
Ryver: Why we run negative ads against Slack - pat_sullivan
http://www.ryver.com/ryver-runs-negative-ads-slack/
======
jaredandrews
I'm not a Slack fanboy but this whole article reads like it was written in an
echo chamber where the word "free" has no definition.

> Ryver is entirely free. We give away what Slack charges a lot of money for.

> We’re a freemium model. We offer Ryver Team Communication for free and we
> will be charging money for add-on products such as a Task Manager.

So it's not "entirely free" the proper description would be "freemium".

Also from the FAQ:

> Then we will ship Ryver Enterprise for big companies. These will be priced
> very creatively and competitively.

BUT I THOUGHT THAT TEAM COMMUNICATION NEEDED TO BE FREEEEEEEE!

So once again, very clearly not free. Also "creatively" and "competitively",
is that another way to describe: "hard to understand"? Reminds me of sketchy
mattress dealers...

> The difference is that their free tier is a crippled product whereas our
> free level is a full product without limitations…

Okay..? I'm mean I see what they are saying but if I consider "task manager"
to be a requirement for team communication, then you too are selling me a
"crippled" product.

My key take away from this article is that Ryver is apparently the Donald
Trump of the team communication world. Lots of smoke and mirrors and very few,
if any, features that distinguish it from their competition.

But congrats, I guess... I now know the name of your company.

~~~
patsullivan
Team Communication does need to be free and does not "require" task
management. You will be able to mix and match so only the ones who need tasks
pay for it. The "creatively" word means we intend to price it so an Admin does
not have to make a decision on adding cost EVERY TIME one more person needs
Tasks.

Since Ryver team comm matches up very well against what Slack charges for, it
seems a reasonable (at least) claim to be entirely free vs Slack.

~~~
jaredandrews
Hmm... I strongly disagree with your assumptions. But, hackers have long
debated the meaning of the word "free", so who am I to say?

I guess we will have to update the Jargon file to include your curious new
definition, "free as in free when compared to specific things that Slack
Technologies Inc. sells".

------
centizen
I do not use Slack, Ryver or any other similar product, so I think I can
safely say I don't fall in to the "slack fanboy" demographic that this article
claims are upset by their ads.

That said, I think that running negative ads about your competition only shows
weakness in a company. Don't use your marketing to tell me negative things
about your competition, use it to tell me positive things about you. If you
can't do that, then the problem isn't that Slack is bad, it's that Ryver is
not strong enough to stand on it's own.

~~~
cloakandswagger
Negative ads can make sense if you're going up against one or two entrenched
competitors that own most of the market share.

That being said, the example ad shown in the article ("Slack is so last year.
Now it's Ryver") just made me angry. Anyone who has been in tech a while has
experienced this neurotic, senseless need to switch tooling every year because
some middle manager decided to.

~~~
asciihacker
> Negative ads can make sense if you're going up against one or two entrenched
> competitors that own most of the market share.

Like what Gett is doing: "We pay more than Uber!"

~~~
Kadin
"We pay more than Uber" isn't really, or at least not purely, a negative ad.
It's making a comparison, one that Gett comes away looking good in; and it's
really pointing out something that Gett does _better_ than Uber, not just
something that Uber does poorly.

I think that's a pretty strong approach.

------
qwertyuiop924
Here's the thing: Slack already won. Slack won before you were even on the
scene. Slack has won so thouroughly that it's winning converts from IRC, which
is largely the hardcore crowd, and is somewhat outside of Slack's target
market (team chat).

Bashing Slack isn't going to win you much in the way of customers, because all
it tells them is that you want to be Slack. They already know that. Everyone
on the playing field wants to be Slack, except IRC, which mostly doesn't care.
Instead, show your customers all the ways Slack is better. Ask them if Slack
has your awesome new feature that will increase their productivity tenfold.

If you want to kill the leader in the field, you have to give us a reason
you're better. And "they're so last year" isn't a reason, unless you're a
fashion product.

~~~
Bartweiss
When I read "Slack is so last year", my first thought was "Oh, so Ryver is
just this year's Slack." That's not a win, because I already _have_ Slack and
I don't need this year's trendy new version. That ad might have a high click-
through rate, but you need something better than click-through to sell an
enterprise client.

