,' and 'Zivy,' offer features like AI-powered summaries, thread summarization, and automatic message prioritization. Identify their shortcomings through user reviews and feature comparisons. Aim to pinpoint at least three distinct areas where your app can outperform them in terms of functionality, user experience, or pricing.
  2. Given the concerns around data privacy highlighted in the 'Slacksift' and 'Zivy' discussions, make data security a core tenet of your app. Clearly articulate your data handling practices and privacy policies from the outset, potentially incorporating end-to-end encryption or on-premise solutions to alleviate user concerns.
  3. Based on feedback surrounding 'Zivy,' explore integrations beyond Slack, like Teams, Discord, WhatsApp, and email, to create a more versatile and comprehensive solution. Prioritize integrations that align with your target audience's workflow to boost adoption and utility.
  4. Consider catering to specific user segments within Slack. For example, focus on project managers needing to track task-related discussions, or researchers collecting insights from various channels. Tailoring your features to a niche can make your app indispensable to a core group of users, building a solid base for expansion.
  5. Given that users of 'Bye-bye spaghetti channels' found existing solutions too expensive, experiment with flexible pricing models. Offering a free tier with core features or usage-based pricing could attract a broader audience. Transparency in pricing is critical to address user concerns and build trust.
  6. Prioritize building a strong brand identity with clear messaging that distinguishes your app from competitors. Highlight your unique value proposition and emphasize how your app resolves pain points better than existing solutions. A compelling brand can cut through the noise in a crowded market.
  7. Actively engage with early users to collect feedback and iterate rapidly. Use their insights to refine your features and user experience. The goal is to foster a loyal community that not only uses your app but also advocates for it.
  8. Consider an open-source approach, inspired by the 'Slack AI alternative' discussion. Open-sourcing parts of your app can build trust, foster community contributions, and differentiate you from proprietary solutions. Be sure to actively maintain the open-source components and engage with contributors.

Questions

  1. Given the existing solutions in the market, what is the ONE core problem your app solves that competitors either don't address or address inadequately? How will you validate this with user research?
  2. How can you leverage AI or machine learning to provide a truly unique value proposition beyond simple link storage and categorization, addressing user concerns about information overload and efficient retrieval?
  3. What specific metrics will you track to measure user engagement and satisfaction, and how will you use this data to continuously improve your app and stay ahead of the competition in the Competitive Terrain?

Your are here

You're stepping into a competitive space with your idea for an app to store and categorize Slack links. There are already quite a few similar products (n_matches = 12), which means that while there's demonstrated interest, you'll need to think hard about how to differentiate yourself. The good news is that similar products have decent engagement (n_comments = 15). However, this also implies that competition for user attention will be fierce. Since we don't have specific buy/use signals, it's difficult to know exactly how the products we found perform, and it's all the more important to find ways to make your app unique in the competitive landscape. This means you need to focus on offering something that those existing solutions don't do well or don't do at all, or else your product might be dead on arrival.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with an in-depth analysis of existing Slack link management tools. The products, 'LinkFlash,' 'Slacksift,' and 'Zivy,' offer features like AI-powered summaries, thread summarization, and automatic message prioritization. Identify their shortcomings through user reviews and feature comparisons. Aim to pinpoint at least three distinct areas where your app can outperform them in terms of functionality, user experience, or pricing.
  2. Given the concerns around data privacy highlighted in the 'Slacksift' and 'Zivy' discussions, make data security a core tenet of your app. Clearly articulate your data handling practices and privacy policies from the outset, potentially incorporating end-to-end encryption or on-premise solutions to alleviate user concerns.
  3. Based on feedback surrounding 'Zivy,' explore integrations beyond Slack, like Teams, Discord, WhatsApp, and email, to create a more versatile and comprehensive solution. Prioritize integrations that align with your target audience's workflow to boost adoption and utility.
  4. Consider catering to specific user segments within Slack. For example, focus on project managers needing to track task-related discussions, or researchers collecting insights from various channels. Tailoring your features to a niche can make your app indispensable to a core group of users, building a solid base for expansion.
  5. Given that users of 'Bye-bye spaghetti channels' found existing solutions too expensive, experiment with flexible pricing models. Offering a free tier with core features or usage-based pricing could attract a broader audience. Transparency in pricing is critical to address user concerns and build trust.
  6. Prioritize building a strong brand identity with clear messaging that distinguishes your app from competitors. Highlight your unique value proposition and emphasize how your app resolves pain points better than existing solutions. A compelling brand can cut through the noise in a crowded market.
  7. Actively engage with early users to collect feedback and iterate rapidly. Use their insights to refine your features and user experience. The goal is to foster a loyal community that not only uses your app but also advocates for it.
  8. Consider an open-source approach, inspired by the 'Slack AI alternative' discussion. Open-sourcing parts of your app can build trust, foster community contributions, and differentiate you from proprietary solutions. Be sure to actively maintain the open-source components and engage with contributors.

Questions

  1. Given the existing solutions in the market, what is the ONE core problem your app solves that competitors either don't address or address inadequately? How will you validate this with user research?
  2. How can you leverage AI or machine learning to provide a truly unique value proposition beyond simple link storage and categorization, addressing user concerns about information overload and efficient retrieval?
  3. What specific metrics will you track to measure user engagement and satisfaction, and how will you use this data to continuously improve your app and stay ahead of the competition in the Competitive Terrain?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 12
  • Engagement: High
    • Average number of comments: 15
  • Net use signal: 35.4%
    • Positive use signal: 35.8%
    • Negative use signal: 0.4%
  • Net buy signal: 0.5%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.9%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.4%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

LinkFlash - Find any links in the best way possible.

10 Sep 2024 Artificial Intelligence Slack Maker Tools

LinkFlash - Instantly summarize and organize every Slack link in one place, making it easy to find and access everything you need without the hassle of searching.

LinkFlash is a tool designed to manage, organize, and summarize links shared across various channels. Users highlight its ability to keep track of shared links, with summaries and filters facilitating easy retrieval. The AI-powered summaries are seen as a productivity booster. The Slack integration is notably smooth and valuable to users.

Avatar
12
4
75.0%
4
12
75.0%
Relevance

Bye-bye spaghetti channels A Slack app encouranging thread use

01 May 2024 Slack Productivity

I was on Slack one day and there were multiple time-critical issues ongoing within a channel. It became difficult to keep track of who said what and in response to whom. In the aftermath, it was decided that threads should be the sole method of organization. In the weeks following it was clear that best intentions don't change habits overnight, so I hopped on Slack's app directory and searched for a solution. Existing solutions were priced weirdly or were too expensive for what was needed, therefore I built my own!I would be interested to hear if this has been an issue for others and if something like this would be useful. The idea with this application was that people only need a light reminder or guide for their habits to change and Slack already does all the heavy lifting as an amazing messaging tool.

Users find the tool useful and have built their own solution for organizing Slack threads.

Users find existing solutions to be either priced weirdly or too expensive.

Avatar
1
2
2
1
Relevance

Slacksift - Easily summarise and understand your Slack threads

02 Oct 2023 Slack Productivity Developer Tools

Introducing Slacksift, the app that simplifies your Slack thread experience. Say goodbye to getting lost in never-ending conversations. We've all been there, tagged in a thread with dozens of messages. Slacksift makes it easy to catch up and respond faster.

The Product Hunt launch received congratulations from multiple users. One user expressed interest in data privacy guarantees when using a Large Language Model (LLM).

The primary criticism revolves around concerns regarding data privacy, specifically whether user information is shared with LLM companies. Users are seeking assurances and guarantees that their data will not be used to train or improve large language models.

Avatar
87
3
3
87
Relevance

Slack AI – Privately chat with your unstructured Slack data

08 Jan 2024 Artificial Intelligence Slack

Introducing Slack AI - Privately chat with your unstructured slack data using embedchain.ai- All data stays on your machine- Simple to setup (4 lines of code)- Free of cost- Both software engineer & product/growth managers can trySlack is used by majority of the organizations. It contains valuable knowledge base in the form of channels & message. But a common problem is retrieving the right knowledge as most of the data in slack is unstructured.Today, we are introducing the simplest flow to create a retrieval/RAG app which will ingest any slack channel and help you chat with it.There are only 3 steps:- Run the example repo- Add slack token & select channel- Start chattingWe have put open sourced the entire code along with a comprehensive readme to get started.GitHub: https://github.com/embedchain/examples/tree/main/slack-ai

Avatar
9
9
Relevance

Zivy - Automatically prioritize and organize messages in Slack

18 Sep 2024 Artificial Intelligence Productivity Virtual Assistants

Zivy goes through all your work apps, starting with Slack, to understand your context and presents only the messages that need your attention. It categorises them intelligently into Action Items, FYIs and Others and ranks them based on Importance and Urgency.

