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Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

121 points by stereoradonc 4y ago

sn0w_crash 4y ago
Rahul is a focused founder, really top notch and works hard. They have a great product and I hope they can navigate this.
- chowchowchow 4y ago
  That may be but this app has a limited market regardless how good it is. Its not a VC/hypergrowth product and only possible exit is acquisition.
  - propter_hoc 4y ago
    Yeah this is a solid chrome app store kind of solo dev project. 100 employees is absurd. I think they had a lot of early adopter VC users who really liked it and let their personal bias overwhelm better TAM analysis.
    - foobaw 4y ago
      people said that about Honey (just a chrome app store solo dev project) and look how much they got acquired for. Don't underestimate them.
      - TwitBar 4y ago
        Hindsight is always 20/20. Is Superhuman comparable to Honey? From a tech perspective, maybe??? I.e. could a talented solo dev replicate 80% of Superhuman and then publish it via the chrome app store. Yeah. But from a product perspective? Absolutely not. Honey has a vastly wider market than Superhuman, and almost anyone can use Honey and get something out of it. We can sell Honey as a 'money-saver', in contrast to Superhuman which markets itself as a 'time-saver' (albeit, for an eye-watering subscription). I've seen many people step over dollars to chase pennies, and Honey taps into that behavior, offering a much stronger value proposition than Superhuman (so much so that the two are basically incomparable). This product is very niche. From my own experience, performing a single mildly unorthodox keyboard shortcut in front of an average Joe sort of freaks them out. Getting regular people onboard with something like this would be a total nightmare. This alone probably filters down Superhuman's market dramatically (enough to make a VC-backed 100-employee effort seem absolutely ridiculous). Regarding the merit of Superhuman's ability to actually save time is another conversation others have argued to death about. I'd be interested in what others have to say about this, but I don't think the discussion has been very productive so far.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - altdataseller 4y ago
      So true, its the type of product a person with tons of emails would find useful like VCs
    - rockwotj 4y ago
      I think you underestimate how complex email clients are. Table stakes from Gmail: You need to be able to display arbitrary HTML safely, full text search, remove the embedded history in emails, robust sync with Gmail (or insert your IMAP server), a rich text editor, and there are even small things that end up being complex like parsing an email (people send all sorts of non compliant mail and Gmail is pretty darn good at accepting most of it). That's just table stakes, let alone the features that make superhuman distinct.
      - propter_hoc 4y ago
        You misunderstand me. I am saying that I don't think this user story requires a standalone email client. You could replicate most of the key value propositions (if not the specific feature implementation) as extensions to Chrome and Gmail. That would be both a feasible solo dev idea and a more reasonable $5-10 a month rather than $30. Sure, throw a couple hundred million at the same problem and you'll overbuild it into a monster. But that doesn't mean it's the right business model.
        rockwotj 4y ago
        Yeah you're describing of https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/ which is one person's chrome extension.
    - motoxpro 4y ago
      huh? How is building an email client where no interaction is over 100ms a solo dev project? Thats like saying Instagram is a solo dev project because it only has a few screens. But hey not a bad idea to recreate it as a solo dev. Get ~10,000 customers, charge $15 instead of 30 and make a few ez millions!
- almostthere01 4y ago
  We will get through this. We have the whole Series C and some more left. This was a move to put our heads down and get to work without worrying about fundraising for at least the next five years but potentially ever.
parkerhiggins 4y ago
Used it for a few months at $30/month. Cancelled… Great concept. No competitive moat as email clients can copy the features. Looking forward to the gmail “Focus Mode”.
- jelling 4y ago
  At least for me, the forced onboarding call - at least until you ignore 5 scheduling emails - is also off putting. Do people with huge email flows really want another meeting? I don’t.
  - coopsmoss 4y ago
    I agree, VimCal has the same business model as Superhuman but doesn't require an onboarding call. So I'm only using Vimcal
- jitl 4y ago
  I think the competitive moat is performance. Superhuman is fast. None of the incumbent clients are incentivized to care about perf. Are they even competitors? You need a GApps/Office/OtherProvider account to use Superhuman. Superhuman is a value add on top of Gmail/Outlook. That’s the issue here. When you don’t have unlimited money, you cut spend on value add and use the basics. Superhuman is a luxury product.
- kromem 4y ago
