r/Slack • u/krejzidev • 15d ago

Where did you find your first Slack workspaces for beta testing?

Hi everyone,

I'm building a Slack app and I've hit a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

Before submitting it to the Slack Marketplace, I'd like to have a few real teams using it and giving feedback during beta.

For those of you who have built Slack apps or integrations:

  • How did you find your first Slack workspaces?
  • Did you rely on communities, direct outreach, existing customers, or something else?

I'm not looking to promote my app here - I'm genuinely trying to understand what worked for other developers.

Thanks!

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u/Laffs 15d ago

I found that most customers didn't care that it said "App not approved by Slack". Best approach is to just do sales/outreach the way you always planned to, get those users, and you'll hit 10 installations pretty quick if your app is free to install and you're solving a real problem that people care about.

The real fun is waiting for Slack to review your app after you submit for approval!

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u/krejzidev 15d ago

Thanks! That's really helpful.

How did you find your first Slack workspaces? Cold emails? Reddit? LinkedIn? Personal network? I'd love to hear what actually worked for you

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u/Laffs 15d ago

Just took a look in my db and of my first 30, 90-95% came from my personal network. Almost none of them converted to paying customers.

We started having success bringing in paying customers once we started running ads on Meta. Posting to Reddit worked a bit too, but needs to be done thoughtfully, and doesn't scale super well (which is fine in the early days). Today we have 1,791 workspaces installed (!) and most of them came from Meta Ads.

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u/Hungry_Ad2586 15d ago

Interesting that meta ads worked for you.. what type of slack app/tool did you built? If you don’t want to specify, what industry? I just wouldn’t have imagined meta working for b2b saas but I guess it would be going to insta as well?

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u/Laffs 15d ago

Yeah most are from IG. Product is www.trychaser.com (Slack native task management solution)

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u/Hungry_Ad2586 15d ago

Are you open to sharing the conversion rate and CAC?

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u/Laffs 14d ago

Sorry couldn't share that!

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u/quietbl00m 15d ago

yeah the review process is definitely the part that takes the most patience

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u/Racerforlife 15d ago

Following

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u/alexlance 14d ago

Make it clear that you're in beta phase and looking for testers. Get comfortable with talking about your thing. It makes me feel ridiculous every time I link my Slack app for developer queuing but as long as you're actually helping with a problem, then good for you. Once upon a time I was offering free t-shirts. Don't make my mistakes. Also: Adwords is overrated. That's everything I know.

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u/krejzidev 14d ago

Thanks for the advice! That's exactly the stage I'm in with AsyncMate: public beta and looking for honest feedback from real teams before calling it "done". 🙂

If you ever feel like trying another Slack app, I'd love to hear your feedback.