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Superhuman

Dec 05, 202230 min read

Superhuman

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Is there a business to be started selling a new email platform? Transcript: Speaker 1 It isn’t necessarily obvious from the ouse. I do agree with that. At linkton, i ran all o our email integrations. It was my responsibility rather to get linkton data, lincton profiles, into other male clients. And so i became very familiar with how professionals do their email, and the t l d r is badly. So i took a year off after i left. And during that time, i was looking for what i wanted to start next. Due in part to the ipo and to the acquisition, i was very fortunate to be in a position where i didn’t really have to work. And so i focused on impact. You know, what was the biggest thing that i could possibly do? And my mind kept going back to a two thousand and 12 mackenzie study, where they showed that the average professional, and there are one billion professionals in the world, the average professional spends three hours a day reading and writing email Speaker 2 Youow, it’s not harar to beliefralis crazy. Speaker 1 It’s, i mean, it’s, it’s just mind blowing. And so during my year off, every single day i was doing the very simple math, one billion professionals times three hours a day. (Time 0:13:06)

The average professional spends three hours a day reading and writing email

The Hunch That Speed Would Be a Big Deal Summary: Gmal. was a value prop from very early on. It came out of some of the frustrations developing reportive on gmal. But like with any hunch or inkling, one does have to validate it. And i had two hypotheses going in. Hypothesis number one was that for g mal, people were upset about how slow it had got,. and how it wasn’t working properly off line. Transcript: Speaker 1 Speed was a value prop from very early on. And i think, as i introspect this. It came out of some of the frustrations developing reportive on gmal. Obviously, gmal, at the time, was my primary emal inter face. I was the founder and seo of a of that start up, and i was doing a lot of email based work. And so i was intimately familiar with how slow g merle was and how slow it was gettingnd i had therefore this this hunch, this inkling, that speed was going to be a very big deal. But like with any hunch or inkling, one does have to validate it. So in the first year of superhuman, as we were primarily building, we threw up a a landing page. It was a terrible landing page, just basic square space thing that took us all of two hours to put together. And all you could do on this page was throw in your email address. D when you threw in your email address, you got an automatic email from me. And in that email, there were two questions. Number one was, what do you use for email to day? And number two was, what were your pet peaves about it? And i had two hypotheses going in. Hypothesis number one was that for g mal, people were upset about how slow it had got, and how it wasn’t working properly off line, and how they had to use gmal pluggins to make it do the things that they wanted to do. (Time 0:20:50) Surveys in pre-launch startups

How Do You Drive Traffic? Summary: In that first year of superhuman i think that we had maybe in the region of five thousand sinups on that landing page. The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. So for us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Transcript: Speaker 1 I feel for you. Ha, ha. So we had to validate that. In that first year of superhuman i think that we had maybe in the region of five thousand sinups on that landing page, five thousand emales that went out, a thousand conversations that actually happened, therefore, a thousand interviews that i did with early users. Probably weigh more than most founders would actually do. And resoundingly, those two hypotheses were confirmed. People disliked gima for the speed and the lack of off line and the clutter and the pluggins. And people disliked third party emal aps because of the stability and the sink and the bugginess. Speaker 2 How did you drive traffic? Like how did you get top of funnel to get all those responses on your landing page in the early days of a startip, i think. Speaker 1 And this is what we did. The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. So for us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. (Time 0:22:32)review

How Do You Survive An Acquisition? Summary: Atono: The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. For us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Transcript: Speaker 2 How did you drive traffic? Like how did you get top of funnel to get all those responses on your landing page in the early days of a startip, i think. Speaker 1 And this is what we did. The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. So for us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Atono. And the trick when doing these is to think of interesting, evergreen content. So you guys are the perfect people to talk to about this. You know more than any one else just how hard acquisitions are. I currently have one of the most widely read articles on how to survive an acquisition. And it was written in response to the mail box shut down. I think it’s your only medium post rate. It’s probably my only medium post, correct? Because i usually end up, sort of, second part to your question, i usually actually end up syndicating posts. You get far more reach than and so that post ended up on medium also was syndicated to c z dot com. And yes, it was about how do you survive an acquisition? And we were able to insert it into the seit geist because relevant to our company, some news event was happening. (Time 0:23:11)review