  I still remember sitting in a strategy session where the same argument was made for Facebook 'killing' Snapchat with Poke. And then again for FB Stories, with tech news running headlines "RIP Snapchat." One of the psych principles I used to lecture about often in my keynotes was on boundaries as freeing, and discussed an experiment where children clustered around the sandbox in a playground with no fence, but used the entire playground area when there was a fence. Parity isn't simply the availability of identical features - sometimes it's also the lack of the other features, for both the users and the developers working on the product. That's not to say this particular instance will be a successful company. Just that the ease of copying their differentiating feature may be less of a big deal than people often think.
colesantiago 4y ago
I remember when this startup came out, all the VCs, angel investors and tech founders were singing songs of praises (and raises) about how this was going to disrupt email and gating the product an 'exclusive' access to a waitlist. I find it sus when VCs have to keep overhyping their portfolio companies, especially when they don't even make money. Anyway, I checked it out and found that this really isn't novel at all (a meeting to use an email client? really?). Just classic marketing and hype to get you to use the product.
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  So many startups these days seem to only have other startups as their customers, and they're almost always due to connections between their investors. Just trading VC money back and forth.
  - rozap 4y ago
    I briefly worked at one such company. The vibe was from some sort of alternate reality, it was truly bizarre. I couldn't deal with it and quit after about a month.
  - cj 4y ago
    This is why I especially like B2B2C companies. (Companies that sell to other companies a product that customer company somehow packages or delivers to the end user) In this model, there is, at the very least, a “C” somewhere down the chain where value is transferred from a consumer.
    - devman0 4y ago
      This is basically a lot of fintech.
  - gcampos 4y ago
    With so many VC money flowing, is it that bad of an idea?
  - antupis 4y ago
throwaway019254 4y ago
I really don't like services that are invite only. Just let me sign up and give you my money. It took them about a year to send me an invitation. Of course I lost interest in the meantime.
- mrhands556 4y ago
  Gmail was invite only at one point. I remember when everyone was clamoring for an invite. I wonder if it would’ve had the same success without that hype.
  - IsoldesKnight 4y ago
    Invites weren't what got me hyped about Gmail. My Yahoo and Hotmail accounts had 2-5 MB storage limits at the time. Gmail offered a 1 GB storage limit. The idea that I'd never have to delete an email again is what had me hitting up old friends on AIM for an invite.
    - iqkznnft 4y ago
      Ironically, now that they've locked everyone in, they're demanding that you pay or delete emails. Scumbags.
      - zamadatix 4y ago
        They stopped giving the GB of free storage?
        dexterdog 4y ago
        No, a GB is no longer that much, esp if you been with them since launch.
        antisthenes 4y ago
        4-5GB in 2008 is not the same as 15GB (That's their free tier, I think) in 2022. Hard drives have grown in capacity far beyond 3x in the same time period. Even more so if you consider the $/GB value rather than just max capacity.
robertbmenke 4y ago
I wonder what the economics of this product look like at $9.99/month. I'm rooting for them. I think the vast majority of people that would pay for premium software can't justify paying more for email than they pay for JetBrains, Adobe, or Figma/Sketch. I've seen the happy customers paying $30. I just wonder if they're missing out on 5-10 more happy customers for every 1 of those that's willing to pay $9.99.
- thejosh 4y ago
  JetBrains has it figured out, IMHO: 1/ Offer licenses to students, or community editions to get people hooked 2/ Professionals hired at a company want to use this, now they're use to it and have their workflow covered. Plus probably best tool for the job in many cases. (Their language support is fantastic). Cheap enough to just get through without requiring finance approval. 3/ Home use is also great, I've been paying since 2014 and am very happy. It's like the Adobe model (but less evil, IMHO), where in the 90s/2000's every poor student pirated it, now they pay a licensing fee to use it on a monthly basis.
  - omnimus 4y ago
    Adobe - every student still pirates it and since Adobe tuned the price to be terrible (its yearly contract only and only buying whole collection makes sense) now people are moving away hard - or pirate it.
    - thejosh 4y ago
      Sorry, meant "now those who did (mostly?) mostly pay for it if they use it in a professional capacity". Adobe pricing is absolutely horrendous. Same as Microsoft, trying to buy an outright copy of Office was an absolute mission and confusing UX once we managed to actually get a physical copy I can see why people get so confused and pay Microsoft money for things they don't need. (It was a grant that was only for outright purchases such as a laptop, printer, harddrive, Office license, not for ongoing licenses).
danielodievich 4y ago
I've been using Outlook since 1996 and see no reason to ever switch. Email apps is not the way to make money, at least not off me...
ggoo 4y ago
Weird, I’ve been getting tons of messages from their recruiters
- almostthere01 4y ago
  Still hiring for Engineering and Product. The cuts were Sales and Marketing to put our heads down and focus on building our next product and growth product.
gsibble 4y ago
Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've been using Superhuman for years and it definitely helps me get through the 50+ emails that are awaiting me each morning significantly faster than either GMail's web or mobile client or Outlook on mobile. I'm quite happy to pay for it as it easily pays for itself. Rahul has frequently personally responded to my inquiries about the product as well as recommendations. They definitely don't deserve all of the hype or that high of a valuation, but I still think they are a great product.
- tempsy 4y ago
  A good product doesn’t necessarily equate to a venture scale business.
- latchkey 4y ago
  I've been using Mimestream for my desktop Gmail experience... fantastic product.
  - xwdv 4y ago
    Another recommendation for Mimestream. Incredible client if you use gmail. Superhuman had a ridiculously pretentious roll out and by the time I got my invite I didn’t give a fuck anymore.
  - itsjloh 4y ago
    +1 for Mimestream! Fantastic client. I'm hoping they'll add support for other services like Fastmail through JMAP but honestly, just Gmail support alone makes the app worth it.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Can you give a sense of how Superhuman helps you get through those emails faster? 50 emails does not sound like a lot to me; I’m not sure how I could get through them any faster than I can now using the default MS365 web Outlook + Mail app on my iPhone.
humanfromearth 4y ago
I ditched Superhuman for Simplify: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbmlfaiicoikhdbjagjbglnbfcbcojpj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbm... It’s cheaper and pretty much the same features without the bugs of Superhuman.
- adamhowell 4y ago
  Never heard of this before. Thanks for mentioning. Loving it so far.
- vaidik 4y ago
  Ah this is nice! I always found Superhuman too expensive.
- Shank 4y ago
  > without the bugs of Superhuman Can you elaborate more on the bugs that you experienced? I used to be a Superhuman customer, but ultimately cancelled because I found Hey's stance on email to be much more attractive. I'm curious what other experiences were, particularly bugs. I didn't find anything that stood out to me as broken, personally?
- dopeboy 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. I installed and read their site a couple times - I'm having trouble figuring out what it does outside of simplify the design.
louthy 4y ago
OT: I've been trying recently to find something that works like the old Google Inbox project. Inbox was the only time I've ever reached inbox 0, and it annoyed the hell out of me when they cancelled it. Has anyone seen/used anything that comes close?
- trowawee 4y ago
  Readdle's Spark[1] has been my Inbox replacement since Google killed it. It has pin/snooze functionality and a similar concept of grouping emails by category and letting you easily mass mark-as-read. Plus, you can connect multiple email accounts rather than just being limited to your Gmail account. It's also nice because you can have a "team"; my wife and I use it to share important messages and help each other draft or review emails. They have really nice apps for Mac and iOS, too. [1]: https://sparkmailapp.com/ https://sparkmailapp.com/
  - docdeek 4y ago
    I've been using Spark for years and love it. Snoozing is great though it is not an exclusive feature any more. I believe there are some privacy concerns with Spark but I'm very happy with it overall.
- Shank 4y ago
  Shortwave, imho, comes really close to the old Inbox experience. I'm not sure that I recommend it, but it was good when I was trying it out compared to vanilla Gmail.
- Dyac 4y ago
  You can effectively get inbox back now. The guy at Google who made it set up on his own and made (very good, paid) browser plugins to restore functionality. https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/
- leejoramo 4y ago
  Try Simplify Gmail It is a browser extension created by the former lead developer of Google Inbox and reimplements many of Inbox’s ideas. https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/ Works on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and more
Brajeshwar 4y ago
First, let me disclose that I like how Superhuman works, and I have copied/followed a lot of the advice from Rahul's writings/talks. I got in long back during its beta invite, and my feeling was that this is what I was doing all along, save for the additional metadata, which is what Rapportive did. So, I left. A few months back, I wanted to separate work emails, and I thought I would try it again. I got the onboarding with a super helpful and overly smiling nice guy. Even during the onboarding sessions, I popped up the obvious shortcuts, such as hitting "SHFT + ?" to quickly look for Keyboard shortcuts, and I was already flying around. This may be personal, but I have long since decided to learn the tool that I use every day to know the ins and out, and I can move around pretty quickly with just two panes on my Apple Mail without ever touching the mouse or clicking on an icon. So, Superhuman wasn't much of an addition except for the extra information and guides that felt good, but I quickly realized that I don't need most of those. I unsubscribe ruthlessly, while the newsletter I like to read are on separate IDs (gmail) from my primary email IDs (personal, family, work), and I'm not important enough to be flooded with emails. So, my Inboxes are pretty tamed most of the time. Yes, my weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly digital chores do help. Here is my worry with Superhuman. With that much of a valuation -- I don't see it becoming a standalone self-sustaining mega business but Rapportive in steroid married to a Mail App. Rahul seems to have a pretty emotional solid nostalgia with Rapportive that the idea of Rapportive is everywhere in Superhuman. Nonetheless, I feel Superhuman is super awesome on its own if it does not carry the weight of the "magical wand" that Rahul and team sells everywhere. I no longer use Superhuman but I will definitely get it for others in my team -- marketing, sales will definitely love Superhuman. P.S. I usually take shots of my Mail App around early each year. They come in handy while showing it to few people who thinks I've grappled with some sort of a productivity panache in a way and ask me for regular ideas and suggestions. Here are some with Apple Mail Interface, hoping this will inspire someone to experiment; - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2019.