Pitching new features would be more appealing, but you have to actually have
new features that are good. Task management is nice, but there are lots of
Slack-integrable options already going.

As is, I'm really not sure what this pitch is supposed to say: "our well-
established competitor is well-established"? Sounds good to me.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Yeah. If there's one well-established option that works well, why would I
convert? As it stands, there are up to 3 well-established options, depending
on your domain: Slack, XMPP, and IRC.

------
jbob2000
Your comparison to Tuft and Needle is not very good. Everybody hates mattress
stores for their sleazy business practices; it's a given.

There's no unanimous hatred for Slack, however, so your ads come off as pretty
ignorant. We use slack at my company and have 0 problems with it. I am
perfectly aware of its limitations and I am fine with them.

Also, I have to download a desktop client to use Ryver? 2004 called and wants
their software back.

~~~
sidlls
Actually I would find a desktop client more appealing. I'm not a fan of
browsers-as-poorly-functioning-userlands-on-userlands that seems to be the
modern fad.

~~~
pavel_lishin
But Slack's desktop client is excellent. Furthermore, Ryver makes a big point
about guest access - and a browser client would be much better for guests than
a dedicated client they may only use once.

~~~
eli
HipChat has both: a web client and a native windows/mac client.

~~~
Bartweiss
Slack also - you can use it in browser. Most people don't want to, but I've
seen some people say that they do so much work there that it's nice to have a
browser tab visible.

------
8ytecoder
The first thing that stuck me watching TV in the US was negative ads. Drug ads
came next. It was so new to me at that time I was puzzled how they could even
use their trademarks[1]. I never felt compelled by any of these negative ads -
not a single one. It exposes more weakness in the attacking company and more
importantly it felt like - "Why are you guys buying that other product? We
make so much better product." \- as if the customer does not know what they
are doing (even if that were the case).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advertising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advertising)

~~~
mcherm
> I was puzzled how they could even use their trademark

Important point about trademark law: it is intended to prevent you from
fooling customers into thinking they are buying someone else's product, NOT to
prevent you from talking about someone else's product.

~~~
patsullivan
As long as you put TM on their logo you are fine to mention a competitor.

------
SamBam
> _Slack is so last year. Now it 's Ryver_

The me this ads makes me think that Ryver is claiming that all these services
are disposable products, to be thrown away for for the latest glittering gem.

While this may be true to a certain extent, I can't imagine that most
companies _want_ to think that the pain it took getting everybody over to
Slack was disposable effort, and that now they should be happy to move to
Ryver, and some other glittering ball next year.

To me, this makes me think Ryver itself is admitting it's just aiming to be
the latest buzz, and it expects some other buzz to be around next year.

...but the article claims it's their most effective ad, so I must be in the
minority there.

------
somenomadicguy
I guess it's hard to be relevant and get attention when your business model is
Yet Another Chat System. This sort of Bro- marketing, however, tends to linger
in the back of my head as a telling sign of how usable the product will be,
and what customer service will look like.

(edited for clarification of comment)

------
godzillabrennus
Striking up controversy in advertising is very effective for going viral.
Doesn't have to be a competitor, it can be an idea or methodology widely held
in an industry as well.

------
geofft
Team communication must be reliable. An infinite search history is useless if
you're going to end your incredible journey in six months.

If you were charging what Slack charges, I wouldn't trust you to win against
them. But you're going to undercut them by providing everything Slack does,
for free, and aligning your financial incentives with _another_ product? I've
been an engineer at a mismanaged startup run by a hotshot CEO before, I know
how this works and I know how much attention the zero-revenue product gets.

What your pricing tells me is that a) you have no interest in doing it as well
as Slack does, and I'm already less than 100% happy with the quality of
Slack's product, and b) you have much less chance of surviving than Slack
does.

I suppose I am one of the "Slack fanboys" because of this response I wrote on
Twitter
[https://twitter.com/geofft/status/679466421206687744](https://twitter.com/geofft/status/679466421206687744).
(Incidentally, that proves to me that you're lying, because that "so last
year" tweet is from 2015, and in this article you're arguing that it's okay
for you to say "so last year" because it's currently 2016 and you're talking
about 2015. Consider not lying?)

