How Adam Charvat built a Slack app and sold it for upper five figures

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Adam Charvat didn't intend to start a business. He created Meet for Slack to solve a specific problem his team faced. But Adam's experience with this accidental business demonstrates the value of simplicity.

Meet for Slack was the right idea at the right time. Adam told us, "I think I launched at just the right time where there was a lot of need for a product like Meet for Slack, and whilst it really only does one core thing, it does it extremely well."

Adam's success growing and selling Meet for Slack is a reminder that relatively small projects can be extremely successful if they meet a need. Massive content-based websites and e-commerce shops aren't the only options for making money online.

Solving a Problem

In 2021, Adam, a London resident, worked in IT. He used Slack daily to communicate with teammates and colleagues, but Slack's lack of a built-in system for calls or meetings was frustrating. If Adam wanted to jump on a call, he had to get a link from Google Meet or Zoom and paste it into Slack.

Since no convenient solution was available, Adam decided to create one. He coded Meet for Slack, a Slack App that streamlined the process of creating calls and meetings without the need to get links from other platforms.

With the app installed, whenever a user types /meet in a Slack channel, the app creates a convenient Google Meet call for the channel's users.

Initially, Adam created Meet for Slack just for his team to use. Everyone loved it so much that Adam decided to offer it to other Slack users. He spent about two or three months working on the app in the evenings to go from an idea to a fully launched product.

Adam tried using Product Hunt to get exposure for the new app but gained very little traction with the launch. At this time, Adam offered the app for free and didn't plan to turn it into a business. He got the app listed in the Slack directory and stopped paying attention to it for a while.

To Adam's surprise, Meet for Slack got thousands of installs from the Slack directory, and Adam realized he was onto something significant. "Shortly after it launched," he said, "it got a lot of installs in the first few weeks from some companies whose names I recognized."

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Growing Meet for Slack

After a few months of organic growth, and now with thousands of users, Adam decided to turn Meet for Slack into a business. Although he didn't start the project to make money, he was interested in entrepreneurship. Most of his company's clients were founders, and Adam's interaction with them inspired him to try his own venture.

Adam added a paywall to Meet for Slack with three pricing tiers based on team size, with an enterprise subscription for the largest companies. Those who had been using the app for free continued to get free access for several months, but there was an upsell message with every meeting created.

Overall, the conversion rates from free to paid users were lower than Adam anticipated, but many paying users were in the enterprise plan with the highest price. Adam discovered that most of these companies already used Google Suite/Workspace and appreciated the convenient integration. And equally significant, the churn rate for the enterprise customers was lower than for users on other plans.

New Competition

In the fall of 2022, a few months after Adam began charging Meet for Slack users, Slack introduced Huddles, their own functionality for calls and meetings. Naturally, Adam was concerned about how Huddles would impact his business.

Meet for Slack generated about $1,800 per month in revenue when Huddles was released. By May of 2023, about six months later, Meet for Slack's revenue had increased to $2,200 per month despite the competition. Most of the enterprise users continued to see the value of Google integration, and this differentiating factor allowed the business to continue growing.

Selling the Business

In early 2023, Adam wanted to start a new project but felt like he was doing too much. He also wanted cash for other business ideas, so he decided to sell Meet for Slack.

Adam listed the business for sale on Acquire.com, a popular marketplace with a heavy emphasis on SaaS products and businesses. He received a lot of interest from potential buyers, but one of them stood out.

The initial offer was lower than what Adam was looking for, but some communication and negotiation allowed both parties to find an agreeable price. About a year and a half of running Meet for Slack, Adam sold the business for an upper five-figure amount.

The experience of starting, growing, and selling this business was truly life-changing for Adam. He says, "Meet Slack showed me that being an indie hacker can really work if you put your mind to it. A few months after I launched Meet Slack as a free product, I decided to quit my day job and only focus on running my businesses, which has been an incredible accelerator not only for my professional life but also for me personally. I feel way more relaxed. My life problems have somehow gone away, and having the freedom to do what, where, and when I want is something I never intend to lose."

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