Slack
Hard to leave Stage 2
Slack delivered real surplus for distributed teams—searchable history, integrations, humane defaults. Today the lock-in is organizational: your company’s memory lives in threads, and competitors can’t easily replay years of context. AI upsells and pricing tiers add extraction pressure, but the core story is stage 2.
- Since
- 2013
- Function
- Productivity
- VC-backed
- Yes
- Public
- Since 2019 (NYSE: WORK)
- Acquired by
- Salesforce (2021)
News signals
More in Productivity
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Figma
2 Hard to leaveCollaborative design in the browser; files, libraries, and plugins embed teams so deeply that leaving feels like a migration project.
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Notion
2 Hard to leaveFlexible docs and databases users love; leaving means migrating templates, permissions, and team workflows—sticky by design.
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Obsidian
1 Plenty for usersLocal-first note-taking app; files stay on your device in plain Markdown, sync and publish are optional paid add-ons, and the core product is free for personal use with no VC pressure.