------
michaelmior
> I suspect that Ryver is now the third best-known brand in the new category
> of Team Communication.

Am I the only one that hadn't heard of Ryver before this post?

~~~
nickpsecurity
I didn't. Then they wrote a post about using negativity to get more attention
than just showing product's features. This one had basically zero comments and
karma when I saw it a few hours ago. It's at 50 comments with 45 karma now.
Most comments (i.e. attention) from people pissed off by its claims and
countering them. Much karma is likely coming from people who are pleased with
the controversy, simply agree with the point, or possibly upvoting it to make
their own negative, counters visible.

All illustrating the effect described in the article as nicely as I expected
when upvoting it. Or maybe it's something else but it looks awfully similar.
(evil grin)

------
nickpsecurity
Anyone doubting that controversy is effective should look at where the nice,
honest candidates for U.S. presidency currently are. I don't know as they
dropped off some time back while two remaining at the lead try to tap the
conflict button in people's brains almost every time they speak. There's more
to it than simply being controversial or aggressive: what you say or offer has
to fit needs of the audience in their minds. As always.

The linked marketing reads as if it's bluntly honest while also delivering a
backhand slap to the competition. Those often work. Many companies can't do it
because their business model is a bit too scheming. The Ryver deal seems
straight-forward based on what's presented here. So, they can do the brutally
honest and combative approach. No opinion on Slack vs Ryver specifically. My
comment is just about the marketing angle.

~~~
Bartweiss
I mean, this essay raises some questions about the "straightforward" claim.

When I hear "creative pricing", I don't think a company is artistic, I think
they're scamming me. Similarly, "free" is not "freemium" is not "competitive
enterprise pricing". I get what they're saying, and I like pay-for-new-
features way better than pay-for-unbroken-functionality.

But when your business model is _literally_ TBD, it's hard to take refuge in
having a straightforward offering.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"But when your business model is literally TBD, it's hard to take refuge in
having a straightforward offering."

Yeah, I smiled at that one. Weakest part of the article.

------
_audakel
"The best way to attack a competitor is to find their soft underbelly and tear
it to shreds with tooth and claw. Ideally, it’s something they are not able to
change in response to your attack. Slack’s soft underbelly is their pricing
model. "

------
sidlls
I have to say that having used Slack for clients' projects and as part of a
few political campaign teams, the primary value add is the organization of
meta-information (files) in the same client as the chat service. I'm not sure
I'd ever pay for that kind of service.

Also I've never clicked on a Ryver ad. I read the blog post linked here, and
while I find some merit in the idea that competition must be contrasted and
that we're wired to focus on conflict, the aggressiveness is off-putting.

------
gremlinsinc
The biggest problem with all of these I think is who owns the data, you're
much better getting Mattermost and creating your own inhouse system. It'd also
be much more secure - assuming you have the team to do so. I haven't looked
into it but how easy is it to get all chats from slack to ryver? Is there an
import? What if there were a protocol for that like imap ?

There's lots of room for disruption with this technology, but being the same
as slack in most things isn't it..

~~~
nickpsecurity
"The biggest problem with all of these I think is who owns the data"

Absolutely. It's why I'm against all of them. Best to have your communications
in an open, vendor-neutral form with at least one copy local so you can
guarantee access to anything critical. Indefinitely. Email already handles
that well kludgy as it is. Next solution needs to be able to as well.
Although, that's not required for popularity as we see with Slack, etc.

------
icelancer
Short-sighted marketing bullcrap like this is exactly why I got out of the
industry. It's an embarrassment.

------
subway
Such douchebaggery.

~~~
jasonmp85
The ad literally shows a geek-looking person aghast at a dudebro with a faux-
hawk. I don't know about everyone else here, but I intuitively identify with
the geek. Who is this targeting? It just increases my affinity with their
competition

------
iamben
If you're angering people on Facebook, isn't this going to cause them to hide
/ report your ad? Which in turn is going to effect your relevance score and
make everything waaaaaay more expensive?

~~~
patsullivan
No, only pissing people off on Twitter. We have been testing FB ads and to our
surprise our "tame" ads work very well there. We have not even tested the
dreaded, horribly offensive "so last year" on FB. Not sure the difference but
there is definitely a big diff between Twitter and FB audiences. Any ideas
why?

------
_audakel
"Marketing is war. You are fighting for your company’s life, by way of
attention and sales. If you aren’t willing to go to war, you might as well
surrender and go home and knit cat stuff for Etsy."

