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%.
Number
Superhuman: 60 people, $51M raised, 360,000 on the waitlist
Rahul Vohra shares Superhuman's proxy metrics in lieu of user numbers: about 60 employees, $51M+ raised from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz, and over 360,000 people on the product waitlist.
$360K
People on Superhuman waitlist · people
“Other proxies or other things that people are interested in are we're about 60 people today. We've raised $51 million plus from investors like First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen sits on our board. It's really exciting to be able to work with the likes of him. And let's see what else. We have a waitlist for our products. That's something that people are often interested in. We now have over 360,000 people on that waitlist.”
Take
Intentionality: proact, don't react, and update the model when data breaks
Rahul Vohra defines being intentional (a Superhuman company value) as deliberate, model-driven thinking: you preempt rather than react, and when data stops matching reality you immediately update your model instead of staying on the back foot.
“When someone is intentional, they are a very deliberate thinker and actor. They tend not to react. But they proact. They preempt. They get ahead of things. They have a model for how the world or how their business might work. And when the data stops matching reality, they immediately update the model as opposed to constantly being on the back front— back foot, rather.”
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
Plug-and-play autocorrect library for web apps
Rahul Vohra pitches a missing dev tool: a drop-in library that brings native-quality autocorrect (capitalization, punctuation, transposition errors, conjoined words) to web and Windows editors the way macOS and iPhone do it natively. He says he has searched for it and it does not exist.
“One is a plug-and-play library for autocorrect. So Superhuman works in the browser, it also works in the native Mac app. We will one day build a native Windows app. When you type, I would love to be able to autocorrect the errors in your typing in the same way that macOS does natively. By the way, Windows doesn't do this natively, so if you live on a Windows machine, you probably don't really know what I'm talking about.”
Steal thisShip an SDK that gives any web or Windows text editor iPhone-grade autocorrect, sold to app developers who want a better writing experience.
Story
Semil Shah's breakout-company-of-the-year track record
Investor Semil Shah picks one breakout company each year. His list: Stripe (2012), Snapchat (2013), Slack (2014), Coinbase (2017), Airtable (2018), Superhuman (2019), and Hopin (2020) — a near-perfect hit rate of generational companies.
“So 2012, he picked Stripe. 2013, he picked Snapchat. 2014, he picked Slack. Um, didn't do 2015, didn't do 2016. 2017, he did Coinbase. Um, 2018, Airtable. 2019 was Superhuman. And for 2020, he picked Hoppin.”
Steal thisTrack who the best investors publicly call as breakout each year, and study what those companies have in common.
Idea
Charge a monthly fee for software, don't chase ads or scale
Sam argues the hard part of a productivity tool is monetization, and that the Superhuman/HEY model of simply charging a monthly fee, which he never thought would work, is 100% the right move over ad-supported or scale-first plays.
“but it's something that Superhuman and HEY are doing that in a million years I never thought would work, but I now completely agree, is charging money for it. Like, you know, like most people will be like, yeah, we'll make money from advertising, or we'll get like a billion users and hopefully something turns out. But I think monthly fees for services like this is actually 100% the way to go.”
Steal thisCharge a monthly subscription from day one instead of defaulting to ads or a free-now-monetize-later plan.
Number
Superhuman: ~20,000 paying subscribers at $30/month for faster email
Sam pegs Superhuman, the premium email client from Rahul Vohra (who earlier sold Rapportive to LinkedIn for ~$15M), at around 20,000 paying subscribers at $30/month.
$30
Subscription price · USD/month
“He launched this thing called Superhuman. I think they have about 20,000 paying subscribers at like $300, uh, $30 a month. $30 a month. I bought it. It's cool.”
Tactic
Superhuman's forced onboarding: you can't pay until they coach you
Shaan describes Superhuman's deliberate friction: you cannot sign up or pay until you complete a 30–40 minute live video onboarding call where they teach the hotkeys, after which the founder emails you one new tip daily.
“So they will not let you use the product. You cannot sign up for it. You cannot give them money unless you go through their onboarding where they call you, they video call you, and they teach you step by step for 30 or 40 minutes all the different tricks, all the different little tips that make it faster for you.”
Steal thisGate your premium product behind a high-touch onboarding call so users actually learn it before they judge it.
Idea
Luxury software: charge $1,000/month for a few super high-paying users
Riffing on Superhuman's $20/month email client, Daniel Gross frames a 'luxury software' playbook: build super high-end, super-fast tools and charge a premium to a small base instead of chasing mass free users.
“I think to me that is kind of a model here, going back to our Gulfstream or— Luxury software. Luxury software is a great way of putting it. And I think no one's executed a pocket on that thing. So that's cool. Super high-end, super fast, charge $1,000 a month, and you're not gonna get a lot of users, but you're gonna get a few super high-paying.”
Steal thisTarget the Gulfstream market, not the Prius market: build premium software and charge $1,000/month to a small, high-paying base.