Framework
Superhuman for X: build the power-user tool the incumbent won't
Shaan explains the Superhuman-for-X pattern: Gmail will never build for the 0.1% of power users willing to pay $50/month for email because it's anti their everyone-friendly strategy, leaving room to charge for a tool only the top 1% needs.
“Gmail, which is trying to be the email for everybody, uh, will never build the email for the 0.1% of power users who are willing to pay $50 a month for their email inbox. It's not Gmail's DNA nor their strategy”
Steal thisPick a tool people now live in all day and rebuild it as a paid power-user version for the top 1%.
Tactic
Stalk and Talk: reverse-engineer anyone's email with Rapportive
Sam describes a process he used to land an Airbnb interview: generate ~100 first+last+@domain email permutations in a spreadsheet, paste them into Gmail, and let Rapportive reveal which address surfaced the real social profile.
“And so I invented this thing, this process called stalk and talk. And the idea was I was going to use it to help me get a job at a company. I made this spreadsheet where I would put someone's first name, their last name, and then their URL, like @airbnb.com. And like, I would put Brian and then Chesky and then @airbnb.com, and it would give me like 100 possible combinations of what the name or his email could be. And then I would put it in Gmail and I would highlight each one and Reportive would tell me which email is his because it would show the social profiles related to each email. I ended up emailing the founders of Airbnb, an interview there using Reportive.”
Steal thisGenerate every plausible email permutation for a target, paste them into Gmail, and use an enrichment tool to spot which one resolves to a real profile.
Framework
Why incumbents leave premium white space: business model and bundling
Rahul Vohra explains why neither Google nor Microsoft built a premium email product: Google's ad model means you are the product so a paid experience doesn't fit, and Microsoft sells through all-you-can-eat bundles where email is just one checkbox in a one-size-fits-all suite.
“For Google, I believe it's the fundamental business model doesn't support creating a premium email experience, and the company is so large now that it doesn't matter. The fundamental Google business model is of course ads and AdWords. It's to know everything they can possibly know about you, secondarily to keep you in the browser, hence Gmail.”
Steal thisFind a premium segment incumbents structurally can't serve because their business model or bundling strategy forbids it.
Number
Professionals do 3 hours of email a day, 3 billion hours daily worldwide
Rahul Vohra cites the McKinsey study that motivated Superhuman: of the 1 billion professionals in the world, the average does 3 hours of email a day, totaling 3 billion hours per day, second only to sleeping.
$3
Hours per day the average professional spends on email · hours/day
“That's the Average professional does 3 hours a day of email. And as we just discussed, they're doing it with one-size-fits-all tools, things like Gmail, things like Outlook. So 3 billion hours per day, every single day, go into email. There's in fact only one thing we do more than email, and that's sleeping.”
Story
The aha moment: 'we kind of ruined Gmail', so rebuild email from scratch
Rahul Vohra recounts the Superhuman origin: realizing the browser extensions he and competitors built sit on Gmail like a virus that slows and clutters it, he asked what if email were rebuilt from scratch the way Apple builds a laptop.
“What if we just built it from scratch? What if we built an email experience the same way that Apple built a laptop? For me, that was like the aha moment that no one has done that because it's really scary and nobody knows how and it's very expensive. But I might be one of the few people in the world that could actually pull it off in the sense of pulling together the team and the capital to make it happen.”
Idea
Andrew Wilkinson's Gmail plugin that copies the best of HEY
Shaan praises Andrew Wilkinson's idea for a Gmail add-on that replicates HEY's two best features — screening first-time senders and hiding newsletter clutter — without forcing users to switch email providers. The lesson: deliver the killer features of a new product as a plugin on top of a tool people already use.
“He basically, he took the, he replicated the two features that matter in HEY and hey.com. Like, hey, you could screen, you know, new recipients first before they show up in your inbox. And also it'll just hide all your newsletter cruft in one spot, like better than the core thing.”
Steal thisCopy the two killer features of a switch-required product and ship them as a plugin on the tool people already use.
Tactic
Pick the enemy that doesn't look self-serving
Shaan's refinement of enemy marketing: Hey switched its fight from Gmail (self-serving, since they sell email) to Apple, a more novel story that doesn't look like thinly veiled competitor bashing.
“now they picked Apple, and it was a way better fight to pick because it's a more novel story and it doesn't seem as self-serving as when they picked Gmail as the competitor.”
Steal thisWhen choosing an enemy, avoid the direct competitor you'd obviously profit from beating; pick a fight that tells a more novel story and looks less self-serving.
Tactic
The plus-sign email trick to catch who leaked your address
Sam shares the Gmail plus-address hack: sign up with 'sam+nordstrom@...' so any email arriving to that variant tells you exactly which company leaked or sold your address - The Hustle sees subscribers do this with 'sam+hustle' all the time.
“if you put the plus sign in front of a, like, Sam plus Nordstrom's at thehustle.co, whenever Nordstrom sends me an email, I'm going to see Nordstrom in it. And if, and if I get an email from J.Crew and it says Sam plus Nordstrom, and then I'm like, oh, that's where my— the leak was, right? Nordstrom gave them my email.”
Steal thisSign up everywhere with 'you+company@gmail.com' so any spam reveals exactly who leaked your address.
Framework
If you're great, you don't have to be good: Gmail bet on 3 things
Shaan recaps Paul Buchheit's essay 'If You're Great, You Don't Have to Be Good': Gmail launched without an address book and chose to be great at just three things - blazing speed, unlimited storage, threaded conversations - and 'dogshit' at the rest.
“He's like, well, we decided we're gonna be great at 3 things for Gmail. We're gonna be blazing fast, we're gonna be unlimited storage, and we're gonna have threaded conversations. And he's like, we're going to be great at those 3 things and we're going to be literally nonexistent or dogshit at the rest. And he's like, when you're great at the right things, you don't even have to be good at the other things.”
Steal thisPick the 2-3 things customers truly care about, be great at those, and consciously let the rest be mediocre.