How Do You Survive An Acquisition? Summary: Atono: The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. For us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Transcript: Speaker 1 And this is what we did. The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. So for us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Atono. And the trick when doing these is to think of interesting, evergreen content. So you guys are the perfect people to talk to about this. You know more than any one else just how hard acquisitions are. I currently have one of the most widely read articles on how to survive an acquisition. And it was written in response to the mail box shut down. I think it’s your only medium post rate. It’s probably my only medium post, correct? Because i usually end up, sort of, second part to your question, i usually actually end up syndicating posts. You get far more reach than and so that post ended up on medium also was syndicated to c z dot com. And yes, it was about how do you survive an acquisition? And we were able to insert it into the seit geist because relevant to our company, some news event was happening. I think if we as founders think hard enough, there’s probably one or two things a year where that’s true. And you only need one or two things a year. Now, it’s a pretty intense period. I think to write that article probably took me about three days of not doing anything else, and then another day of shopping it around. So four days all in. But those four days bought, i don’t know, north of five thousand sign ups. And then those are the sign ups that you need to validate your initial idea. (Time 0:23:18)review

How Do You Survive An Acquisition? Summary: Atono: The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. For us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Transcript: Speaker 1 And this is what we did. The best way to do it is to pick one or two events per year where you can insert yourself into the cultural seitgeist. So for us, one such event was when mail box was being shut down. And i rigt he yes, sadness, right? But it was the perfect narrative to say, hey, i’m over here. Come come look. Atono. And the trick when doing these is to think of interesting, evergreen content. So you guys are the perfect people to talk to about this. You know more than any one else just how hard acquisitions are. I currently have one of the most widely read articles on how to survive an acquisition. And it was written in response to the mail box shut down. I think it’s your only medium post rate. It’s probably my only medium post, correct? Because i usually end up, sort of, second part to your question, i usually actually end up syndicating posts. You get far more reach than and so that post ended up on medium also was syndicated to c z dot com. And yes, it was about how do you survive an acquisition? And we were able to insert it into the seit geist because relevant to our company, some news event was happening. I think if we as founders think hard enough, there’s probably one or two things a year where that’s true. And you only need one or two things a year. Now, it’s a pretty intense period. I think to write that article probably took me about three days of not doing anything else, and then another day of shopping it around. So four days all in. But those four days bought, i don’t know, north of five thousand sign ups. And then those are the sign ups that you need to validate your initial idea. (Time 0:23:18)review

The Only Way to Win is to be Contrarian and Right Summary: The last browser that tried to charge for you to use was omni web in the early two thousands. The only way to win, and i think it’s read hoffman who popularized the following statement, is to be contrarian and right. And there’s nothing more contrario against a free product than to charge s as much as seems reasonable, but then to back it up with the goods that actually make it worth while. Transcript: Speaker 2 Before we get into kind of our discussion, i want to talk about a kind of a provocative question. Have we reached the end of the era of the mvp? Or ship a crapy version? But before we get there, for listeners who don’t know, superhuman cost, 30 dollars a month for an emal client, like, talk about a narrative violation. This is, i think, the last browser that tried to charge for you to use was, like, omni web in, you know, the early two thousands. And i think it would be absolute heresy to day to say, oh, you know it? It’s not even a male service. It’s backed by gmal. It’s an application through which to interface with with gml. But boy is it great. And, oh my gosh, i pay 30, 30 dollars for it. How did you come to a revenue model of were just goingto ask people to pay? How did you pick a price point and how you validate it? Speaker 1 I think overall, with pricing strategy, you have to analyze what you’re going up against. And we were going up against free, or nearly free. Gml and microsoft are practically free, ifo are a consumer. And if you’re in the enterprise, it’s being paid for you anyway, so you don’t see or feel the cost. The only way to win, and i think it’s read hoffman who popularized the following statement, is to be contrarian and right. I don’t necessarily know how to be right, but i do know how to mai. And there’s nothing more contrario against a free product than to charge s as much as seems reasonable, or maybe even more than seems reasonable, ye, but then to back it up with the goods that actually make it worth while. (Time 0:25:38)review

