Superhuman's secret to success | Rahul Vohra (CEO and founder)

Key Concepts

• Product Market Fit (PMF)
• Virality (Word of Mouth)
• Solution Deepening vs. Market Widening
• Switch Log (Time Tracking)
• Transcendental Meditation (TM)
• Game Design (vs. Gamification)
• Single Decisive Reason (SDR)
• Contrarian Thinking
• Manual Onboarding
• Positioning

Rapportive and the Secret to Virality

• Rahul Vohra's previous company, Rapportive, was a Gmail extension acquired by LinkedIn.
• The pivotal moment was working with Elliot Shmukler, LinkedIn's head of Growth.
• Elliot revealed that "there is no such thing as a truly viral product." No app sustains a viral factor > 1 for long.
• Address book import, a famous LinkedIn feature, had a lifetime viral factor of ~0.4.
• The true secret to virality is word of mouth: "It is when one user spontaneously tells another user about your product."
• This shaped Superhuman's growth strategy and brand building.

Building a Remarkable Product

• Superhuman's core company values are:
  • Create Delight: Make something joyful.
  • Deliver Remarkable Quality: Make something striking and worthy of attention.
  • Build the Extraordinary: Focus on efficacy and innovativeness.
• Baking these values into the company culture is a "trick" to drive growth.

Addressing Slowdown and Time Management

• Superhuman noticed a sentiment that their product velocity had slowed down.
• Two types of slowdown:
  • Unavoidable: Balancing solution deepening (improving for existing users) and market widening (reaching new users). Market widening (supporting multiple platforms like iOS, Android, Outlook, etc.) can decrease perceived velocity.
  • Avoidable: Related to management structure and CEO focus.
• Rahul realized he was spending only 6-7% of his time on product, design, technology, and marketing.
• He hired a president to handle operations and management, freeing him to focus on his "zone of genius."
• His time allocation shifted to 60-70% on product, design, technology, and marketing.
• Switch Log: A time-tracking technique where Rahul Slack DM's his EA every time he switches tasks ("TS: [task description]"). This captures what he actually did, not just what his calendar said.
• This allows him to do what feels right in the moment and then analyze his time allocation at the end of the week.
• He uses Transcendental Meditation (TM) for 30 minutes (20 minutes meditation, 10 minutes rest) in the morning and afternoon to improve focus and creativity.
• Recommendation: Learn TM from a certified teacher (e.g., Laurent Valasek at Peak Leadership Institute).

The Role of the President

• The president takes over operations, management of the executive team, and accountability conversations.
• They also serve as a thought partner on corporate strategy (e.g., multiplayer, AI, R&D).
• The president role is like a "grown-up co-founder."

Attention to Detail and Font Selection

• Rahul is known for his strong attention to detail.
• He selected a modified version of Adelle Sans as Superhuman's font.
• He evaluated 15 font families based on:
  1. Gorgeousness
  2. Ability to convey any message
  3. Reading speed and comprehension
  4. Appearance of email addresses
• Adelle Sans is narrow, which allows for optimal line length (90-120 characters) for reading speed.
• It also has a unique treatment of the "@" symbol in email addresses.
• They worked with a type designer to refine specific glyphs.

Balancing Craft and Speed

• The amount of time to spend perfecting a product before launch depends on the market and business model.
• For mission-critical products like email, it's important to launch with a polished product.
• Superhuman focused on speed as a differentiator.
• Rahul interviewed hundreds of potential customers and found that speed was a unique and available position.
• He also did the "cocktail party test" and found that people pitched Superhuman as "really fucking fast."