~~~
marcoperaza
Amazing line, and the next one too: "The best way to attack a competitor is to
find their soft underbelly and tear it to shreds with tooth and claw."

I'm kind of tired of every company trying to present themselves as the nicest
guys in town. This is much better.

~~~
patsullivan
Ha! I like that Marco. "nicest guys in town." Nice guys finish last? Fact is
if everyone here knew us personally, they'd say we a nice guys. But when faced
with the daunting, dubious task of taking on Slack this strategy made the most
sense. And it is working. If it wasn't we'd have stopped a long time ago.
Marketing is hard but fun stuff. Thanks!

------
saddestcatever
Interesting choice in stock photos. I'd almost prefer no photos at all (text
only post) as opposed to a bunch of tangentially related generic stock photos
that pull attention away from the relevant content (text)

------
ChuckMcM
It is an interesting question, I disagree with just about everything in the
article.

The question is this, if you have to essentially identical goods, and neither
price nor features are sufficient to differentiate them, how do you change
market share?

I spent some time embedded in Sun's marketing group and that taught me that
classically this is called product positioning. It is marketing's task to
create a system for "scoring" the products, contextualize this in terms that
the market accepts as legitimate, and then shows how the product scores better
than the competition (positions it ahead of the competition). When you are
effective at this, you can "drive" your competitors, by forcing them to spend
time creating competitive features which you already have in order to counter
your marketing message.

So for chat programs I'm surprised that Ryver (already at a disadvantage with
a crappy name) doesn't try to define some new standard of excellence and then
market leadership in that standard, say "we encrypt all of your chats so even
we cannot tell what you're talking about." or "pre-built integration api in
more languages" Etc. Some features that then can use to say they are better
than Slack when using that score. Looking at the Tuft & Needle example the
article uses, the billboards get the attention but the positioning is "the
competitors rip you off and we don't."

The Ryver positioning is "We are free for things that you have to pay Slack
for."

Which might be effective except there is a trail of people with scars where
they used some 'free' component of something, and then it was suddenly "not
free" or "no longer available" as the team was acqui-hired. So "we are more
free" is in fact a big red flag to a lot of people that the company is
clueless and has no future. To make the message more robust, it would need to
be something like "We are already a profitable company based on these other
products we're selling, as a result we can offer you the same thing Slack
charges for, for free."

But I doubt they could do that. It is likely that somewhere there is a data
scientist who has a spreadsheet that says "x% of our free customers buy y% of
our upsold products, if we could get to 'z' active users, _and the ratio
holds_ we will be able to continue in business." But anyone who has been in a
startup or watched a startup knows there is unlimited demand for 'free' and
just boosting the MAU numbers with "tricks" rarely boosts the sales rate. This
is because the tricks don't bring in customers who are genuinely hearing the
message, it brings in customers who fall for the trick. And those sorts of
tricks are the things that make "growth hacking" a pejorative in some places.

Bottom line, I get the whole "if nobody knows you exist, nothing else
matters." kind of mindset that will lead to creating awareness, but it only
works if you can effectively position your product to take market share from
the incumbent. That seems to be missing.

~~~
rarrrrrr
> "we encrypt all of your chats so even we cannot tell what you're talking
> about."

FWIW, the bit about end to end encryption (including channel names, attachment
meta data, etc.) and being created by an established company with other
profitable products describes SpiderOak's Semaphor pretty well.

------
asciihacker
First and probably last time I ever heard of Ryver. I thought Discord was
something like Slack?

~~~
Bartweiss
Discord is Skype or Teamspeak, plus a bit of Slack.

It's largely targeted at gaming, as a way to put together a chatroom, a group
call, and Steam integration fluidly. I could actually see it as a work client,
but mostly it's the easiest group-gaming-chat product going.

