RitualBot
As described:StopNarrowed:NarrowNo as described. Go, small, as anonymous questions for Microsoft Teams.
internal communications · ~$70 a month per paying organisation · last reviewed (next review by 29 Dec 2026) · 35 cited sources
Start this week
- Tell me your hours per week available, whether you've shipped a Teams or Slack app before, and whether you know 10 people who run all-hands at organisations on Teams.
- List 30 organisations of 100–2,000 people that run on Microsoft 365, and book 10–15 calls with the person who runs their all-hands. Ask how they collect questions today and what goes wrong.
- Build the manual pilot kit: an anonymous Microsoft Form, a moderation sheet, and an Adaptive Card template that posts the ranked questions back to a Teams channel.
- Open a Microsoft Partner Center account, start publisher verification, and prove you can post an Adaptive Card from a multi-tenant bot into a channel in a test tenant.
Checkpoints and kill gates
Decide in advance what counts as on track. Missing a checkpoint means changing the buyer or the offer, not adding features.
Day 30
~15 hrs/week
10 buyer calls, 3 paid pilot question windows
Full-time
15 calls, 5 paid pilots
If you miss it
Switch the buyer once, to internal-comms agencies that run all-hands for clients. Missing twice means stop.
Day 90
~15 hrs/week
Teams app submitted to the Store, 3 paying organisations, IT approval in ≥2 of them
Full-time
Submitted, 5 paying, IT approval in ≥3
If you miss it
Cut to the single most-used flow (usually the all-hands question window).
Month 6
~15 hrs/week
$500 MRR, ≥15% trial-to-paid
Full-time
$1k MRR, ≥15% trial-to-paid
If you miss it
Pivot A: the Slack port now, as a second listing, if pilots say Teams IT approval is the blocker. Pivot B: per-event pricing ($49 per all-hands) alongside the subscription.
Month 12
~15 hrs/week
$1.5k MRR, ≤3% monthly logo churn, 10+ reviews
Full-time
$3k MRR, ≤3% churn, 15+ reviews
If you miss it
Stop adding features. Fix the listing, onboarding and churn. A profitable $1–3k app is a valid outcome.
Month 18
~15 hrs/week
$2.5k MRR
Full-time
$5k MRR
If you miss it
Put everything into the best source of trials. Decide on the Slack port.
Month 24
~15 hrs/week
$4k MRR
Full-time
$7k MRR
If you miss it
Above target with churn ≤3%: aim for the $10k rung in year 3 through the second platform. $1–4k: run it on a few hours a month. Below $1k: stop, or sell the app (small SaaS sells for a median 3.9× profit on Acquire.com).
Do
1.Make anonymous questions the product, on Microsoft Teams. One job: "let staff ask leadership the hard question without their name on it, and let leadership answer in the open."
Target: Every listing line and screenshot says "anonymous questions", not "engagement"
Why: Teams channels have no native anonymous posting (confirmed on Microsoft's own Q&A forum). Teams' anonymous options are survey-shaped (Forms, Polly, Team Survey) or tied to a live town hall.
2.Choose Teams over Slack for v1. Port to Slack only after the month-12 gate.
Target: Teams Store listing live by week 10–12
Why: Slack has at least 6 anonymous-message apps, led by Abot. Slack now requires Marketplace listing for commercial apps, 10 active installs before review, and a functional review of up to 10 weeks. Teams had 320M monthly users (Microsoft, Oct 2023).
3.Build for the all-hands cycle. A "question window" opens before each all-hands, people upvote, the host sees a ranked list, and answers post back to the channel.
Target: ≥60% of paying organisations run ≥1 question window a month
Why: It turns an episodic tool into a monthly habit. Teams' native town-hall Q&A only works inside the live event.
4.Engineer anonymity so you can't break it. Store no sender identity. Use a per-tenant salted hash that rotates weekly, only for rate limits. Publish the design.
Target: Zero stored user IDs next to post content. A public "how anonymity works" page on day 1.
Why: Trust is the whole product. If you can't know who posted, no admin, lawyer or breach can make you reveal it.
5.Price per organisation, in flat tiers: Team $29/mo (≤100 people), Business $79/mo (≤500), Organisation $199/mo (≤2,000), Enterprise custom. Annual = 10× monthly. 14-day free trial.
Target: Blended ≥$70 per paying organisation. ≥40% on annual by month 12.
