Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

My experience with Superhuman has been terrible. Back in the day, I tried to sign up. Couldn't. Then they started allowing sign-ups, but there was a mandatory onboarding/sales call to get started...

Finally, some time ago managed to sign up in hopes it could help to manage multiple inboxes with a unified inbox for all of my accounts. Nope doesn't have that. Canceled my subscription immediately yet I kept receiving their spam for a while.

Overall, a very scammy vibe.




I had the opposite vibe. Had the same process went through the call and they asked what I needed and wanted from an email client and after telling them they said that it probably wasn’t for me yet. And I didn’t sign up.

They emailed me when features I mentioned were added and then a couple of years ago tried again. Been using it everyday since then as my primary email driver at work.

They know they have a niche product - a paid email client; an expensive one at that! So they filter so word of mouth and reviews and all match expectations and make sure their product is a good fit. It has been the opposite of scammy.


TFA says finding product market fit is when 40%+ of users would be “very disappointed” if your product disappeared.

Wait! That means, if the only person using your product is your mom, you have PMF.

Based on what you said and the TFA, this is Superhuman’s PMF approach (i.e., perversely satisfy this metric by filtering users).

I don’t understand where this “engine” is, but perhaps that’s it.


The engine part is looking for users that are somewhat, but not totally satisfied and building for them.

That is - you don’t want to build for people that already love your product (it’s already great for them!) and you don’t want to build for people that absolutely don’t like your product (would need a very different product), but instead build for people that you can convert from “somewhat like” to “love”.


> TFA says finding product market fit is when 40%+ of users would be “very disappointed” if your product disappeared.

> Wait! That means, if the only person using your product is your mom, you have PMF.

This just seems straightforwardly correct. If you want to find the size of your total addressable market, use a different tool; this one is for product market fit.


They literally said you can do this at around 40 users.


I had the same exact experience. I was looking for a Sparrow replacement for years after google bought them and shut it down. I think that's all superhuman needed to do, recreate sparrow.


I have to disagree with the scammy part. They were pretty serious/intense about teaching you how to use superhuman, so the daily emails for the first week could be considered spammy, but personally I found them useful when trying to learn to be a power user.

It was not worth it for me at that price point, but they clearly put so much craftsmanship into the app, I feel obliged to defend it from be called scammy. It remains on the short list of best “new technology” experiences for me, right up there with some of my first Apple devices.


I had the opposite experience as well. Big fan, can't live without it. It really helps me manage multiple inboxes effectively. As someone with a similar email challenge it strikes me as less than ideal to view all inboxes in one view? The inbox in question is a pretty important piece of context for the email.

I also tend to get annoyed with forced 1:1 onboarding, but they seem to have found that the tool is only sticky if they help retrain your habits. It worked for me, and others I know.


If you’re on an Apple device, Mail.app provides a unified inbox.




Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: