The Razor’s Edge #19: Superhuman Founder/CEO Rahul Vohra On Email’s Enduring Role In Modern Workplace Collaboration

We've gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business's rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in?

We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor - Hey, from Basecamp - portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up.  

Topics Covered:

• 2:30 minute mark - The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead?
• 7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID
• 10:30 – Superhuman user experience
• 16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics
• 23:30 – The niche question
• 29:30 – Competition, Hey’s entrance into the market
• 42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling
• 46:30 – Demographic questions
• 52:30 – Among the giants
• 54:30 – App Store controversy
• 57:30 – Gamification
• 1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups

Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation:

• Walt Mossberg: Yes, You've Still Got Mail
• The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain’s Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home (Book)
• Verge: Superhuman's email app is overhyped and overpriced
• Churn FM: How Superhuman avoids churn by systematically increasing product-market fit (Podcast)
• First Round: How Superhuman Built An Engine To Find Product/Market Fit
• TheInformation: The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves To Troll Silicon Valley