Why: Slack comparables sit at $7–120 a month (Abot $19/$49/$99, Anonymous Bot $50–120, OpenSay $79 for ≤50 members). Teams organisations are larger and expect per-tenant pricing.
6.Sell through a Microsoft SaaS offer and through Stripe. Link the offer to the Teams app.
Target: ≥30% of revenue through the Microsoft marketplace by month 12
Why: The fee is 3%. Buyers can pay on their existing Microsoft invoice, which removes procurement friction at 500+ person organisations.
7.Sell before you build. Run the question window by hand for 3 pilot organisations, using a Microsoft Form and a curated Teams post, for a fee.
Target: 3 paid pilots by day 30
Why: It proves someone pays for the ritual before you spend 6 weeks on a bot.
8.Moderate by default. New posts wait in a queue for a named moderator. Add a filter for names, slurs and personal data.
Target: Zero published posts that name a colleague without moderator approval
Why: Anonymous channels attract harassment. One screenshot of an unmoderated attack ends the account and the review score.
9.Make IT approval easy. Minimal permissions, a one-page security summary, a Microsoft 365 publisher attestation by month 6, and a pre-written "request this app" message for users to send to IT.
Target: ≥50% of trial requests approved by IT within 14 days
Why: Teams admins can block third-party apps, and users must request them. Admins are shown attested and certified apps first.
10.Own the exact searches: "anonymous questions Microsoft Teams", "post anonymously in Teams", "all-hands Q&A Teams". Answer the recurring questions on Microsoft Q&A and Tech Community.
Target: 8 guides by month 6. ≥40% of trials from search.
Why: People already ask Microsoft how to do this. The native answer is "you can't in channels".
11.Automate operations from day one: self-serve install, in-app onboarding, templated replies, and billing managed by Microsoft or Stripe.
Target: ≤1 support ticket per 10 paying organisations a month
Why: Abot runs on ~5 hours a month. That's only possible if nothing needs a human.
12.Hold the "not a whistleblowing channel" line. Say "anonymous questions and feedback", never "whistleblower hotline", "compliant reporting channel" or "HR investigation tool".
Target: Zero compliance claims in the listing
Why: Legal reporting channels have statutory duties (EU Whistleblower Directive: acknowledgement and feedback deadlines, not re-verified in this run). You can't meet them in a chat app.
Avoid
1.A generic "ritual bot", or several rituals in one app
Why: Each ritual has its own leaders, and a bundle makes the listing unclear. Karma and Geekbot are broad because they have teams.
2.Standups
Why: Geekbot has a free plan for up to 10 people and charges $2.50–3 per participant. DailyBot and Standuply have free plans. Slack AI recaps are now in all paid Slack plans.
3.Kudos on Teams
Why: Microsoft's Praise app is built into Teams for every licensed user. On Slack, Karma, HeyTaco and Bonusly are established.
4.Birthdays and celebrations
Why: Low willingness to pay, many free bots (BirthdayBot, CultureBot, Donut), and the job happens once a year per person.
5.On-call handoffs
Why: The buyers live inside PagerDuty, incident.io, Rootly or Jira Service Management, which already post shift changes to chat. Opsgenie ends on 5 Apr 2027, and its customers are being moved into Jira Service Management.
6.Slack first
Why: It's the most crowded version of this wedge. Anonymous Bot has 11 paying subscriptions after 6 years. Slack's 2025 terms, the 10-install review minimum and a review of up to 10 weeks slow a new entrant down.
7.Storing who posted, or a "reveal identity" feature for admins
Why: It destroys the product's promise, and it makes you a target for legal demands.
8.Marketing as a whistleblowing or harassment-reporting channel
Why: Statutory duties, liability and a buyer (legal and compliance) who wants specialist vendors.
9.Using message content to train models, or sending it to third-party AI without a no-retention agreement
Why: Slack's rules ban training models on Slack data. Teams buyers will ask the same question. It breaks the trust promise.
10.A free forever plan or lifetime deals
Why: Abot's 98% free installs create support load without revenue. Use a 14-day trial.
11.Per-user pricing below 500 people
Why: It makes a $29 purchase look like a procurement item. Flat tiers match what the buyer expects from Abot and OpenSay.
12.Paid ads before month 6
Why: The audience is tiny and hard to target. Search and the Teams Store are the channels.
13.Google Chat, Zoom or Webex versions before $5k MRR
Why: Each platform is a new review process, a new permission model and new support.
14.Adding features when a checkpoint fails
Why: A miss means the wrong buyer or the wrong platform. Change that.