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Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

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111–120 of 183 posts

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#112

The moat for SaaS is gone. I am 99% certain I could build to parity in a weekend using Cloudflare without the the pricing limitations. I am thinking it would be within the free tier of CF usage. I am not certain I have the bandwidth to communicate over delivery and plain text inspection concerns.

This depends on what kind of SaaS

I guarantee you that the "moat" is very much intact for the SaaS we are building (more developer / gaming tool but then again so is this) because it requires specialized skills, synthesis and most importantly AI would have no idea how to build it without very specific prompting from our architect

CRUD wrappers never had a moat. Even the most basic viable SaaS that wasnt a micro SaaS had some secret sauce or differentiation. And AI doesnt help you get that unless you already know what it is.

Not to mention network effects. Users are a moat and if you can sell and grow fast enough and create a community, no amount of "there's a clone" can beat it. Never underestimate the power of brand recognition.

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#114

If you know agents email address, it can still be Prompt Injected.. what prevention exists there ?

we have a few things in place, allowlists and permissions act as a layer. also beginning some work on prompt isolation within api soon. but having an isolated identity + data within a separate agentic inbox also puts less risk of your personal email data being injected - which is most people's main concern

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#115

I have written in one of my comments here about how slow teh website is in one interacton Then I scrolled even more in the website and the amount of lag, my my, I don't even know what to say but the amount of lag is something I have genuinely never witnessed in any website. This is like a new low. I really just want to archive this website to preserve how abysmally slow the website is and its aniations and everything…

thanks for the input, we always appreciate constructive feedback!

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#117

This is super interesting. Interesting to see how I'll be able to use this to help my customers with handling email responses. Gmail sucks for this. Super excited to see what you guys develop this into. Will this be able to eventually expand to other forms of agent communication (i.e. payment or phone numbers)?

Yup think there is plenty of ways the product can evolve evolve

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#118
post #89

The moat for SaaS is gone. I am 99% certain I could build to parity in a weekend using Cloudflare without the the pricing limitations. I am thinking it would be within the free tier of CF usage. I am not certain I have the bandwidth to communicate over delivery and plain text inspection concerns.

The moat around TV shows feels gone with TikTok/YT. I am 99% certain I could reach parity in a weekend by publishing content on public networks, without the old distribution or pricing constraints. I think it would all run on infrastructure that is effectively free to use. I am not certain I have the bandwidth to handle distribution, sustained attention, and moderation once the content starts flowing.

Haha nice one

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#119
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit vague, but the idea is right. If your SaaS is built with AI, then any customer you have can also build it with AI, and whatever they build is going to be better suited to their needs and will run cheaper because they aren't paying your margin. AI skews the build vs buy curve massively, because it makes building so much easier

This completely ignores that a lot of products distill expertise into something manageable for the end user. And that the actual act of these 3rd parties offering said products maintains not only the software, but the knowledge required to build it.

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: AgentMail (YC S25) – An API that gives agents their own email inboxes

#120
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have robust checks in place to catch spam and bad actors(reputation, SPF DKIM DMARC, etc.) but as with all tools there will be bad actors who come up with creative ways to scheme for nefarious purposes. We expect our infra and policies to evolve with usage, and one of our goals is to make agent driven email safer than the status quo, not just more scalable

But as of now you're just wide open for abuse? Okay Resend uses SES since it's almost impossible to get private IP mail to hit the inbox through ProofPoint filters. Looks like you have no idea about any of this. You don't even have knowledge of email reputation, much less a plan. Have you heard of Senderscore? You will have all zeros. Saying "SPF DKIM DMARC" is wild - that's a checklist from 15 years ago.

I think we’re aligned on the hard parts here, so let me be precise.

We’re not wide open for abuse nor are we bypassing the hard parts of email reputation. Quite the opposite. We also utilize SES's infrastructure and monitor reputation continuously, but we don’t assume SPF/DKIM/DMARC are sufficient on their own. They’re basics we have implemented, not the entire strategy.

You are correct private IPs per customer make sense once you’re sending meaningful volume (on the order of ~10k+/day per IP). But its inaccurate to say we are sending from a single private IP. IP pools are typically segmented by reputation and traffic profile for customers.

Reputation here is earned at multiple layers: per-IP, per-domain, per-inbox, and over time. We rate-limit, isolate, or revoke bad actors without poisoning unrelated senders. Hopefully this makes sense.

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