@DerreckStratton @adamwathan @paulsingh @lkr But this (literally) happens all the time.

ICQ, Campfire, Yammer, Hipchat, Skype Chat...

All came before Slack. The customer demand for "group chat" had been building for decades.

When Microsoft bought Yammer (2012), it had 5 million users.

Slack still raised lots of money.