Darius Contractor Joins to Unpack Arc's Viral Loops and Show the Slack Redesign Haters They’re Wrong

This week, Brian and Fareed are joined by Darius Contractor, the current Chief Growth Officer at Otter.ai. Darius has a background in growth, product, and engineering, and his experience spans some of the world's most notable companies. These include early social media platform Bebo and renowned unicorns like Facebook, Dropbox, and Airtable.

This week, we're all about the praise 🙌!

1️⃣ First, we're discussing why Arc is succeeding in a market crowded with powerful incumbents.

2️⃣ Next, we're defending Slack's redesign against the wave of criticism in our Slack channels and X comments.

Plus, Brian, Fareed, and Darius will each share their favorite viral memories 🚀

And, we're getting an exclusive preview of Darius' new mental model focused on gravity 🧑‍🚀

🔥 Arc browser is stirring things up...and here's why it's a game changer.

👣 Virality is in its DNA 👣 Arc nails the concept of virality by creating a value exchange where both the sender and receiver of shared content benefit. As Darius quips, "when things go viral, you want to make the person who sends the virality look smart and the person who receives the virality get some like quota of value, right?"

🎯 Super Serving a Niche Audience (Fareed) 🎯 Arc effectively caters to a specific ideal customer profile, the tech enthusiast. It facilitates quick link finding, enables seamless multitasking, and maintains links and thoughts at the forefront with Spaces. Even minor details, such as their AI feature that intuitively renames downloads, impress their core audience. As Fareed eloquently puts it, "And I was like, that was really cool.”

🎮Browser Goes Multiplayer 🎮 Arc transforms the traditional browser experience into a multiplayer experience. It’s like the Stone Soup of Virality, Darius Notes. Everyone can contribute a little something difference, and the value of the whole increases.

✨ UI Tweaks for The Win ✨ Minor tweaks in the UI, like moving the navigation bar to the left, make the browsing experience more user-friendly. It's a simple yet effective change that taps into trends in screen sizes. "The left nav makes sense because screens are getting wider... So it just makes sense to use the extra width as the kind of browser bar."

In this episode, we delve deeper into Arc, its unique features, and potential impact. We also highlight key insights that founders or product leaders should take note of.

We're here to defend Slack

Everyone's favorite workplace messenger has moved the cheese, and the world has been set ablaze.

Slack's redesign hits the validity bar. First, what is the point of a redesign? It has to do two things to be worth upsetting customers. 1️⃣ it has to solve a core user problem and 2️⃣ it has to set Slack up for a strategic benefit.

In our view, this solves numerous problems. 1️⃣ ✅

The redesign is a game-changer for power users, by making DMs and activity more front and center. It also enables users with multiple workspaces to toggle more seamlessly between the workspaces. And finally, it gets rid of the sequence problems with Threads (Darius can't even open his threads unless he's prepared to get through all of them because they are so hard to track).

We also feel it's setting up for a Strategic Benefit, although it's hard to be certain this early 2️⃣ ✅

It solves a major problem for enterprise clients who might be in multiple workspaces per company. And, the redesign could be seen as Slack's attempt to make space for non-messaging type features.

💪 Word to the wise - Immediate praise for redesigns is rare, so don't expect them. For those doing a redesign, just know no matter how good it is, people will be upset. So make sure you brace for impact and have clear communication.

To listen to their complete discussion on Slack, hear epic virality stories, and discover Darius' new mental model about gravity, tune into the full episode on your preferred platform.

Stijn Grove, Chairman Kickstart Europe Conference: Kickstart Conference 2025