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Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

businessinsider.com

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Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#11

Post by kromem »

parkerhiggins wrote: post #4

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”.

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.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#12

Post by fosk »

kromem wrote: post #11
parkerhiggins wrote: post #4

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”.

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 th…

But it did, Instagram Stories immensely limited Snapchat’s growth with now limited upside. Imagine the scale of IG stories today, without it all these people would have used Snapchat instead.

Sometimes copying a feature doesn’t have to kill, it’s enough if it cripples another organization.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#13

Post by eternalban »

kromem wrote: post #11
parkerhiggins wrote: post #4

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”.

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 th…

> 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.

In both cases there is a boundary condition and distribution is biased towards the boundary. (Sand/Grass transition is a boundary). So the fence is not 'freeing' anything: it is simply demarcating the [extended] 'space of play', and is a stronger boundary condition (physical fence) than the material boundary (sand/grass).

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#14

Post by robertbmenke »

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.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#16

Post by thejosh »

robertbmenke wrote: post #14

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.

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.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#17

Post by coopsmoss »

jelling wrote: post #6
parkerhiggins wrote: post #4

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”.

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.

I agree, VimCal has the same business model as Superhuman but doesn't require an onboarding call. So I'm only using Vimcal

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#18

Post by mrhands556 »

throwaway019254 wrote: post #9

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.

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.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#19

Post by hardwaregeek »

colesantiago wrote: post #7

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…

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.

Re: Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff

#20

Post by IsoldesKnight »

mrhands556 wrote: post #18
throwaway019254 wrote: post #9

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.

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.

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.
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