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-... - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2020.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-... - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2022.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-...
singhrac 4y ago
Given the topic, I figured I’d ask: I have been looking for something like Superhuman but considerably cheaper (maybe $5/month is the right price point for me). I need a desktop app for Windows that doesn’t freeze frequently and (most importantly) can recategorize my junk mail better than Gmail or Outlook can (both have had many significant spam false positive failures lately).
bachmeier 4y ago
$100 million in VC money and they couldn't hire someone to build a competent website. It's genuinely awful, basically a VC Powerpoint presentation converted to HTML. They don't even say what they charge. I don't know what they are selling beyond the fact that it has something to do with email.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  If you have to ask what they charge on their landing page, then is it that much of a pain point for you? They probably want people who are desperate — and have an AMEX.
dorianmariefr 4y ago
Love it but quite expensive, probably a niche market at this price.
nojvek 4y ago
I pay for Superman (well my company pays for it). Their 1:1 onboarding was got me hooked. I use Superman everyday multiple times a day. It’s a pretty amazing piece of product. Their focus on UX speed is impeccable. I legit loathe using gmail interface even though Superhuman is an extension of gmail data and api capabilities.
jollybean 4y ago
People from marketing must be having a field day. Look at: https://superhuman.com https://superhuman.com It's marketed like a car, not like utility product. Cars are sold aspirationally. They make commercials with the Saab car driving on the desert, and then the Saab jet flying above, to make you 'feel like a fighter pilot'. Features and functions are there just to support that. Nothing detailed about the actual features of Superhuman, just 'how it establishes your status'. People in thriving communities are always looking to surround themselves with status markers and signals. This is a big part of what they are selling. America is also good at productivity. I'm doubtful the features could not be duplicated, and if they were, unit cost of software being what it is - it should be commoditized. Remember that email itself - is just a wonderful, world changing, magical thing. Imagine nobody have it, or SMS etc. ! We live in a hyper competitive world, someone would feasibly absorb aspects and just make a better product, even if it wasn't particularly noticed by others. Someone gave examples of FB copying 'stories' etc. from other sources, those are slightly different examples, related to critical masses and network effects. Though email is a network - email clients are generally 'standalone' - not network effect features. Superhuman is a case study for sure, but in a lot of things people might not realize.
dustymcp 4y ago
I dont get what problem this company is solving?
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  Time, organization-improving of Gmail UI, basically UX, if I'm understanding correctly.
rikkipitt 4y ago
If it’s email productivity you’re after, take a look at the email service I built that batches your mail into digests: https://www.paced.email https://www.paced.email
lancesells 4y ago
I know their Privacy Policy is pretty standard but if you look at the background of the founders it all deals in selling data. I would be very careful using them for email. Superhuman Privacy Policy > Personal Data We Receive From Third Parties: From time to time we may receive information about you from third parties and other users, including your job title, employer, and location. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available. This may include your publicly available social media information, or your contacts' publicly available social media information. The data we receive is dependent upon your and your contacts' privacy settings with the relevant social network. > Vendors and Service Providers: To assist us in meeting business operations needs and to perform certain services and functions, we may share Personal Data with service providers, including web hosting, debugging services, email and productivity services, survey providers, data base and sales/customer relationship management services, customer service providers, payment processors; web and app analytics services, and data brokers. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we only share Email Content Data with our hosting provider (Google, Inc.). Pursuant to our instructions, these parties will access, process or store Personal Data in the course of performing their duties to us.

