Everyone has an email account. Whether you use it for its intended purpose or not, it’s all but required to use the internet today. Most people I talk to primarily just use email to sign-up for sites, reset passwords, or get specific emails. Their mailboxes are out of control, and for OCD people like myself, it can even be stressful. Over a decade ago I outlined what I thought was a “better email”, and shockingly, only about 30% of what I came up with has been implemented in one form or another today.
I knew that this undertaking was both massive and complex and that I would have to wait until I had the resources, knowledge, and capacity to write it. That time has finally come!
We’ve submitted an application to YCombinator and should know April 16th if we’ve been accepted. Fortunately, even if we don’t get into YC we’re going to pursue this anyway. We have a private prototype strictly for YC’s use only, but if you’re interested in seeing a video demonstrating the very primitive functionality we’ve built out so far, take a look:
Again, it’s a very minimalistic demonstration of what we are building, but it represents a replacement and integration for both email and Facebook. The latter was one of our biggest concerns for integration, so we decided to undertake it as a proof of concept.
Remember Google Wave? When it came out, I thought perhaps Google had finally built what I had in mind. However, they had two colossal mistakes that led to failure:
- No mobile integration. While it was still the early days of mobile applications, no mobile application significantly hindered adoption for those of us with smartphones.
- The switch mentality. I set up my account immediately when Google Wave first opened it to the public. However, none of my friends or family were there. I convinced a few other people to give it a try, but convincing people to start using it in addition to email and other messaging platforms just wasn’t going to happen.