The Customer Who Almost Killed Slack, Stripe, and Airbnb
Early customers of Slack, Stripe, and Airbnb placed enormous demands that nearly caused each startup to fail. Slack's deal with eBay, Stripe's integration with a major client, and Airbnb's early platform struggles forced them to scale rapidly or collapse.
Background
- This article tells the story of an early, demanding customer who pushed each of three now-iconic startups (Slack, Stripe, Airbnb) to the brink of collapse during their early days, by requesting features or changes that nearly derailed the company.
- **Slack**: A workplace messaging and collaboration platform that launched in 2013 and became one of the fastest-growing enterprise software products ever. It was acquired by Salesforce in 2021 for $27.7B.
- **Stripe**: An online payments processing company founded in 2010 by brothers Patrick and John Collison. It is currently one of the most valuable private fintech companies in the world, valued at over $50B.
- **Airbnb**: A peer-to-peer home rental marketplace founded in 2008. It went public in 2020 and is currently worth around $75B.
- The "customer who almost killed them" trope is a well-known cautionary tale in startup lore: a single large customer (often referred to as a "whale" or "elephant") can demand so much customization or attention that it distracts the company from building a scalable product for the broader market, potentially leading to failure even if the customer's own business succeeds.