121 points by stereoradonc 4y ago

Rahul is a focused founder, really top notch and works hard. They have a great product and I hope they can navigate this.

chowchowchow 4y ago
That may be but this app has a limited market regardless how good it is. Its not a VC/hypergrowth product and only possible exit is acquisition.
- propter_hoc 4y ago
  Yeah this is a solid chrome app store kind of solo dev project. 100 employees is absurd. I think they had a lot of early adopter VC users who really liked it and let their personal bias overwhelm better TAM analysis.
  - foobaw 4y ago
    people said that about Honey (just a chrome app store solo dev project) and look how much they got acquired for. Don't underestimate them.
    - TwitBar 4y ago
      Hindsight is always 20/20. Is Superhuman comparable to Honey? From a tech perspective, maybe??? I.e. could a talented solo dev replicate 80% of Superhuman and then publish it via the chrome app store. Yeah. But from a product perspective? Absolutely not. Honey has a vastly wider market than Superhuman, and almost anyone can use Honey and get something out of it. We can sell Honey as a 'money-saver', in contrast to Superhuman which markets itself as a 'time-saver' (albeit, for an eye-watering subscription). I've seen many people step over dollars to chase pennies, and Honey taps into that behavior, offering a much stronger value proposition than Superhuman (so much so that the two are basically incomparable). This product is very niche. From my own experience, performing a single mildly unorthodox keyboard shortcut in front of an average Joe sort of freaks them out. Getting regular people onboard with something like this would be a total nightmare. This alone probably filters down Superhuman's market dramatically (enough to make a VC-backed 100-employee effort seem absolutely ridiculous). Regarding the merit of Superhuman's ability to actually save time is another conversation others have argued to death about. I'd be interested in what others have to say about this, but I don't think the discussion has been very productive so far.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - altdataseller 4y ago
    So true, its the type of product a person with tons of emails would find useful like VCs
  - rockwotj 4y ago
    I think you underestimate how complex email clients are. Table stakes from Gmail: You need to be able to display arbitrary HTML safely, full text search, remove the embedded history in emails, robust sync with Gmail (or insert your IMAP server), a rich text editor, and there are even small things that end up being complex like parsing an email (people send all sorts of non compliant mail and Gmail is pretty darn good at accepting most of it). That's just table stakes, let alone the features that make superhuman distinct.
    - propter_hoc 4y ago
      You misunderstand me. I am saying that I don't think this user story requires a standalone email client. You could replicate most of the key value propositions (if not the specific feature implementation) as extensions to Chrome and Gmail. That would be both a feasible solo dev idea and a more reasonable $5-10 a month rather than $30. Sure, throw a couple hundred million at the same problem and you'll overbuild it into a monster. But that doesn't mean it's the right business model.
      - rockwotj 4y ago
        Yeah you're describing of https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/ which is one person's chrome extension.
  - motoxpro 4y ago
    huh? How is building an email client where no interaction is over 100ms a solo dev project? Thats like saying Instagram is a solo dev project because it only has a few screens. But hey not a bad idea to recreate it as a solo dev. Get ~10,000 customers, charge $15 instead of 30 and make a few ez millions!
almostthere01 4y ago
We will get through this. We have the whole Series C and some more left. This was a move to put our heads down and get to work without worrying about fundraising for at least the next five years but potentially ever.

parkerhiggins 4y ago

Used it for a few months at $30/month. Cancelled… Great concept. No competitive moat as email clients can copy the features. Looking forward to the gmail “Focus Mode”.

jelling 4y ago
At least for me, the forced onboarding call - at least until you ignore 5 scheduling emails - is also off putting. Do people with huge email flows really want another meeting? I don’t.
- coopsmoss 4y ago
  I agree, VimCal has the same business model as Superhuman but doesn't require an onboarding call. So I'm only using Vimcal
jitl 4y ago
I think the competitive moat is performance. Superhuman is fast. None of the incumbent clients are incentivized to care about perf. Are they even competitors? You need a GApps/Office/OtherProvider account to use Superhuman. Superhuman is a value add on top of Gmail/Outlook. That’s the issue here. When you don’t have unlimited money, you cut spend on value add and use the basics. Superhuman is a luxury product.
kromem 4y ago
I still remember sitting in a strategy session where the same argument was made for Facebook 'killing' Snapchat with Poke. And then again for FB Stories, with tech news running headlines "RIP Snapchat." One of the psych principles I used to lecture about often in my keynotes was on boundaries as freeing, and discussed an experiment where children clustered around the sandbox in a playground with no fence, but used the entire playground area when there was a fence. Parity isn't simply the availability of identical features - sometimes it's also the lack of the other features, for both the users and the developers working on the product. That's not to say this particular instance will be a successful company. Just that the ease of copying their differentiating feature may be less of a big deal than people often think.

