<story><title>Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/superhuman-email-startup-lays-off-22-percent-staff-2022-6</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colesantiago</author><text>I remember when this startup came out, all the VCs, angel investors and tech founders were singing songs of praises (and raises) about how this was going to disrupt email and gating the product an &amp;#x27;exclusive&amp;#x27; access to a waitlist.&lt;p&gt;I find it sus when VCs have to keep overhyping their portfolio companies, especially when they don&amp;#x27;t even make money.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I checked it out and found that this really isn&amp;#x27;t novel at all (a meeting to use an email client? really?). Just classic marketing and hype to get you to use the product.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>localhost3000</author><text>It took literally _5 years_ for me to get through the waitlist. I signed up in 2016 and got an automated email “from” the founder in May 2021 excitedly inviting me to fill out a questionnaire in order to gain access… Asking me to do work after waiting 5 years seemed crazy so I ignored it and got another automated email “from” the founder nudging me to take the questionnaire a few weeks later. Strangest set of interactions I’ve ever had with a product. I have no idea whether their product is good or bad and I stopped caring many years ago.</text></comment>
<story><title>Email startup Superhuman lays off 22% of staff</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/superhuman-email-startup-lays-off-22-percent-staff-2022-6</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>colesantiago</author><text>I remember when this startup came out, all the VCs, angel investors and tech founders were singing songs of praises (and raises) about how this was going to disrupt email and gating the product an &amp;#x27;exclusive&amp;#x27; access to a waitlist.&lt;p&gt;I find it sus when VCs have to keep overhyping their portfolio companies, especially when they don&amp;#x27;t even make money.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I checked it out and found that this really isn&amp;#x27;t novel at all (a meeting to use an email client? really?). Just classic marketing and hype to get you to use the product.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hardwaregeek</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s classic productivity app bias. You start using a new app and because of the newness placebo, you get a boost in performance. You post about how amazing and cool it is, tell all your friends, then you get that crash back to baseline. At best, it just becomes a regular part of your routine. More commonly you dump it for the next cool productivity tool.</text></comment>