Zivy's Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users praising its ability to save time, boost productivity, and declutter Slack. Users highlight the tool's smart prioritization and message categorization features as game-changers for managing Slack overload. Many congratulate the team and express excitement to try it, with some specifically mentioning Harkirat Singh. Requests include integrations with other platforms like Teams, Discord, WhatsApp and email; calendar integration, custom categories and concerns about pricing, security, and data privacy are also raised.

Users expressed concerns about Zivy's integration with Slack, citing Slack's potential for distraction and notification overload, leading to important messages being ignored. There were requests for more app integrations, a mobile app, and personalized categories. Users also questioned how Zivy handles diverse messages and communication styles. Cost transparency and data privacy within Slack were raised as concerns. Clarification was sought on whether Slack is still needed after Zivy's integration, along with how Zivy improves integration with other work apps.

Avatar
1049
145
49.7%
1.4%
145
1049
49.7%
1.4%
Relevance

Papertrail – Save your Slack threads with one click

16 May 2023 Slack Productivity

Hey folks,Inspired by a tool that my friend and I used at respective our companies, we wanted to build something that could help folks remember their context from their Slack messages.We decided a 1-click solution using pre-defined emojis would be a quick and easy way for folks to quickly save their Slack threads and all it's messages easily. The saved threads currently go to a choice of 3 archiving solutions: Notion, Asana, Coda.We would love for you to give it a try if it seems useful to you!

Avatar
2
2
Relevance

An open source alternative to some of Slack AI's premium features

09 May 2024 Artificial Intelligence Slack Developer Tools

The official Slack AI product looks great, but with limited access and add-on pricing, I decided to open-source the version I built. Especially for all the communities on Slack that would have to convert to paid and buy the upgrade to access the official SlackAI product/add-on which is not going to be financially viable in most cases.There's no plan to sell anything, just something I built as a way to learn some new tools that I thought others might get use out of.The repo is a ready-to-run slack app that provides thread summaries and channel overviews on demand using OpenAI (heavy lifting done by gpt-3.5-turbo and a touch of gpt-4) and some standard NLP analysis. Anyone technical could easily swap in Claude or Ollama (and i'd welcome the pull request, it's been on my to do list!).There's a link in the readme to a blog post I wrote sharing more about the how/why if you're interested.I'm a product manager by day, so it's been fun to do some real coding again.

Users discussed various Slack alternatives, with mentions of Mattermost, Keybase, and Element, focusing on features like flexibility, privacy, and end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Keybase's status as a viable option was debated, with some saying it's dead and others discussing its features. Questions about integrating other services with Slack and the limitations of Slack's API were raised. There was also interest in open-source alternatives and E2EE support in platforms like Matrix and XMPP. One user had difficulty installing Claude with Slack due to enterprise restrictions.

Users criticized the Show HN product for burying the lead, poor Slack AI, and API limitations for third-party apps. There were concerns about Zoom's impact on Keybase's privacy, and Keybase was also seen as inactive with a dead chat, not a Slack competitor, and in need of revival. Element was critiqued for its buzzword-heavy website, resemblance to other platforms, and the need for more than just open source status - active development is required. Some features were restricted to enterprise versions.

Avatar
76
16
6.2%
-6.2%
16
76
12.5%
Relevance

Thread Archive – free tool to save Slack community data

18 Oct 2024 Slack

Slack's new content deletion policy is a nightmare for 1000s of communities on Slack. It means that all messages older than one year will be permanently deleted from their servers.Thread Archive gives you a simple way to save all your Slack community's chats in an accessible archive.

Avatar
2
2
Relevance

I built a Slack bot to keep you focused and informed

08 Aug 2024 Productivity

Hey HN.As a developer working remotely, I've struggled for years to stay focused on my tasks while keeping up with the constant flow of updates across Slack channels. It was frustrating to join a meeting only to hear, "Did you see that important announcement?" and realize I had missed it.So, I created Evemus, a Slack bot that acts like a collaborative bookmark to help me stay informed on my schedule. With Evemus, anyone in the channel can save important announcements just by reacting with the :mega: emoji. These announcements are then neatly organized by channel and week, and easily accessible to everyone in the App Home tab. Simple, user-friendly, and a real game-changer for staying in the loop.Cheers, Rick

Evemus was built to help users stay focused and updated.

Users found juggling work and Slack updates exhausting.

Avatar
2
2
2
2
Relevance

Organize and Share your links more efficiently

12 Jan 2023 Productivity

Rackoot is a FREE platform that helps you to organize and share your links. You can have multiple dashboards (Rackoots) and organize links in tiles adding comments and sharing them with whoever you want. Try it, and get organized!

Avatar
2
2
Top
OSZAR »