Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#1

Post by backmail » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:19 PM UTC

All,

I rcenty launched my side project https://backmail.io . I really thought my side project solved a painpoint in lot of people's live. There is no easy way to get a backup of your gmail content. Gmail takeout is very slow, and you cant have a regular backups using that. This tool also works for the Gsuite users, so when you have a componay provided email account in google cloud, you can easily take a backup when you leave the company without any hassle. Since there are very few users for this service, i had decided to shut down the service.

However i would like to know what i did wrong? Should i have done some market research before implementing this? There was some serious discussions in the HN about easier way to move away from gmail, or take a regular backups of the gmail, which i thought was an validation to the idea. Should i have done something more? If so, any pointers / advice would be very helpful? Should i have put more effort marketing??

Any advice would be really grateful!!

Thanks, P

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#2

Post by YCode » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

I can only speak for myself, but I'd never heard of this product until now.

Even if I had, I've never had a reason to move my email off Gmail.

Anything important enough to need a backup of I just manually save to my cloud drive that's synced to my local computer.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#3

Post by gtirloni » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:33 PM UTC

1) I alrady have a hard time trusting Google/Microsoft/etc with my email let alone another third party.

2) For local backups, IMAP/POP works relatively well already.

I don't see how this would work as a standalone product. Maybe if it was a feature in something like Fastmail or a full-fledged office suite, it would be more appealing.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#4

Post by josho » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

Have you ever heard the phrase vitamin vs painkiller? Do a quick google.

> solved a painpoint in lot of people's live

Your product is a vitamin, it's a nice thing to have, not a need to have. Personal email backup is not a pain point—It's a nice to have and it's much harder to sell vitamins than it is to sell painkillers.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#5

Post by billconan » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

I only heard about this today. But I would not be a customer probably.

I think gmail is stable enough, I never thought of losing emails.

I have used gmail for a long time, it really documents my life. one day, if I lose my gmail account, I will feel sad. but those emails are less than 0.01 percent of all the emails in the account. it isn't worth signing up a service for that 0.01 percent I guess.

Overall, regarding the idea, I feel that it is like selling an insurance for a very specific rare disease.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#6

Post by backmail » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

josho wrote: post #4

Have you ever heard the phrase vitamin vs painkiller? Do a quick google. > solved a painpoint in lot of people's live Your product is a vitamin, it's a nice thing to have, not a need to have. Personal email backup is not a pain point—It's a nice to have and it's much harder to sell vitamins than it is to sell painkillers.

Thnaks for your feedback. Thinking about it, you were spot on. I wasnt sure it was a vitamin or a painkiller, hence i assumed it might be a painkiller for lot of people, where i was completely wrong. Thanks once again for your feedback.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#7

Post by backmail » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

billconan wrote: post #5

I only heard about this today. But I would not be a customer probably. I think gmail is stable enough, I never thought of losing emails. I have used gmail for a long time, it really documents my life. one day, if I lose my gmail account, I will feel sad. but those emails are less than 0.01 percent of all the emails in the account. it isn't worth signing up a service for that 0.01 percent I guess. Overall, regarding t…

Thanks for your feedbac. Do you think you might have used this service, if it was providing email backup to other email service like fastmail, migadu etc ?

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#8

Post by backmail » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #3

1) I alrady have a hard time trusting Google/Microsoft/etc with my email let alone another third party. 2) For local backups, IMAP/POP works relatively well already. I don't see how this would work as a standalone product. Maybe if it was a feature in something like Fastmail or a full-fledged office suite, it would be more appealing.

Thanks a ton for your feedback. I understand that IMAP works fine for local backups. But doesnt that add another task to save the local email backup safely somewhere ? Would you have used this service, if i was providing an option to save it directly to dropbox ?

Also would you like a desktop app (windows/mac app) , which automatically saves the backup to your dropbox safely. That way your emails never get stored in any thirdpay servers, but only your local and the drobox!

Thanks once again for the service.

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#9

Post by backmail » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

YCode wrote: post #2

I can only speak for myself, but I'd never heard of this product until now. Even if I had, I've never had a reason to move my email off Gmail. Anything important enough to need a backup of I just manually save to my cloud drive that's synced to my local computer.

Thanks for the feedback. I had posted ShowHN couple of times, but it never came up in the front few pages! Do you have any suggestions, how i could have marketed it better, so you might have known it ?

Re: Ask HN: Where did i screwup?

#10

Post by josho » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

backmail wrote: post #6

josho wrote: post #4

Have you ever heard the phrase vitamin vs painkiller? Do a quick google. > solved a painpoint in lot of people's live Your product is a vitamin, it's a nice thing to have, not a need to have. Personal email backup is not a pain point—It's a nice to have and it's much harder to sell vitamins than it is to sell painkillers.

Thnaks for your feedback. Thinking about it, you were spot on. I wasnt sure it was a vitamin or a painkiller, hence i assumed it might be a painkiller for lot of people, where i was completely wrong. Thanks once again for your feedback.

You've likely learned a lot about gmail/imap/mail in general, see if you can leverage that instead of walking away completely. Do some brainstorming on how you can turn this into something that is closer to a painkiller, or has some kind of virality to get less expensive growth.