Developing a Pricing Sensitivity Meter Summary: Start-ups often orient around the fourth question, bargain for the money. Most start ups are trying to take advantage of a first mover effect or greenfield effects. We may as well price as low as we can to get em all exactly. So i think we should come back to that point because i have a thing that i should probably share with the listeners. But just to tie the positioning back into the pricing, cause this is he very methodical exercise that we ran through. Transcript: Speaker 1 Very much the latter. So i think we should come back to that point because i have a, have a thing that i should probably share with the listeners. But just to tie the positioning back into the pricing, cause this is he very methodical exercise that we ran through. So to step one is understand the lay of the competitive environment. In our case, we were going up against ae two incumbents whose products are free, or practically free. Step two is come up with the positioning like i just described. And when you read our positioning, it’s clear that superhuman is a premium tool for a premium market. And step three is develop your pricing. Now there are many, many ways to develop pricing. But one of the easiest ways, this will appeal to the business school guy and you, is e the van westendor pricing sensitivity meter. I see head nods going on over here. Don’t take a fancy name. I it’s just some dude’s name, i think. A ha ha, ha ha. He was probably very smart, very clever, did a lot of pricing. Anyway, so he said, ask your target users four questions. Number one, at what price would you consider superhuman to be so expensive that you would not consider buying im? Two, at what price would you consider superhuman to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good? Num three, at what price would you consider superhuman to be starting to get expensive, so that it isn’t out of the question, but you would have to give some thought to buying it? Ant number four, at what price would you consider superhuman to be a bargain, a great buy for the money? Now, most start ups actually orient around the fourth question, bargain for the money, because there’s some kind of network effect, or a greenfield effect, or they’re trying to take advantage of a first mover effect, or so on, till there’s a land gad they want to get all the usures. Speaker 2 We may as well price as low as we can to get em all exactly. (Time 0:29:40)review

How Long Did It Take You To Design Superhuman? Summary: i want to set the stage on sort of a time line for this whole thing, because i do think it’s kind of crazy how long it waited before seeing the light of day. I first started sketching out the concept and the business model for superhuman in february of 20 14. And then it wasn’t until nearly a year later, in january of 20 15, when i started designing the product. That’s when i first put pen to paper. All of the copy that you see on superhuman dot com is actually copy that was written in January of 20 15. The first line of code was not written until may fourth in 20 15. We’ll be back next week with Transcript: Speaker 2 Tay, that’s fastenn, i never thought about that before, especially like capal, does you know 12 99 for your iphone or, you know, i think it’s 12 99. I know walmart undercuts it, like 12 95. Interesting. That’s superinteresting. Speaker 3 Psychology, well, siv, you said you wanted to circle back on the position. Oh, yes. Speaker 2 Wo let’s dive in now to this this analysis section. So for listeners, i want to set the stage on sort of a time line for this whole thing, because i do think it’s kind of crazy how long it waited before seeing the light of day. When did you break ground on designing superhuman? When was the first line of code and when did you start rolling out to these first hundred users? Speaker 1 I first started sketching out the concept and the business model for superhuman in february of 20 14. That’s five years ago now, ll, or more rather. And then it wasn’t until nearly a year later, in january of 20 15, when i started designing the product. That’s when i first put pen to paper. I wrote the landing page before i did anything else. All of the copy that you see on superhuman dot com is actually copy that was written in january of 20 15. And i created hundreds of detailed wire frames. And the first line of code was not written until may fourth in 20 15. (Time 0:34:15)review