colesantiago 4y ago

I remember when this startup came out, all the VCs, angel investors and tech founders were singing songs of praises (and raises) about how this was going to disrupt email and gating the product an 'exclusive' access to a waitlist. I find it sus when VCs have to keep overhyping their portfolio companies, especially when they don't even make money. Anyway, I checked it out and found that this really isn't novel at all (a meeting to use an email client? really?). Just classic marketing and hype to get you to use the product.

candiddevmike 4y ago
So many startups these days seem to only have other startups as their customers, and they're almost always due to connections between their investors. Just trading VC money back and forth.
- rozap 4y ago
  I briefly worked at one such company. The vibe was from some sort of alternate reality, it was truly bizarre. I couldn't deal with it and quit after about a month.
- cj 4y ago
  This is why I especially like B2B2C companies. (Companies that sell to other companies a product that customer company somehow packages or delivers to the end user) In this model, there is, at the very least, a “C” somewhere down the chain where value is transferred from a consumer.
  - devman0 4y ago
    This is basically a lot of fintech.
- gcampos 4y ago
  With so many VC money flowing, is it that bad of an idea?
- antupis 4y ago

throwaway019254 4y ago

I really don't like services that are invite only. Just let me sign up and give you my money. It took them about a year to send me an invitation. Of course I lost interest in the meantime.

mrhands556 4y ago
Gmail was invite only at one point. I remember when everyone was clamoring for an invite. I wonder if it would’ve had the same success without that hype.
- IsoldesKnight 4y ago
  Invites weren't what got me hyped about Gmail. My Yahoo and Hotmail accounts had 2-5 MB storage limits at the time. Gmail offered a 1 GB storage limit. The idea that I'd never have to delete an email again is what had me hitting up old friends on AIM for an invite.
  - iqkznnft 4y ago
    Ironically, now that they've locked everyone in, they're demanding that you pay or delete emails. Scumbags.
    - zamadatix 4y ago
      They stopped giving the GB of free storage?
      - dexterdog 4y ago
        No, a GB is no longer that much, esp if you been with them since launch.
      - antisthenes 4y ago
        4-5GB in 2008 is not the same as 15GB (That's their free tier, I think) in 2022. Hard drives have grown in capacity far beyond 3x in the same time period. Even more so if you consider the $/GB value rather than just max capacity.

robertbmenke 4y ago

I wonder what the economics of this product look like at $9.99/month. I'm rooting for them. I think the vast majority of people that would pay for premium software can't justify paying more for email than they pay for JetBrains, Adobe, or Figma/Sketch. I've seen the happy customers paying $30. I just wonder if they're missing out on 5-10 more happy customers for every 1 of those that's willing to pay $9.99.

thejosh 4y ago
JetBrains has it figured out, IMHO: 1/ Offer licenses to students, or community editions to get people hooked 2/ Professionals hired at a company want to use this, now they're use to it and have their workflow covered. Plus probably best tool for the job in many cases. (Their language support is fantastic). Cheap enough to just get through without requiring finance approval. 3/ Home use is also great, I've been paying since 2014 and am very happy. It's like the Adobe model (but less evil, IMHO), where in the 90s/2000's every poor student pirated it, now they pay a licensing fee to use it on a monthly basis.
- omnimus 4y ago
  Adobe - every student still pirates it and since Adobe tuned the price to be terrible (its yearly contract only and only buying whole collection makes sense) now people are moving away hard - or pirate it.
  - thejosh 4y ago
    Sorry, meant "now those who did (mostly?) mostly pay for it if they use it in a professional capacity". Adobe pricing is absolutely horrendous. Same as Microsoft, trying to buy an outright copy of Office was an absolute mission and confusing UX once we managed to actually get a physical copy I can see why people get so confused and pay Microsoft money for things they don't need. (It was a grant that was only for outright purchases such as a laptop, printer, harddrive, Office license, not for ongoing licenses).

danielodievich 4y ago

I've been using Outlook since 1996 and see no reason to ever switch. Email apps is not the way to make money, at least not off me...

ggoo 4y ago

Weird, I’ve been getting tons of messages from their recruiters

almostthere01 4y ago
Still hiring for Engineering and Product. The cuts were Sales and Marketing to put our heads down and focus on building our next product and growth product.

