About Caraway
Remote-first, design-forward, and scaling fast
Caraway is a fast-growing, modern cookware company on a mission to make every home non-toxic through beautifully designed, chemical-free kitchen products. Launched in 2019, the company has scaled rapidly as a fully remote team with a focus on innovation, creativity, and customer experience.
“We started with Slack before we launched the brand. From day one, it was a no-brainer for how we wanted to operate.”
The challenge
Scaling from 4 to 90 employees without IT or a playbook
Caraway launched as a remote-first company in late 2019, just before distributed work became the norm. From the start, everything ran through Slack: status updates, product feedback, quick decisions, even spontaneous team chatter. “Slack was a lifeline for how we built culture, ran ops, and scaled,” said Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Avallon.
As Caraway grew from a handful of employees to nearly 90, the way people worked inside Slack had to evolve. Product cycles moved fast, partners spanned time zones, and departments needed to stay aligned without adding layers of management. With no IT team, they relied on lightweight tools and scrappy problem-solving to keep work moving.
As Caraway grew, so did the complexity of the work and the number of people involved in each project. More launches, more partners, and more conversations meant the team needed to work differently in Slack. What started as fast, free-flowing collaboration began to take on more structure: channels got more intentional, workflows replaced manual steps, and information became easier to find and act on.
“Slack keeps scaling with us. It’s not something we’ve outgrown — it’s something we’ve grown into.”
How Mural works better in Slack
40+ workflows, 3 continents, and 1 shared system of work
From manual tasks to scalable workflows
As the company scaled, Caraway started to unlock more of Slack’s potential, building workflows, layering in tools, and tightening how teams worked. “Slack is the one tab that’s always open,” said Nancy Gurd, Director of Customer Experience. “It’s where we work, where we chat, where we celebrate, where we troubleshoot. It’s everything.”
To reduce noise and manual effort, teams built systems for repeatable work. Customer feedback is now tagged and routed through emoji reactions, cross-functional updates are scheduled weekly, and quick polls help drive product decisions.
“Every Monday, I have 40 scheduled messages that go out to different teams to start the week,” said VP of Operations Mark Riskowitz. The result is fewer status meetings, clearer priorities, and a faster start to the week for every team.
A wide range of workflows keep work moving consistency across functions. “For example, if a team member needs a product replacement, they can trigger it in a Slack workflow,” said Gurd. “A few clicks, no emails, no follow-ups.”
Even Founder and CEO Jordan Nathan uses workflows to streamline inbound requests. “My team submits what they need, and it syncs with our project management system,”he said. “It helps me stay focused.”
Connecting teams, partners, and people
Slack Connect extends those same habits to partners and vendors, helping external collaborators plug into Caraway’s systems with no extra setup. “Slack democratizes collaboration at Caraway,” said Avallon. “You don’t need to be in the room or on someone’s calendar to weigh in on an idea.”
Slack also integrates with key tools like Shopify, Postscript, and Asana to bring data into context, right where work happens. Teams no longer chase updates or toggle between tabs. Scheduled messages, reminders, and custom channels keep the company organized without relying on meetings or follow-ups. “We’ve made some of the biggest decisions in the company entirely in Slack, from products to partnerships to pricing,” said Avallon.
Over time, Slack has also become a living knowledge base. “Our CX team can go into a Slack channel, search a past question, and get the answer immediately,” said Gurd. “That’s saving us hours each week.”
And it supports more than just execution. Channels like #pets, #kudos, and #book-club give people a place to connect, share wins, and show personality, custom emoji included. New hires are paired through Donut and instantly plugged into Caraway’s rhythms. “Slack helped me get up to speed quickly,” said Customer Experience Manager Ashley Harris. “As a new hire, I could read through past threads, meet people through Donut, and feel immersed in the culture.”
“Slack helps us deliver on our mission: It keeps the whole team aligned, excited, and connected to what matters.”
What’s next
Supporting 30+ product launches without adding headcount
Caraway continues to grow ambitiously while staying remote-first, with Slack at the center of how work gets done. As new AI features roll out, the team is finding faster ways to surface insights, summarize conversations, and stay aligned — without interrupting flow.
“Slack’s new features, like summaries and AI-powered search, are saving me hours a week,” said Nathan. “I don’t have to dig through five years of history to remember why we made a decision.”
These tools help Caraway reduce administrative drag and stay focused on high-impact work. “Slack is always evolving with how we work,” said Harris. “The features keep getting better, and we’re using it more deeply across teams.”
As the company expands its product lines and global reach, Slack’s integrations and AI capabilities are key to managing complexity without adding layers of tools or headcount. “We’re building a five-year roadmap with 30 to 40 new products,” said Nathan. “We wouldn’t be able to pull that off without Slack to manage timelines, decisions, and feedback across a remote team.”
Looking ahead, Caraway sees Slack not just as the foundation of its remote operations and its creative, human-centered culture. It’s the invisible infrastructure powering a 9-figure business with a small but mighty team.
