The Super App

In 2019’s Q3, Uber lost $543,478 every single hour.

In order to turn a profit, Uber’s intention is to diversify and offer other services that help get them in the black. You’ve likely heard of (or used) UberEats. They also offer UberFreight, a service that matches carriers with shippers. If someone needs to make money but doesn’t own a car, they can check out UberWorks and make money as a prep cook or customer service associate.

If you need to travel a short distance, you can hop on Uber’s JUMP e-scooters and e-bikes. If you need to travel a far distance, you can hail an Uber helicopter in certain cities.

Just this month, Uber even announced ‘Uber Money’ – which is responsible for everything pertaining to financial products. It can oversee the Uber credit card, debit card, a wallet for drivers, Uber Pay, Uber Cash, and any other financial products/services the company may choose to later deploy.

Many factions are transportation-related, but the others are not. As Uber leaps into Uber Money, it seems like they’re vying for the spot of ‘American SuperApp’. It’s one of the only ways to maintain or grow their current valuation. When we look at foreign-counterparts, other companies have already established this level dominance; particularly in Asian countries.

China has WeChat, a multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment app. While it started out as a messaging service, it ultimately transformed into an app where you can do everything from payments to hailing a ride. Now, it offers thousands of mini-programs to address everything on their way to becoming a one-stop-shop.

In Indonesia (the world’s 4th largest country by population), people use Go-Jek. It is Southeast Asia’s leading on-demand multi-service platform and digital payment SuperApp that started by offering rides.

Go-Jek handles payments, food delivery, transportation, and logistics. Sound familiar?

UberEats is great but Dara Khosrowshahi is using it to vie for the status of SuperApp. Is Uber reaching for a status to that of China’s WeChat? Well, they appear to be copying the playbook.

So what is a Super App? It’s a single application that addresses as many of your needs as it possibly can. It’s one central tool to reduce your need to learn 10 different user interfaces and passwords.

It’s easy to think Uber is vying to be seen as North America’s First Super App. There’s only one problem. They’re not North America’s First – and they are definitely not America’s best. While Uber caters to individuals, Slack caters to businesses. We believe that title belongs to Slack.

Slack integrates the most important tools of anyone’s day. It condenses them into a single application. Uber tries to invent new things that you don’t already use. For example, how often is your team planning to use a helicopter this upcoming month? Your co-workings are already using JIRA. Life’s easier when you simply integrate such tools into Slack.

Slack successfully brings all the most useful features into one common communication system. It replaces email with a messaging process that can easily (and securely) access your entire repertoire of tools, applications, and software. So what are the best applications, integrations, tools, and bots on Slack right now?

Google Drive – Get notifications about Google Drive files within Slack.

Google Calendar – Shared calendar for your team.

Zoom – Video meetings with instant screen sharing from any Slack channel or private group using the /zoom slash command.

JIRA Integration+ – Assign, Comment, Log time, Transition, and Edit JIRA issues from Slack. Replaces Jira emails with actionable Slack messages

YALA – A social media marketing tool that uses AI to find the ideal time to post on multiple channels. A scheduling tool that automatically repeats high-engagement behaviors.

Troops – Updates SalesForce, create alerts, and use your SalesForce reports in Slack

GrowthBot – Connects to HubSpot Marketing, Google Analytics, and Mailchimp to provide numbers related to website traffic. Answers to questions like ‘How many visitors did we receive today?’ and ‘How much traffic came from organic search?’

CodeStream – Cuts code review time in half by sharing code via Slack. Highlight your code in IDE to ask a question and it’ll get posted to the Slack channel of your choice.

Morgan – Automates any type of meetings and introduces AI to help keep your board clean and meetings quick. The tool can track team performance over time and makes intelligent suggestions to keep everyone on track.

New integrations, boots, and tools are available every week. As new companies realize the staying power they can achieve by integrating with Slack, more and more tools will become present in the Slack Application Directory.

No two companies look the same when it comes to their administrative/bureaucratic internal systems. Slack aims to do the impossible by ultimately bridging the gap to each of these tools.

Slack is actually an acronym – Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. Any company could tell you that successful integration is a vital part of their knowledge.

Slack’s popularity and ease of use allow them to enter any company’s workspace. But it’s the deep integrations that stop companies from ever getting rid of the tool.

Slack is North America’s first Super App. They’re not losing $543,478/hour to do it, either.