gsibble 4y ago

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've been using Superhuman for years and it definitely helps me get through the 50+ emails that are awaiting me each morning significantly faster than either GMail's web or mobile client or Outlook on mobile. I'm quite happy to pay for it as it easily pays for itself. Rahul has frequently personally responded to my inquiries about the product as well as recommendations. They definitely don't deserve all of the hype or that high of a valuation, but I still think they are a great product.

tempsy 4y ago
A good product doesn’t necessarily equate to a venture scale business.
latchkey 4y ago
I've been using Mimestream for my desktop Gmail experience... fantastic product.
- xwdv 4y ago
  Another recommendation for Mimestream. Incredible client if you use gmail. Superhuman had a ridiculously pretentious roll out and by the time I got my invite I didn’t give a fuck anymore.
- itsjloh 4y ago
  +1 for Mimestream! Fantastic client. I'm hoping they'll add support for other services like Fastmail through JMAP but honestly, just Gmail support alone makes the app worth it.
snowwrestler 4y ago
Can you give a sense of how Superhuman helps you get through those emails faster? 50 emails does not sound like a lot to me; I’m not sure how I could get through them any faster than I can now using the default MS365 web Outlook + Mail app on my iPhone.

humanfromearth 4y ago

I ditched Superhuman for Simplify: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbmlfaiicoikhdbjagjbglnbfcbcojpj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbm... It’s cheaper and pretty much the same features without the bugs of Superhuman.

adamhowell 4y ago
Never heard of this before. Thanks for mentioning. Loving it so far.
vaidik 4y ago
Ah this is nice! I always found Superhuman too expensive.
Shank 4y ago
> without the bugs of Superhuman Can you elaborate more on the bugs that you experienced? I used to be a Superhuman customer, but ultimately cancelled because I found Hey's stance on email to be much more attractive. I'm curious what other experiences were, particularly bugs. I didn't find anything that stood out to me as broken, personally?
dopeboy 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this. I installed and read their site a couple times - I'm having trouble figuring out what it does outside of simplify the design.

louthy 4y ago

OT: I've been trying recently to find something that works like the old Google Inbox project. Inbox was the only time I've ever reached inbox 0, and it annoyed the hell out of me when they cancelled it. Has anyone seen/used anything that comes close?

trowawee 4y ago
Readdle's Spark[1] has been my Inbox replacement since Google killed it. It has pin/snooze functionality and a similar concept of grouping emails by category and letting you easily mass mark-as-read. Plus, you can connect multiple email accounts rather than just being limited to your Gmail account. It's also nice because you can have a "team"; my wife and I use it to share important messages and help each other draft or review emails. They have really nice apps for Mac and iOS, too. [1]: https://sparkmailapp.com/ https://sparkmailapp.com/
- docdeek 4y ago
  I've been using Spark for years and love it. Snoozing is great though it is not an exclusive feature any more. I believe there are some privacy concerns with Spark but I'm very happy with it overall.
Shank 4y ago
Shortwave, imho, comes really close to the old Inbox experience. I'm not sure that I recommend it, but it was good when I was trying it out compared to vanilla Gmail.
Dyac 4y ago
You can effectively get inbox back now. The guy at Google who made it set up on his own and made (very good, paid) browser plugins to restore functionality. https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/
leejoramo 4y ago
Try Simplify Gmail It is a browser extension created by the former lead developer of Google Inbox and reimplements many of Inbox’s ideas. https://simpl.fyi/ https://simpl.fyi/ Works on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and more

