Sparkly
Connect people in the same Slack team based on interests
We've pushed a major update for Sparkly today. What. A. Ride. 🎢
In essence, we've changed the core of the product entirely: interests. Whereas before you could select one of the most popular 10 interests, you can now explore all interests, add your own, and manage your current interests. And all of this in a new UI as well.
What is that 'and...' in the title, you say 🤔? I sent out a message to all users that have used Sparkly, close to 2000 users in total. And halfway through, there was a time-out error, yikes! Luckily I could replicate what was sent already and what wasn't. And so could continue the process with a minor code adjustment. Pheew. 🥳
Problem during a production release? Check. A slight moment of panic? Check. Survived and got out better at the other end? Check! I guess this makes Sparkly more like a proper startup now 😅
Want to know what we're up to next? We've got a new, public roadmap here 👉 https://sparkly.kampsite.co/
🎇Sparkly is featured on the Slack App Directory home page under the category 'Brilliant Bots' and at the top of the Brilliant Bots category!
📊It will last for 14 days.
👉https://slack.com/apps
👉https://slack.com/apps/category/At0EFT6813-brilliant-bots
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Well done!
Did you do anything, in particular to get featured? Or did it just get selected from the Slack team?-
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Hello @gainsightsPatrick.
I've been active in the slack developer communities and had some contacts. After asking about it and some back & forth, they mentioned that they'll put me on a featured position soon. In between that and the actual feature now was roughly 3 weeks. You can probably get a hold of them through feedback@slack.com too.
All the best :)
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We've been added to the new Work From Home category on the Slack App Directory. In terms of exposure, that is a major step forward for Sparkly!
https://slack.com/apps/category/AtVCT88N5T-working-from-home
We're also working hard on a new release, which will include many improvements based on early feedback. More on that soon!
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Congrats man! You'll start seeing some decent organic traffic. See if you can optimise your title and description on the Slack Store so that you get more out of this.
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Hey @shiva_prabhakaran, thank you! I had some time to go through other apps that are doing well and I also realised that I have to improve the descriptions. Currently, it's not concise enough, I think.
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Because many businesses temporarily switch to WFH, we've decided to make the change from one match moment per week to five match moments per week as a maximum. This way, more connections can be made in a short amount of time in your Slack space.
Working from home is essential in these turbulent times. Still, it can also magnify loneliness, mental health problems and lower morale because many won't see their colleagues for a long time.
Sparkly had a major update today that includes a change in our pricing plan. We changed it from a price per month to a price per user per month ($1/user/month). This corresponds better with the Slack pricing model, is a more transparent way of pricing and helps us scale better.
Furthermore, we've migrated to Slack's new oAuth permission system and filled in the Security Compliance forms (both are due for 12-12-2020, but we want to be on time!).
Besides that, the web Dashboard got a make-over, as well as our Website, Sparkly tries to motivate users more to submit their interests, the onboarding has been re-built and we've enhanced both performance and fixed bugs.
Check it out! 👉 https://sparklybot.com
Sparkly is receiving it's first minor update:
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We are switching from Slack's oAuth2 v1 to oAuth2 v2 and along with that, granular scoping. This means that Sparkly can ask for more precise permissions and explain better why it needs them.
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Preparations for a bigger update down the road.
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Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Unfortunately, I did not realize that a new account that would post in 'Show HN' would not get as many upvotes. Because of this, Sparkly didn't reach the home page and we got very little traffic.
Perhaps I should try again at a later time.
Today we launch Sparkly on Product Hunt. Almost right away, we got featured on the home page! Fourteen Slack spaces installed us thus far and we received over a hundred upvotes. All-in-all, it has been a good day.
The most important next step is to obtain feedback on how to improve Sparkly and keep the momentum as long as possible!
Sparkly just got accepted into the Slack App Directory! This means that anyone can now install it in their Slack space!
The road up until this point is a familiar one for me (making a product) but the road ahead is a different story. I will have to get better at marketing and sales in order to get Sparkly off the ground and see if I can validate the concept.
It did take some revisions and minor changes in order to be accepted. However, I am pleasantly surprised by the attention to detail from Slack because this means that the App Directory does only contain apps that have been thoroughly reviewed.
The first version of Sparkly is built. After roughly two months, the Slack App, as well as the website, log in with slack and payment system are up and running.
Sparkly was just submitted into the Slack App Directory, this is the marketplace for all apps that run on Slack. I must say, it is quite a list of requirements to fulfill in order to be eligible for the App Directory, but hopefully well-worth it!
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