Slack · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

What should Tiny Speck build after Glitch?

Slack is a messaging and collaboration product that helps teams communicate, share files, and connect work tools in one place. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Strategic prioritization
User segmentation
Product sense
Go-to-market
Metrics design

The situation

In late 2012, Tiny Speck is winding down Glitch, its creative online game, after weak traction and high operating costs. During development, the team built an internal messaging system to coordinate conversations, files, and project updates, and employees now rely on it every day. A few trusted outsiders who have seen the tool think it could help their own teams, but there is no formal market validation yet. The CEO asks you, the PM closest to the collaboration workflow, for a recommendation on what the company should do next. Should Tiny Speck keep trying to salvage the game, turn the internal tool into a standalone product, or pursue some other path? If you back the tool, you also need to say who it should serve first and how it should enter the market. Assume the company has about 30 employees and roughly 9 months of runway. The decision is hard because the team is emotionally attached to Glitch, the collaboration space is not obviously empty, and a wrong bet could end the company.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product strategy memo.

Your answer must

Make a clear recommendation for the company's next 12 months, including whether to continue investing in Glitch, commercialize the internal tool, or choose another path.
Define the primary target user and their main job to be done, and explain why this segment should be first.
Compare at least two strategic options using the evidence available in the scenario, and state the key assumptions behind your choice.
Describe the initial product scope or product principles for launch, including what you would not build yet.
Propose an adoption and pricing approach that fits the company's constraints, plus 3 success metrics for the first 6 to 12 months.
List the biggest risks to your plan and how you would test or mitigate them early.

Constraints

You cannot fund full-speed development of both the game and a new standalone product at the same time.
Your evidence is mostly internal dogfooding and informal reactions from a small set of outsiders, not broad market research.
Any launch plan must work with a small team and limited runway, without relying on a large enterprise sales force from day one.

Format

Use short sections such as recommendation, target user, alternatives considered, product approach, go to market, metrics, and risks.

How Slack actually played it

Covers Slack's pivot from a failed game, the problem it solved, how a clear target user shaped execution, and the growth path from 2013 on. Presents the turnaround as a sequence of product decisions.

A pivot can start from the internal tool the team already loves
A sharp target persona guides every product choice
Look at what the failed product accidentally built well

Built from How Slack Went From A Failed Game To A $28B Behemoth by Sid Arora (JAPM).