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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 dis

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
  It bubble thing I bet these kinda startups disappear like next 10 years.
hardwaregeek 4y ago
It's classic productivity app bias. You start using a new app and because of the newness placebo, you get a boost in performance. You post about how amazing and cool it is, tell all your friends, then you get that crash back to baseline. At best, it just becomes a regular part of your routine. More commonly you dump it for the next cool productivity tool.
- antupis 4y ago
  I cannot think any productivity tool that has sticked only sake of productivity. It is always productivity + something where tool shines. Eg using vim at server through ssh.
- jollybean 4y ago
  I'm doubtful it's a 'productivity' issue so much as a 'status' issue. The product is positioned as a brand, not a tech. It's actually a confusing thing in marketing. Products that are sold for aesthetic reasons - i.e. fashion - well that's obviously aspirational. But most products that are sold even on the basis of features - those features are never used. It's the features themselves that are aspirational. There's a late night infomercial on right now selling hoodies. They make it green, call it the 'tactical hoodie' and use the most ridiculous, masculine/alpha, quasi military language to describe it. All the 'zippers' and 'pockets' and 'the peak on the hood to keep your night vision' etc.. It's just a basic green hoodie ... but described as though it's for Special Forces Operators i.e. aspirational marketing. FYI that products are sold aspirationally doesn't mean they are bad, they can be good, even better, just that you're probably going to end up paying a hefty margin. Good example of this kind of positioning: "You sent a critical email, but didn't hear back. Why? Your message was buried by countless more that arrived later. With Superhuman, you can get back to the top of their inbox. When you send an email, just choose a time — for example, Monday at 8:55 am — and we'll deliver it precisely then. When your contact starts their day, they'll see your message first. No matter when you work, send at the perfect moment. " It's a ridiculously mundane feature, sadly one that took forever to appear on most clients, but it's now universally available, called out as some amazing thing and contextualized in the locus of the problem i.e. "Your message gets read first!". Smart but a bit hapless.
bradgessler 4y ago
I found the waitlist and onboarding process off-putting, to the point where I just didn’t want to even use it. I remember getting as far as, “ok, now you need to go through the onboarding process”. I asked if I could skip but they insisted I schedule time with them, so I just didn’t bother. This was probably one of the weirdest experiences I had with a SaaS product. Anyway, I wish them well and I hope they pull through the whatever-is-about-to-happen with minimal damage.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  I agree: A waitlist on a pure SaaS product is absurd. The only reason why I can think they have it: To require 1:1 onboarding that gives their sales team an opportunity to upsell you. That said, they could have decoupled the two.
  - whiplash451 4y ago
    The waitlist is an all-to-standard tactic used by B2C SaaS companies. It is designed to create a sense of scarcity and FOMO.
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      I concede: Your point is very well made. It is the manufactured / induced aspiration!
rmason 4y ago
I have to disagree with you. The guy built a niche product, an email program that offered productivity benefits just for those dealing with hundreds of emails a day. Maybe the top 1-2% of email users would find it useful. But this presents some big problems for his go to market plan. If he opens it up to everyone with no restrictions he will face tremendous churn. Plus 98% won't see any value at all and will bash the product online perhaps discouraging those who would benefit from even trying it. By forcing people to answer questions that allow him to only allow those who would potentially benefit from signing up for the trial he eliminates all those problems. As a result from what I can see his users are fanatical in their praise. You might ask how does he earn a profit on the top 2% of email users? The overall market is so large that even a tiny sliver of those users who willing pay for the product is a pretty large market.
- laserlight 4y ago
  > The guy built a niche product Proponents never call it a niche product, though. They talk like it’s the one productivity tool to rule them all. Such attitude is the problem, not the business’s success.
  - kirso 4y ago
    They didn't move mass market right away though. Funnily I am the one who always said - why do you need Superhuman if you have multiple inboxes in gmail and filters + shortcuts to cater for probably 80% of the functionality free. But the OP of the comment has a very good point: >he will face tremendous churn The pricing didn't reflect the value for mass market. They started with SV execs. Them slowly improved and decreased pricing and released for `privileged mass market` later down the road. It was a process in the end... I still refuse to pay for it though :)
    - ggnall 4y ago
      Here's some instructions on this! https://www.grahamgnall.com/blog/2020/10/14/how-to-create-superhuman-in-gmail https://www.grahamgnall.com/blog/2020/10/14/how-to-create-su... >why do you need Superhuman if you have multiple inboxes in gmail and filters + shortcuts to cater for probably 80% of the functionality free.
localhost3000 4y ago
It took literally _5 years_ for me to get through the waitlist. I signed up in 2016 and got an automated email “from” the founder in May 2021 excitedly inviting me to fill out a questionnaire in order to gain access… Asking me to do work after waiting 5 years seemed crazy so I ignored it and got another automated email “from” the founder nudging me to take the questionnaire a few weeks later. Strangest set of interactions I’ve ever had with a product. I have no idea whether their product is good or bad and I stopped caring many years ago.

