I built an email alias manager because Cloudflare Email Routing wasn't enough — solo, 1+ year, waitlist just went live
Two years ago I was setting up an ecommerce store and needed a business email on my custom domain. I found Cloudflare Email Routing and it worked — until it didn't. Too many limitations, no analytics, no organization, no way to manage multiple addresses properly.
I thought: I'll just build what I actually need.
At the time I genuinely didn't know SimpleLogin or addy.io existed. I thought I was inventing something new. When I eventually found them, I wasn't impressed — they didn't have what I actually wanted: detailed per-alias analytics (peak hours, top senders), proper alias organization, an in-app composer so I could reply without exposing my real address, and a UI that didn't feel like 2015.
So I kept building anyway.
One year later, solo, no investors, no team: AliasFleet is live. It evolved from "I need a business email tool" into a full privacy-first email alias manager — but the core is still the same. I want to know exactly what's happening with every email address I use, and I want full control over it.
Waitlist is live at aliasfleet.com. First 100 users get Founder's Club pricing — Pro at $7/mo forever instead of $12.
Happy to answer anything about the build — the mail infrastructure alone took months to get right.
What stood out is that you kept building after discovering established competitors because the gap wasn't "email aliases"—it was the experience you felt was missing.
That's usually a stronger reason to enter a market than believing no competitors exist. The interesting question now is whether users recognize that distinction quickly enough to switch.
Exactly right. The gap wasn't "email aliases don't exist", it was "none of them feel like a tool built by someone who actually uses it daily."
The recognition question is the real challenge. My bet is that the people who feel the friction most acutely — power users managing multiple identities, small business owners drowning in alias sprawl — recognize it immediately. The casual user needs to experience the problem a few more times before it clicks.
That's partly why the landing page leads with the pain before the product. If someone reads "you just don't know who sold it" and feels that — they're already sold before they see a single feature.
I think your last paragraph is the interesting one.
It left me with a question about that moment when the pain "clicks" for someone. I'd want to understand your thinking there before sharing mine, because I don't think it's the same answer for every product.
What's the best email to reach you on?
The "clicks" moment is different depending on how someone first experiences the problem. For technical users it usually clicks intellectually first, they understand the data broker model and want to get ahead of it. For everyone else it clicks emotionally, they get spam from a company they don't remember signing up with and feel genuinely violated.
The interesting design challenge is building something that serves both without feeling too technical for one or too simple for the other.
You can find my contact on my IH profile, happy to continue there.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.