Ryver, a team communication software platform, is looking to make their mark in the team collaboration tool market and have their crosshairs on Slack.
Ryver came out of beta last week and released their product for all to use for free. While the company plans to convert Slack users, they are also targeting small businesses that use email as their primary chat method because they don’t have the budget to pay for Team Communication.
CEO and founder Pat Sullivan acknowledges that Slack is a “really good product and will take us time to match, but we do some important things really well.”
[youtube]https://youtu.be/NXC8FiKWgtU[/youtube]
Difference between Ryver and Slack via Ryver YouTube
Slack is currently valued over $2 billion, they have raised up to $160 million in capital and have more than 135,000 paying customers at an average of $6.67 per person according to the Wall Street Journal.
With three years and a $9 million investment in Ryver already on the table, the decision to change their original tiered pricing model to free was a hard pill to swallow, but it had to be done, Sullivan explained.
Sullivan’s free model strategy is about the ability for teams have the flexibility to grow or reduce their members, invite who they need in the conversation and spread information quickly and effectively in order to be successful-and not in the form of email.
“There has to be no hesitation to share communication or have limits from any commanding source or budget to build teams in order to spread information,” Sullivan said. “The impact of Ryver on [a company] is huge because you can spread out the conversation to the edges of your organization.”
With Slack, users eventually have to pay if they want a larger number of users, guests, chats and searches.
With Ryver, there are no limitations; users can chat to their heart’s delight with as many people and as many outside guests, have unlimited storage and search, and total control of their communication platform.
Ryver also threw in team collaborative features for free such as, creating open and private conversations, a centralized notification center and organizing team conversations, chats, files, graphics into a single location.
The platform integrates natively with Google Drive & Hangouts, Dropbox and Box and supports Zapier for integrations with over 400 applications. Ryver also intends to release its Open API this Fall.
So how will Ryver make money?
Sullivan said they built Ryver for collaboration and plan to sell the Ryver Task Manager as an add-on starting in Q4 of 2015. “Task management integrating into team communication is powerful, but not everyone needs it.”
As for slaying the behemoth in the room, Sullivan said “[Slack] is one that discovered the space that’s called Team Communication. They overwhelmed of all the players who were there. It’s not a matter of killing Slack and taking over the number one position, I don’t have to, I can be a solid number two or three in the space-but there will be a couple of very big multiple winners. We had the luxury of watching the battle and time to build a product that is better than Slack.”
Read more coverage of Ryver at AZ Tech Beat.
Read more coverage of Pat Sullivan here.