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I banned email at my startup

by thomasknoll on 9/18/14, 5:51 PM with 16 comments

by comptly on 9/18/14, 6:05 PM
Disclaimer: I work for @thomasknoll.
This was a huge plus when I decided to join the company. I've never been more productive and less distracted. I get to focus on work, instead of a daily deluge of emails some of which inevitably get lost.
Another benefit of moving this all to Slack, for me, is that the team communicates way more transparently than I've seen at any other company. We're plugged into what is going on (if we want to be), and the politics of "who is on what email thread" essentially evaporates. I use private messages on slack sometimes for super-sensitive stuff, but that's only happened a few times since I came on board.
Biggest downside? It's gonna suck if I ever have to take a job at a company with entrenched email culture :-(.
by jacquesm on 9/18/14, 6:29 PM
Interesting approach. How would you propose to interface with the rest of the world where not having email is about as strange as not having a fax was a decade ago?
```
  - customers
 
  - prospects

  - end users

  - recruiting

  - registrars

  - suppliers
```
That's a genuine question, I'd love to get off the email treadmill completely and just getting rid of the corporate component would be great.
I see that you're still doing 'email for external communications' but that's where the pain point lies for me, internal is manageable.
by byoung2 on 9/18/14, 6:04 PM
The pain points you list about email are the same ones we're addressing with our startup MorphMail. Because email cant do everything we want it to, we end up using several tools. MorphMail is an attempt to make a tool that handles multiple use cases elegantly. Check it out at https://www.morphmail.com and get on the list to join our beta!
by nanoscopic on 9/18/14, 7:21 PM
How do you keep track of performance metrics for tasks? I used trello at a previous job, and had issues when there are many tasks, ensuring that tasks are actually getting done in reasonable amounts of time.
I personally liked having lots of checkbox subtasks on trello tasks to show continuing progress, but no one else at the company used that feature.
by exelius on 9/18/14, 6:23 PM
How do you manage communication with people outside your company? Many of us are in roles that require us to communicate with people both internal and external to our organizations. Many of the external people I deal with would not be willing to use an additional tool just to communicate.
by nebyoolae on 9/18/14, 6:43 PM
The title is somewhat misleading (it's catchy, though), but I agree with your points and think that while email is still a great catch-all communication tool, there are better ones when you're actually trying to work in a team on many projects.
by alexisnorman on 9/18/14, 7:03 PM
Though we haven't banned email at the startup I work for, we have a very similar communication process (Slack, Trello and Pivotal Tracker). Makes things feel a lot more productive and personable with one another.
by porterhaney on 9/18/14, 5:56 PM
How do you manage official communications internally? Announcements, HR, etc?
by thomasknoll on 9/18/14, 5:51 PM
aaand we’ve never been happier. =)