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
It bubble thing I bet these kinda startups disappear like next 10 years.

hardwaregeek 4y ago

It's classic productivity app bias. You start using a new app and because of the newness placebo, you get a boost in performance. You post about how amazing and cool it is, tell all your friends, then you get that crash back to baseline. At best, it just becomes a regular part of your routine. More commonly you dump it for the next cool productivity tool.

antupis 4y ago
I cannot think any productivity tool that has sticked only sake of productivity. It is always productivity + something where tool shines. Eg using vim at server through ssh.
jollybean 4y ago
I'm doubtful it's a 'productivity' issue so much as a 'status' issue. The product is positioned as a brand, not a tech. It's actually a confusing thing in marketing. Products that are sold for aesthetic reasons - i.e. fashion - well that's obviously aspirational. But most products that are sold even on the basis of features - those features are never used. It's the features themselves that are aspirational. There's a late night infomercial on right now selling hoodies. They make it green, call it the 'tactical hoodie' and use the most ridiculous, masculine/alpha, quasi military language to describe it. All the 'zippers' and 'pockets' and 'the peak on the hood to keep your night vision' etc.. It's just a basic green hoodie ... but described as though it's for Special Forces Operators i.e. aspirational marketing. FYI that products are sold aspirationally doesn't mean they are bad, they can be good, even better, just that you're probably going to end up paying a hefty margin. Good example of this kind of positioning: "You sent a critical email, but didn't hear back. Why? Your message was buried by countless more that arrived later. With Superhuman, you can get back to the top of their inbox. When you send an email, just choose a time — for example, Monday at 8:55 am — and we'll deliver it precisely then. When your contact starts their day, they'll see your message first. No matter when you work, send at the perfect moment. " It's a ridiculously mundane feature, sadly one that took forever to appear on most clients, but it's now universally available, called out as some amazing thing and contextualized in the locus of the problem i.e. "Your message gets read first!". Smart but a bit hapless.

bradgessler 4y ago

I found the waitlist and onboarding process off-putting, to the point where I just didn’t want to even use it. I remember getting as far as, “ok, now you need to go through the onboarding process”. I asked if I could skip but they insisted I schedule time with them, so I just didn’t bother. This was probably one of the weirdest experiences I had with a SaaS product. Anyway, I wish them well and I hope they pull through the whatever-is-about-to-happen with minimal damage.

throwaway2037 4y ago
I agree: A waitlist on a pure SaaS product is absurd. The only reason why I can think they have it: To require 1:1 onboarding that gives their sales team an opportunity to upsell you. That said, they could have decoupled the two.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  The waitlist is an all-to-standard tactic used by B2C SaaS companies. It is designed to create a sense of scarcity and FOMO.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    I concede: Your point is very well made. It is the manufactured / induced aspiration!

rmason 4y ago

I have to disagree with you. The guy built a niche product, an email program that offered productivity benefits just for those dealing with hundreds of emails a day. Maybe the top 1-2% of email users would find it useful. But this presents some big problems for his go to market plan. If he opens it up to everyone with no restrictions he will face tremendous churn. Plus 98% won't see any value at all and will bash the product online perhaps discouraging those who would benefit from even trying it. By forcing people to answer questions that allow him to only allow those who would potentially benefit from signing up for the trial he eliminates all those problems. As a result from what I can see his users are fanatical in their praise. You might ask how does he earn a profit on the top 2% of email users? The overall market is so large that even a tiny sliver of those users who willing pay for the product is a pretty large market.

laserlight 4y ago
> The guy built a niche product Proponents never call it a niche product, though. They talk like it’s the one productivity tool to rule them all. Such attitude is the problem, not the business’s success.
- kirso 4y ago
  They didn't move mass market right away though. Funnily I am the one who always said - why do you need Superhuman if you have multiple inboxes in gmail and filters + shortcuts to cater for probably 80% of the functionality free. But the OP of the comment has a very good point: >he will face tremendous churn The pricing didn't reflect the value for mass market. They started with SV execs. Them slowly improved and decreased pricing and released for `privileged mass market` later down the road. It was a process in the end... I still refuse to pay for it though :)
  - ggnall 4y ago
    Here's some instructions on this! https://www.grahamgnall.com/blog/2020/10/14/how-to-create-superhuman-in-gmail https://www.grahamgnall.com/blog/2020/10/14/how-to-create-su... >why do you need Superhuman if you have multiple inboxes in gmail and filters + shortcuts to cater for probably 80% of the functionality free.

localhost3000 4y ago

It took literally _5 years_ for me to get through the waitlist. I signed up in 2016 and got an automated email “from” the founder in May 2021 excitedly inviting me to fill out a questionnaire in order to gain access… Asking me to do work after waiting 5 years seemed crazy so I ignored it and got another automated email “from” the founder nudging me to take the questionnaire a few weeks later. Strangest set of interactions I’ve ever had with a product. I have no idea whether their product is good or bad and I stopped caring many years ago.