Brajeshwar 4y ago

First, let me disclose that I like how Superhuman works, and I have copied/followed a lot of the advice from Rahul's writings/talks. I got in long back during its beta invite, and my feeling was that this is what I was doing all along, save for the additional metadata, which is what Rapportive did. So, I left. A few months back, I wanted to separate work emails, and I thought I would try it again. I got the onboarding with a super helpful and overly smiling nice guy. Even during the onboarding sessions, I popped up the obvious shortcuts, such as hitting "SHFT + ?" to quickly look for Keyboard shortcuts, and I was already flying around. This may be personal, but I have long since decided to learn the tool that I use every day to know the ins and out, and I can move around pretty quickly with just two panes on my Apple Mail without ever touching the mouse or clicking on an icon. So, Superhuman wasn't much of an addition except for the extra information and guides that felt good, but I quickly realized that I don't need most of those. I unsubscribe ruthlessly, while the newsletter I like to read are on separate IDs (gmail) from my primary email IDs (personal, family, work), and I'm not important enough to be flooded with emails. So, my Inboxes are pretty tamed most of the time. Yes, my weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly digital chores do help. Here is my worry with Superhuman. With that much of a valuation -- I don't see it becoming a standalone self-sustaining mega business but Rapportive in steroid married to a Mail App. Rahul seems to have a pretty emotional solid nostalgia with Rapportive that the idea of Rapportive is everywhere in Superhuman. Nonetheless, I feel Superhuman is super awesome on its own if it does not carry the weight of the "magical wand" that Rahul and team sells everywhere. I no longer use Superhuman but I will definitely get it for others in my team -- marketing, sales will definitely love Superhuman. P.S. I usually take shots of my Mail App around early each year. They come in handy while showing it to few people who thinks I've grappled with some sort of a productivity panache in a way and ask me for regular ideas and suggestions. Here are some with Apple Mail Interface, hoping this will inspire someone to experiment; - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2019.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-... - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2020.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-... - https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2022.png https://cdn.oinam.com/img/oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-...

singhrac 4y ago

Given the topic, I figured I’d ask: I have been looking for something like Superhuman but considerably cheaper (maybe $5/month is the right price point for me). I need a desktop app for Windows that doesn’t freeze frequently and (most importantly) can recategorize my junk mail better than Gmail or Outlook can (both have had many significant spam false positive failures lately).

bachmeier 4y ago

$100 million in VC money and they couldn't hire someone to build a competent website. It's genuinely awful, basically a VC Powerpoint presentation converted to HTML. They don't even say what they charge. I don't know what they are selling beyond the fact that it has something to do with email.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
If you have to ask what they charge on their landing page, then is it that much of a pain point for you? They probably want people who are desperate — and have an AMEX.

dorianmariefr 4y ago

Love it but quite expensive, probably a niche market at this price.

nojvek 4y ago

I pay for Superman (well my company pays for it). Their 1:1 onboarding was got me hooked. I use Superman everyday multiple times a day. It’s a pretty amazing piece of product. Their focus on UX speed is impeccable. I legit loathe using gmail interface even though Superhuman is an extension of gmail data and api capabilities.

jollybean 4y ago

People from marketing must be having a field day. Look at: https://superhuman.com https://superhuman.com It's marketed like a car, not like utility product. Cars are sold aspirationally. They make commercials with the Saab car driving on the desert, and then the Saab jet flying above, to make you 'feel like a fighter pilot'. Features and functions are there just to support that. Nothing detailed about the actual features of Superhuman, just 'how it establishes your status'. People in thriving communities are always looking to surround themselves with status markers and signals. This is a big part of what they are selling. America is also good at productivity. I'm doubtful the features could not be duplicated, and if they were, unit cost of software being what it is - it should be commoditized. Remember that email itself - is just a wonderful, world changing, magical thing. Imagine nobody have it, or SMS etc. ! We live in a hyper competitive world, someone would feasibly absorb aspects and just make a better product, even if it wasn't particularly noticed by others. Someone gave examples of FB copying 'stories' etc. from other sources, those are slightly different examples, related to critical masses and network effects. Though email is a network - email clients are generally 'standalone' - not network effect features. Superhuman is a case study for sure, but in a lot of things people might not realize.

dustymcp 4y ago

I dont get what problem this company is solving?

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
Time, organization-improving of Gmail UI, basically UX, if I'm understanding correctly.

rikkipitt 4y ago

If it’s email productivity you’re after, take a look at the email service I built that batches your mail into digests: https://www.paced.email https://www.paced.email

lancesells 4y ago

I know their Privacy Policy is pretty standard but if you look at the background of the founders it all deals in selling data. I would be very careful using them for email. Superhuman Privacy Policy > Personal Data We Receive From Third Parties: From time to time we may receive information about you from third parties and other users, including your job title, employer, and location. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available. This may include your publicly available social media information, or your contacts' publicly available social media information. The data we receive is dependent upon your and your contacts' privacy settings with the relevant social network. > Vendors and Service Providers: To assist us in meeting business operations needs and to perform certain services and functions, we may share Personal Data with service providers, including web hosting, debugging services, email and productivity services, survey providers, data base and sales/customer relationship management services, customer service providers, payment processors; web and app analytics services, and data brokers. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we only share Email Content Data with our hosting provider (Google, Inc.). Pursuant to our instructions, these parties will access, process or store Personal Data in the course of performing their duties to us.