Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 21 posts

Re: Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

#13

Post by projectramo »

capocannoniere wrote: post #5
projectramo wrote: post #2

There are so many email apps and clients out now that a user never knows which ones are worth trying. For me the killer features would be: 1. Look through my entire history of emails to figure out who my friends are 2. Remind me to email them more frequently Like a CRM, but its just to email to friends.

You can take a look at Joe Lonsdale's Affinity [1] [1] https://affinity.co/

There is no pricing on this. Do you know how much it will be?

Re: Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

#14

Post by projectramo »

benhatten wrote: post #3
projectramo wrote: post #2

There are so many email apps and clients out now that a user never knows which ones are worth trying. For me the killer features would be: 1. Look through my entire history of emails to figure out who my friends are 2. Remind me to email them more frequently Like a CRM, but its just to email to friends.

On that request - I would try contactually. Pretty good on that front.

The price is not much if I want to organize my sales force but it seems a lot just to stay in touch with friends.

Re: Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

#15

Post by projectramo »

BadassFractal wrote: post #4
benhatten wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that request - I would try contactually. Pretty good on that front.

I really liked Contactually as a personal CRM because it could look into all the different messaging systems and tell me when I talked to someone last, but then I believe Facebook / LinkedIn etc shut down that functionality. Is there anything of this sort out there for individuals for networking purposes? Not trying to sell these folks anything. I want to be told what my last touchpoint with someone was, when, where,…

Exactly. I wonder if contactually would just get rid of the team features and give a personal use price.

Re: Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

#18

Post by rtpg »

krmmalik wrote: post #9

I enjoy using Polymail. It has a very nice user experience, in fact probably one of the best experiences of any email app I have used personally. I have been using it for 3yrs at least. That said, Polymail does nothing for me business wise. I don't use it for my team, nor do I intend to any time soon. It serves me well as a simple email client for personal needs, but that's as far as things go. They, along with a few…

The biggest reason I believe for there to not be a unified tool at this point is that requirements are superficially the same, but when you dig deeply almost every company has a different set of needs, even locally contradictory ones

So you have stuff like Salesforce, with huge barriers to entry... But you can basically do everything. Sure, you might still need a Salesforce expert , but that's easier than 2 or 3 developers for a hand rolled thing that doesn't really integrate with anything.

Say what you will about paper workflows, but being able to paperclip stuff together, copy, write anywhere, etc. makes it pretty flexible. Lots of the cheaper tools with "easy onboarding" on the other hand...

Re: Polymail (YC S16) looks to unify business email tools into a single web app

#19

Post by taroth »

I’ve found good use of Polymail and pay $20/m for team pro. It’s a love-hate relationship though due to small but disruptive UX patterns. Some examples:

The MacOS app does not follow normal keybinding conventions. Specifically, ESC causes the app to exit full screen and cmd+shift+f doesn’t enter full screen. No option to customize either.

The iOS app will instantly show notifications for new emails, but upon opening up the app you have to wait 5-10 seconds for the emails to appear (while gmail is instant).

That said I enjoy the inbox zero image, snoozing of messages, and overall style.

Post reply on HN