The Fundamental Job of a Founder is to Create Momentum Transcript: Speaker 1 I was trying to, but you knowththat is a longer term thing. There are things you can do even when you you don’t have a team. What i did in c four was i bought superhuman dot com, and i raised about a 750 thousand dollars of seed capital. And then in january, i did the wire frame that in february, i engaged with a design agency to make those wide frames into really beautiful mocups, hiodel mocups. Speaker 2 I think that’s a little bit of a contrarian thing, to bring in a design agency sort of that early and in a start up, rather than hiring a designer or doing it in house. Speaker 1 It isand it turned out to be super expensive compared to hiring a designer. I think i spent forty five thousand as on turning these wire frames into high fidelity mock ups. I do, speaking of frameworks, i do have a framework on this, which explains why i think it was the rational thing to do in my case. If you want to hear somethingcrt, so i think the the fundamental job of a founder is to create momentum. And in my mind, i like to imagine this gigantic fly wheel, and it’s made up of the most dense material in the universe. And the job is to get this thing moving. Now, most founders, the first time, are probably technical. (Time 0:37:36)review

Accelerate Short Term Growth Rate Summary: “We have a lot of revenue, a growing very quickly. I i think we’re just doing it in a very different fashion year,” he says. “It is from my favorite paul graham essay, a startup, eagles growth yer.” Transcript: Speaker 1 This is the problem that happens in productivity. And so we just decided that that we wouldn’t, and you know, who knows, maybe we never will launch what we on pre launch to day, right? I meana, at this point, it it’s like we, we have a lot of uses. We have a lot of revenue, a growing very quickly. Ah, are we pre launch? Who knows. I i think we’re just doing it in a very different fashion year, and in the way that we actually model the any it is from my favorite paul graham essay, a startup, eagles growth yer. You know thye. Oh, yes. This is such a good essay, probably his best. For listeners who don’t know, he basically says, the most important thing a startup needs to do is to grow. (Time 0:49:58)review

Definitions of Product Market Fit Summary: “I could feel ourselves getting closer every single day. But i had to find a way to explain this to the team,” he says. “These are hyperambitious, superintelligent engineers and designers who’d poured their hearts and souls into the product” Transcript: Speaker 1 Yes, but only because founders were a corp target market for who we were going after. Because i had anced the pain that we were trying to solve when i was running my last company. I very clearly could see, oh, we haven’t solved that pain, not yet. I could feel ourselves getting closer every single day. But i had to find a way to explain this to the team. You know, these are hyperambitious, superintelligent engineers and designers and people of all discipline who’d poured their hearts and souls into the product. They needed a way to understand, not only that, we weren’t ready, but how not ready we were, or how close we were, and the precise steps that we could do in order to get there. So i went out and about. I read everything i could find, and i started searching for definitions of product market fit. And there’s quite a few out there. So for example, paul graham would say, it’s when you made something people wantd i think that’s a pretty good definition. But i wanted something more actionable. And i think sam altman had a slightly different take, which is, it’s when users love your product so much that they spontaneously tell other people to start using it, without you even asking them to do that. And that’s a different take on it. So peg’s take is around desire. Sam’s take as around a distribution or a sort of net promotion. (Time 0:53:37)review