Manual Onboarding

• Superhuman initially insisted on one-to-one concierge onboarding.
• At peak, they had about 20 people doing manual onboarding.
• They stopped when they realized that some personality types didn't want one-on-one onboarding.
• Manual onboarding can improve user metrics (engagement, retention, PMF score, NPS, virality).
• It can also help build a brand and create super fans.
• It allows companies to focus engineering resources on PMF, solution deepening, and market widening instead of first-time user experience.
• Factors to consider:
  • Availability of capital
  • LTV/ACV
  • Ensuring onboarding is profitable
  • Top-of-funnel width

Product Market Fit Engine

• Key ideas:
  • You can measure PMF.
  • You can optimize PMF.
  • You can systematically increase PMF.
  • You can have an algorithm write your roadmap.
• Measure PMF by asking: "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" (Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed).
• Sean Ellis found that companies with >40% "very disappointed" grew the fastest.
• Focus on the "somewhat disappointed" segment for whom the main benefit resonates.
• Identify what they don't like about the product and address those issues.
• Spend half your time doubling down on what people love and half your time overcoming objections of the "somewhat disappointed" users.
• Superhuman doesn't run the engine as is for the whole product, but they use it for subcomponents and new products.

Game Design vs. Gamification

• Make business software like games to make it fun and drive word of mouth.
• Game design is not gamification (adding points, levels, trophies, badges).
• Gamification undermines intrinsic motivation (doing things because they are inherently interesting).
• Game design draws upon psychology, mathematics, storytelling, and interaction design.
• Superhuman focuses on five key areas: goals, emotions, toys, controls, and flow.
• Make fun toys and then combine them into games.
• Example: Superhuman's time auto-completer is a "toy" that indulges playful exploration and elicits moments of pleasant surprise.

Pricing Strategy

• Before figuring out pricing, you must first figure out positioning.
• Superhuman positions itself as the best email tool on the market for high-performing teams and individuals.
• Use the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter to determine pricing.
• Ask users:
  1. At what price would you consider Superhuman to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?
  2. At what price would you consider Superhuman to be priced so low that you'd be worried about its quality and you wouldn't buy it?
  3. What price would you consider Superhuman to be starting to get expensive, so that it's not out of the question, but you'd have to give some thought to buying it?
  4. At what price would you consider Superhuman to be a bargain? A great buy for the money?
• Price point #3 (starting to get expensive) supports a best-in-class position.
• Superhuman priced at $30/month based on this analysis.
• Gut check on market size to ensure venture scale potential.

AI Integration

• Superhuman has multiple flagship AI features:
  • Write with AI: Generates emails in your voice and tone.
  • Auto Summarize: Shows a one-line summary above every conversation.
  • Instant Reply: Generates draft replies for every email.
  • Ask AI: Allows you to ask questions about your email data.
  • Auto Labels: Automatically labels emails based on prompts.
  • Auto Reminders: Automatically sets reminders for emails that need a response.
  • Auto Drafts: Automatically drafts follow-up emails.
  • Workflows: Turns email into repeatable automated workflows.
• Biggest surprise: Unpredictable user love for different AI features. Write with AI was more popular than expected.

Enterprise Sales

• Selling to the enterprise is similar to selling to prosumers, but with Outlook users instead of Gmail users.
• Outlook users expect a fully featured calendar app.
• They also expect safeguards like warnings for external recipients and sensitivity labels.
• Superhuman has built support for enterprise mobile management (Microsoft Intune).
• Enterprise sales involve multiple stakeholders (users, IT, workplace management groups).

Single Decisive Reason (SDR)

• For important decisions, identify one reason that on its own supports the decision.
• Avoid relying on a collection of weak reasons.
• Ask: "Is this alone enough to support this decision?"
• Any decision has an opportunity cost.
• Multiple low-quality reasons rarely add up to a high-quality reason to do something.

Conclusion

Rahul Vohra's approach to building Superhuman is characterized by contrarian thinking, attention to detail, and a focus on creating a remarkable product. He emphasizes the importance of word-of-mouth virality, measuring and optimizing product market fit, and using game design principles to make business software fun. His insights on time management, pricing strategy, AI integration, and enterprise sales offer valuable lessons for founders and product leaders.