3 ms·

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

by 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.
jollybean 4y ago
"f 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." Yeah that's not a valid excuse. There are innumerable product categories where such problems exist. Every product you could imagine is more useful for one group than another. He is creating a MLM-ish exclusivity club, a bit like with Clubhouse (VC's were early participants, bringing in people who wanted to be in that circle). And: "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. " is one of the biggest pitch fallacies. Tons of young entrepreneurs use this justification in their pitches. There can be reality to it or not. The obvious 'hustle' is blatantly apparent right in the name: "Superhuman" He's literally making a direct appeal to the egos of successful people, who think they are a bit better than everyone else. It's a hustle to sell something into the most lucrative market of 'monthly revenue' from people who can afford it. It's a bit like Forbes magazine or something. I'm sure it has some neat features and it may not even be priced wrong - but the marketing is cheezy. It's also an example of how so many smart people lack self awareness, how people think they are immune to advertising, even people who design marketing overrate their ability to resist influence. The Ego is the great deluder, it's almost impossible for the Ego to reject incoming information that embellishes it. I think tech people are among the worst of this - because you have high performing, very intelligent people, probably prone to thinking they are 'better' (in some ways maybe they are), but it's also an industry 'the furthest away' from marketing and communications, with basically no bridge of intuition. The language of tech is completely unhelpful in terms of understanding the language of communications.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  It seems like it's pretty standard advice that it's better to have 100 customers who absolutely love your product and never churn than 10K customers who have a slightly positive impression of it and 10% of them churn out every month. I think the years long waiting list and manual selection of who you let in could be an attempt to game these metrics. (I'm not saying that's a valid excuse for doing it, because after 3 (2?) years, the need for such gaming suggests to me that the product isn't in the first category. It might still be OK and a viable business, but it's probably not going to turn into gmail.
whiplash451 4y ago
Genuine counter-argument: it makes sense to cast a wide net then to filter your customers to try to build a small and loyal customer base. The truly genuine way of doing this, though, is to advertise the product as such and let people decide to sign up on their own will (e.g. « here is a new email system dedicated to power users. »)

by rmason 4y ago

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.

jollybean 4y ago

"f 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." Yeah that's not a valid excuse. There are innumerable product categories where such problems exist. Every product you could imagine is more useful for one group than another. He is creating a MLM-ish exclusivity club, a bit like with Clubhouse (VC's were early participants, bringing in people who wanted to be in that circle). And: "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. " is one of the biggest pitch fallacies. Tons of young entrepreneurs use this justification in their pitches. There can be reality to it or not. The obvious 'hustle' is blatantly apparent right in the name: "Superhuman" He's literally making a direct appeal to the egos of successful people, who think they are a bit better than everyone else. It's a hustle to sell something into the most lucrative market of 'monthly revenue' from people who can afford it. It's a bit like Forbes magazine or something. I'm sure it has some neat features and it may not even be priced wrong - but the marketing is cheezy. It's also an example of how so many smart people lack self awareness, how people think they are immune to advertising, even people who design marketing overrate their ability to resist influence. The Ego is the great deluder, it's almost impossible for the Ego to reject incoming information that embellishes it. I think tech people are among the worst of this - because you have high performing, very intelligent people, probably prone to thinking they are 'better' (in some ways maybe they are), but it's also an industry 'the furthest away' from marketing and communications, with basically no bridge of intuition. The language of tech is completely unhelpful in terms of understanding the language of communications.

sokoloff 4y ago
It seems like it's pretty standard advice that it's better to have 100 customers who absolutely love your product and never churn than 10K customers who have a slightly positive impression of it and 10% of them churn out every month. I think the years long waiting list and manual selection of who you let in could be an attempt to game these metrics. (I'm not saying that's a valid excuse for doing it, because after 3 (2?) years, the need for such gaming suggests to me that the product isn't in the first category. It might still be OK and a viable business, but it's probably not going to turn into gmail.

whiplash451 4y ago

Genuine counter-argument: it makes sense to cast a wide net then to filter your customers to try to build a small and loyal customer base. The truly genuine way of doing this, though, is to advertise the product as such and let people decide to sign up on their own will (e.g. « here is a new email system dedicated to power users. »)