A Bench Marked, Predictive Way to Measure Product Market Summary: At report of bill is a long term investor. All our other vestors fundamentally believe in what we’re doing. It was the team who are working on this day in day out. I wanted to give them a a path, an engine that could work. And so i found a piece of work by shorn ellis, who’s famous for coining the term rotte. He he ran early growth at drop box, logmean, ventbright. The companies that struggled to grow almost always had less than forty % very disappointed. and the companies that grew the most easily almost always had more than forty percent very disappointed. Transcript: Speaker 1 Oh, oh, sure, yes. Like explaining it to the board was the very least of my concerns. Yes, ye. Because, you know, these are for ad i made money for in the past. At report of bill is a long term investor. He just fundamentally believes in what we’re doing. All our other vestors fundamentally believe in what we’re doing. If i went to them and i said, hey, this is the direction i think we should go, they would always be like, good we believe in you this. This is why we invested. It was the team who are working on this day in day out. I wanted to give them a a path, an engine that could work. And so i found a piece of work by shorn ellis, who’s famous for coining the term rotte, exactly he came up with that. And he he ran early growth at drop box, logmean, ventbright. And during his days of doing growth consultancy to start ups, he found a bench marked, predictive way to measure product market you simply ask your users, how would you feel if you could no longer use the product? And you let them answer, either i would be very disappointed, i would be somewhat disappointed, or i would be not disappointed. And you measure the percentage that say very disappointed. And what he found is that the companies that struggled to grow almost always had less than forty % very disappointed. And the companies that grew the most easily almost always had more than forty % very disappointed. (Time 0:58:28)review

Did We Have a Board? Summary: At report of bill is a long term investor. All our other vestors fundamentally believe in what we’re doing. It was the team who are working on this day in day out. I wanted to give them a a path, an engine that could work. And so i found a piece of work by shorn ellis, who’s famous for coining the term rotte,. He came up with that and he he ran early growth at drop box, logmean, ventbright. Transcript: Speaker 1 Oh, oh, sure, yes. Like explaining it to the board was the very least of my concerns. Yes, ye. Because, you know, these are for ad i made money for in the past. At report of bill is a long term investor. He just fundamentally believes in what we’re doing. All our other vestors fundamentally believe in what we’re doing. If i went to them and i said, hey, this is the direction i think we should go, they would always be like, good we believe in you this. This is why we invested. It was the team who are working on this day in day out. I wanted to give them a a path, an engine that could work. And so i found a piece of work by shorn ellis, who’s famous for coining the term rotte, exactly he came up with that. And he he ran early growth at drop box, logmean, ventbright. And during his days of doing growth consultancy to start ups, he found a bench marked, predictive way to measure product market you simply ask your users, how would you feel if you could no longer use the product? And you let them answer, either i would be very disappointed, i would be somewhat disappointed, or i would be not disappointed. And you measure the percentage that say very disappointed. And what he found is that the companies that struggled to grow almost always had less than forty % very disappointed. And the companies that grew the most easily almost always had more than forty % very disappointed. In other words, if more than forty % of your users would be very disappointed without your products, guess what, you have initial product market fit. (Time 0:58:28)review

Product Market Fit Is More Predictive of Success Than Net Promoter Score Summary: Growth consultancy found a way to measure product market by asking users how disappointed they would be without their products. The companies that struggled to grow almost always had less than forty per cent very disappointed. And the companies that grew the most easily almost always had more than forty percent very disappointed. It’s bench marked across hundreds of venture backed companies, and you can use it to build your own product market fit engine. Transcript: Speaker 1 And during his days of doing growth consultancy to start ups, he found a bench marked, predictive way to measure product market you simply ask your users, how would you feel if you could no longer use the product? And you let them answer, either i would be very disappointed, i would be somewhat disappointed, or i would be not disappointed. And you measure the percentage that say very disappointed. And what he found is that the companies that struggled to grow almost always had less than forty % very disappointed. And the companies that grew the most easily almost always had more than forty % very disappointed. In other words, if more than forty % of your users would be very disappointed without your products, guess what, you have initial product market fit. Speaker 2 And treaten to take it away and see what they say. Exactly. Speaker 1 I it’s a stroke of genius. I’m not going to claim to i better he did. It’s more predictive of success than net promoter score. It’s bench marked across hundreds of venture backed companies. It’s a really phenomenal metric. And you know, the most exciting thing about this metric, and the thing that we did it superhuman, is that you can use it to build your very own product market fit engine. (Time 0:59:23)review

