71–80 of 108 posts
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My inbox is almost full, so they're hassling me about this. I did some investigation and found that over 1GB of the data in my inbox is email history quotes from a long-running email chain. Of course it's impossible to delete those without deleting each email they belong to. Conspiracy theory: Google refused to implement an option to disable inserting email quotes in responses, knowing that such an option would make…
Those email chains compress really well.
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…
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 payin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
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 :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 payin…
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.
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).