Even though Slack Technologies, Inc.’s namesake collaboration platform was a viral phenomenon in 2015, former business coach Leif Hartwig says Slack still isn’t enough. Having watched clients and airport travelers wrestle with the difficulties of integrating disparate technologies for videoconferencing, document sharing and messaging for years, Hartwig says his company has come up with a better way.

Bolste (pronounced “bolst”) from Bolste Inc. launches today with $5 million in funding, 18,000 beta users and claims of being the most “insanely easy-to-use” collaboration and communication platform on the market. Bolste was created to be a “virtual office where people can satisfy all their information needs,” said Hartwig, who spent fourteen years traveling the country counseling small businesses. “We believe that what people really want is something insanely easy to use, at low cost. “

A quick demo showed Bolste to look a lot like conventional social networks, with an activity stream, profiles and shared documents. The difference, the company claims, is that the user metaphor is centered on people, not technology or projects. The idea is that people move from project to project instead of having to gather in designated conference rooms for each task. Interaction is specific to the work that each user is doing at any given time. “We want to replicate the work environment where everybody has an office but people wander between tasks,” Hartwig said. Users can organize work into dedicated channels with shared files, and the platform provides task and project management capabilities.

Bloste is launching with a free version that supports one workspace. The basic package costs %9.99 per month for unlimited project channels, unlimited guest users, 7 gigabytes of secure storage and user interface branding. There’s also an enterprise package with negotiated pricing that offers unlimited channels, unlimited secure storage using AES-256 bit encryption, custom integration and training.

Bolste closed a series A funding round in December with angel investors.  Hartwig said 70% the $5 million the company has raised will go into sales and marketing. The 18,000-user beta test was free, but “we have close to 3,000 people in the pipeline who have said they’re going to pay,” he added.