How Can We Improve Superhuman? Summary: For every user who comes into your product and then experiences the core benefit of your product, that usually means they’ve done the thing two or three times. So it begins fundamentally with surveying your users. You ask four questions a number one, how would you feel if you could no longer use superhuman? Number two, what type of people do you think would most benefit from superhuman? Three, what is the main benefit that you get from superhuman? And number four, how can we improve superhuman for you? Pretext. O jappd anson, so the first one is a tri statey like i described. And the other three, yes, free. Steet, free and Transcript: Speaker 1 So we have a whole very lengthy article. I’ll give you the wput ‘put in the show notes. Yes, i’ll give you the quick summary, but i would very much recommend reading the article, cosers a ton of subtlety around how to do this correctly. So it begins fundamentally with surveying your users. For every user who comes into your product and who then experiences the core benefit of your product, that usually means they’ve done the thing, whatever it might be two or three times. They’ve probably been there for about two weeks. You send them a survey, and in that survey you ask a number of questions. You ask four questions a number one, how would you feel if you could no longer use, i’ll take superhuman as an example. How would you feel if you could no longer use superhuman with the answers that i outlined? Number two, what type of people do you think would most benefit from superhuman? Three, what is the main benefit that you get from superhuman? And number four, how can we improve superhuman for you? Pretext. O jappd anson, so the first one is a tri statey like i described. And the other three, yes, free. Steet, free and type form is is what we use. It’s probably the easiest way to get this done. (Time 1:01:29)review

Product Market Fit Start Up Transcript: Speaker 1 O jappd anson, so the first one is a tri statey like i described. And the other three, yes, free. Steet, free and type form is is what we use. It’s probably the easiest way to get this done. Speaker 2 Noc ceb tet, great. That’s actually why we te nothing do. That’s like, that’s our primary et et piner square labs, that’s like all we use for invalidation. Speaker 1 Now i wish everything had keep what cholka, so just make everybody’s lives so much better and faster. Speaker 2 How do you then use those four questions to guide you toward what feature should we build or change? Speaker 1 So we then have a four step engine to systematically generate your road map and increased product market fit. And the four steps that you go through are, number one, segment, number two, analyze, number three, build, and number four, repeat. And it just occurs to me that this creates a nice acronym, which is sabreer, segment, analyze, build and repeat. See uat a sabre your users. That’s it. Sounds quite violent. (Time 1:02:38)review

Don’t Overfit Start Up Ideas Summary: When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they’re making. You can either build something that a large number of people want a small amount, or something that a small number of people wants a large amount. In other words, don’t worry too much about building for a narrow segment of users and therefore over fitting. It’s not good start up ideas but nearly all good start-up ideas are of that type. Transcript: Speaker 3 I mean, he said, as stare ad se briiman, he wasn’t grimly determined. Was now grimly determined, ok, sir. Speaker 1 Start up ideas. He says, when a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they’re making, not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed, and that could be built with the amount of effort that a start up usually puts into version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension. You can either build something that a large number of people want a small amount, or something that a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good start up ideas, but nearly all good start up ideas are of that type. In other words, what he’s saying is, don’t worry too much about building for a narrow segment of users and therefore over fitting. (Time 1:09:49)review

Superhuman

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Blazingly Fast The 100ms Rule The creator of Gmail, Paul Buchheit, had a rule: every interaction should be faster than 100ms. Why? Because 100ms is the threshold where interactions feel instantaneous. (View Highlight)

Superhuman

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The act of referring (or asking for a referral) was itself a strong indicator of interest and Superhuman further qualified these leads by an automated survey process before approving them for 1:1 onboarding. As a result, the supposedly unscalable 1:1 onboarding was in fact very efficient, converted at extremely high rates, and brought on the best possible customers. (View Highlight)

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