I have to disagree with you. The guy built a niche product, an email program that offered productivity benefits just for those dealing with hundreds of emails a day. Maybe the top 1-2% of email users would find it useful.
But this presents some big problems for his go to market plan. If he opens it up to everyone with no restrictions he will face tremendous churn. Plus 98% won't see any value at all and will bash the product online perhaps discouraging those who would benefit from even trying it.
By forcing people to answer questions that allow him to only allow those who would potentially benefit from signing up for the trial he eliminates all those problems. As a result from what I can see his users are fanatical in their praise.
You might ask how does he earn a profit on the top 2% of email users? The overall market is so large that even a tiny sliver of those users who willing pay for the product is a pretty large market.
Proponents never call it a niche product, though. They talk like it’s the one productivity tool to rule them all. Such attitude is the problem, not the business’s success.
Funnily I am the one who always said - why do you need Superhuman if you have multiple inboxes in gmail and filters + shortcuts to cater for probably 80% of the functionality free.
But the OP of the comment has a very good point:
>he will face tremendous churn
The pricing didn't reflect the value for mass market. They started with SV execs. Them slowly improved and decreased pricing and released for `privileged mass market` later down the road.
"f he opens it up to everyone with no restrictions he will face tremendous churn. Plus 98% won't see any value at all and will bash the product online perhaps discouraging those who would benefit from even trying it."
Yeah that's not a valid excuse.
There are innumerable product categories where such problems exist.
Every product you could imagine is more useful for one group than another.
He is creating a MLM-ish exclusivity club, a bit like with Clubhouse (VC's were early participants, bringing in people who wanted to be in that circle).
And: "The overall market is so large that even a tiny sliver of those users who willing pay for the product is a pretty large market. " is one of the biggest pitch fallacies. Tons of young entrepreneurs use this justification in their pitches. There can be reality to it or not.
The obvious 'hustle' is blatantly apparent right in the name: "Superhuman"
He's literally making a direct appeal to the egos of successful people, who think they are a bit better than everyone else.
It's a hustle to sell something into the most lucrative market of 'monthly revenue' from people who can afford it.
It's a bit like Forbes magazine or something.
I'm sure it has some neat features and it may not even be priced wrong - but the marketing is cheezy.
It's also an example of how so many smart people lack self awareness, how people think they are immune to advertising, even people who design marketing overrate their ability to resist influence. The Ego is the great deluder, it's almost impossible for the Ego to reject incoming information that embellishes it.
I think tech people are among the worst of this - because you have high performing, very intelligent people, probably prone to thinking they are 'better' (in some ways maybe they are), but it's also an industry 'the furthest away' from marketing and communications, with basically no bridge of intuition. The language of tech is completely unhelpful in terms of understanding the language of communications.
It seems like it's pretty standard advice that it's better to have 100 customers who absolutely love your product and never churn than 10K customers who have a slightly positive impression of it and 10% of them churn out every month.
I think the years long waiting list and manual selection of who you let in could be an attempt to game these metrics. (I'm not saying that's a valid excuse for doing it, because after 3 (2?) years, the need for such gaming suggests to me that the product isn't in the first category. It might still be OK and a viable business, but it's probably not going to turn into gmail.
"It seems like it's pretty standard advice that it's better to have 100 customers who absolutely love your product and never churn than 10K customers who have a slightly positive impression of it and 10% of them churn out every month."
??? What, no.
Do the math on what you just said.
You'd have to charge 100x the price to have only the 'beloved customers'.
'Churn' is a normal part of business. 100x the customer based, for 10x churn? I think most people would take that.
'Years long waiting list' - is mostly rubb hype, a marketing tactic.
You are not going to be on the waiting list, if they think you are important.
My 'wait' was maybe 3 months, probably because I have 'some banking' elements on my profile. If I was a founder, probably 1 month.
It's a matter of who they think is willing to pay - and - a 'scarcity' tactic that feeds right into the egos of the kinds of people who would want that product.
Their tactics may be reasonable - it could be optimal for them ...
... but my issue is - they are not rational tactics in a competitive market.
Someone could 'copy the whole thing' and give it away for $1 a month.
'Churn' is not hugely relevant.
Which makes me believe that the features are just not that valuable.
They are trying to be a premium brand product in software.
I think 10% layoff is probably just an excuse to cut some fluff and R&D during a downturn. They can harvest cash a little bit before expanding.
Genuine counter-argument: it makes sense to cast a wide net then to filter your customers to try to build a small and loyal customer base.
The truly genuine way of doing this, though, is to advertise the product as such and let people decide to sign up on their own will (e.g. « here is a new email system dedicated to power users. »)
But this presents some big problems for his go to market plan. If he opens it up to everyone with no restrictions he will face tremendous churn. Plus 98% won't see any value at all and will bash the product online perhaps discouraging those who would benefit from even trying it.
By forcing people to answer questions that allow him to only allow those who would potentially benefit from signing up for the trial he eliminates all those problems. As a result from what I can see his users are fanatical in their praise.
You might ask how does he earn a profit on the top 2% of email users? The overall market is so large that even a tiny sliver of those users who willing pay for the product is a pretty large market.