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I got an invite, scheduled a conference call, and the lady said she I need to screencast how I'm using Gmail. I told her that I'm not letting a stranger peek in
by nikolay 7y ago
I got an invite, scheduled a conference call, and the lady said she I need to screencast how I'm using Gmail. I told her that I'm not letting a stranger peek into and record my Gmail inbox and she said that I cannot sign up without this step, so, I refused, and they lost the income from me. Typical overhyped SV crap. Should rebrand to "Subhuman".
- ASalazarMX 7y agoThis is bananas. Why would anyone need that in the first place? I can't come up with any remotely valid reason.
- NoblePublius 7y agoRahul has written volumes on the SH onboarding process. They train you to use the product so you will actually use it.
- barkingcat 7y agoBut anyone can do that without screensharing the person's own screen. It's called good old fashioned coaching and teaching.
- nikolay 7y agoI told the lady that I have over 35 years of software development experience and I've used all kinds of software and I don't need guidance and I do, I will reach out to them, but she was stubborn and lost a customer. I tweeted to Rahul and the team, but got no response so far! Well... This is not a scalable business model. But the lady was clear: "Superhuman is not for everybody!" Alrighty then!
- NoblePublius 7y agoOver 15,000 users paying $30 per month. $260 million valuation. Perfectly scalable. If you'd like to learn why you're wrong, I encourage you read one of the many lengthy, sincere, and detailed articles with the founder of Superhuman, starting with this one. https://www.drift.com/blog/how-to-measure-product-market-fit/ https://www.drift.com/blog/how-to-measure-product-market-fit...
- danso 7y agoWhen you say it's "perfectly scalable", what are you using as your reference? That is, what other SaaS has $30/month pricing, especially one in a field as crowded as email and work messaging (i.e. Slack). Obviously, SH is far from having, or needing to have, a finished business plan, and it seems likely that the $30/user won't be the default offering or main breadwinner. But that raises the question of why that number is relevant in the first place when assessing SH's viability.
- nikolay 7y agoWell, I pay $5/mo for SaneBox as I always forget to unsubscribe and delete it's pathetic labels. Many of us pay for useless stuff. But some point, we stop, and then the company tanks.
- notus 7y agoYou don't need a screenshare to accomplish this. I'm amazed by how much people buy into a companies bullshit and then defend it online.
- NoblePublius 7y agoI literally bought it into, both as a customer and investor. :-)
- nikolay 7y agoWell, valuations change. Sell!
- alexqgb 7y agoAnd did you update your email signature in the way the OP suggested? Specifically, do you let everyone getting email from you know that you not only track that read it, but when they read it, and even where they were when reading it? I ask, because that would be the ethical way to handle what this app is doing for you.
- gumby 7y agoBecause anyone who becomes an SH customer will be giving them access to their gmail account anyway. AFAICT it is a third party enhancement to one proprietary service (gmail) and SAAS, not a general mail program.
- ukd1 7y agoWhy? IMHO, and from on-boarding a bunch of folks for my startup, it's because it makes teaching you the software easier and more personal. If you aren't comfortable doing it, that's fine; but I believe it's designed to make the on-boarding of folks better.
- larrysalibra 7y agoI also told her I couldn’t share my screen or inbox and she said that was fine and walked me through onboarding with voice. Agree it was creepy to even ask.
- nikolay 7y agoLucky you!
- cphuntington97 7y agoIf you're already using Gmail, how privacy conscious can you be?
- cphuntington97 7y agoVery, apparently. Would anyone care to explain?
- danso 7y agoI use GMail with the understanding that Google has access to my activity and content. However, I trust Google to not divulge* my activity and content to other email recipients and senders. That's enough privacy for me in my normal email usage. * disabling the option of blocking image-loading in the iOS GMail app is definitely an aggravating and inexplicable tactic, to the point I'm starting to looking into switching away from GMail as my provider.
- wheelerwj 7y agohaha. op has a point about privacy but this is also accurate.
- manigandham 7y agoIt's a much bigger company under much stricter rules and regulations. It's well understood that a small startup will have a much more lax security posture around customer data than the trillion-dollar technology company.
- nostromo 7y agoIf you don't trust them enough to see your email inbox, you probably shouldn't be considering them as your email provider at all.
- ukd1 7y ago^ this
- bradly 7y agoAre you implying that everyone should run their own email servers or is there any email provider company that you are willing to screen share your personal email account with?
- nostromo 7y agoIt's pretty clear: I'm saying if you don't trust an email provider to view your email -- they shouldn't be your email provider.
- nikolay 7y agoI trust engineers. I don't trust people who do the onboarding.
- graeme 7y agoI use Superhuman; they didn't ask me to do this in on boarding. That said....using Superhuman (or any similar third party app connected to gmail) involves giving them access to your entire gmail account. It's odd they wouldn't let you onboard without that (they used a zoom screen recording with me, and it was fully within Superhuman), but you're not really sending them anything they don't have access to if you signup.
- ec109685 7y agoShould have signed up for the $60 a month plan…