Will HEY be successful?
Has anyone tried the HEY email app? My invite finally arrived but when I set it up I couldn't find a reason to use it. I closed the app and went on with my day.
That's a really interesting moment as a Product Manager. I went from "sign-up early" excited to "not for me" in one use. What happened there? And does it mean HEY is in trouble?
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I'm really curious if people agree or disagree with my take.
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I'm with the HEY team on the fact that "email is a chore." I haven't enjoyed using email for a very long time. I check occasionally; often don't reply for a day or two; I find the UX experience unpleasant. HEY fixes a lot of that, streamlining workflows and making it easier to focus on what's important and not even see what's not. HEY does make email better, but that's not enough.
While the user experience is a big focus of any product, but it's only part of the consideration as a Product Manager. A tool as entrenched in our lives as email has many roots that run deep, and changing email is like uprooting and replaing a tree. The whole root system needs to be considered in the purchasing decision.
The first deep root is that people already have email addresses and HEY doesn't allow you to bring them over. HEY is a fully integrated, hosted service that doesn't support IMAP or POP. You can forward emails to your HEY address, but your replies won't be from that original address. This makes HEY one more thing to manage and actually adds work to you life. Not good.
Another root is that most people don't feel their email is a problem. I mean, they wish they got less email maybe but they use it, it's fine enough, and there are more important things to think about. People who do care about email (and HEY's significant improvements) are likely to be power users, but power users have high switching costs because switching requires giving up their special workflows, extensions, app integrations, organizational systems, and muscle memory.
Somewhat of a selling feature for HEY is privacy. Problem is, most people don't care about privacy, except when it's convenient, like when using an iPhone improves privacy but it's also a good phone. Only the most privacy-focused people would consider suffering the switching costs to move email providers, but those people are more likely to go all the way with a private key encrypted email service (which HEY isn't).
These are all huge barriers to a new product and you have to assume the HEY team knew and thought about them all. So why did they not solve for them, and how can they succeed despite them?
I believe the answer is that the HEY team isn't trying to get people to switch from their current email addresses. They're targeting people who care about email and need a new address. (Custom domain support is also coming soon.) The bet is that email isn't going away (a safe bet) and that people will choose a better email experience given the choice and no switching cost (also a safe bet based on how much better the HEY experience is).
That brings this to another point. Not going after the market of existing email addresses seems like a business limiting move, but I believe that Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, and co. are playing a different game. They're not interested in a huge business or making as much money as possible – their approach with Basecamp has shown this over and over. HEY is as much a statement about email and a design and dev skills flex as it is a business. Not to mention a testbed for their theories on building a different kind of company and living lives on their terms.
HEY will be successful but not by the measure of the industry, but by the measure of the team, because to them there's more to building a product than just money and users, and HEY epitomizes that understanding.
As a frustrated Gmail users, I have been pretty happy with hey. I’m not saying its perfect but, IMO its better than Gmail and several other services that I’ve tried. Regarding success, I’m pretty confident there are like minded people out there who are willing to pay $99/yr to get this experience.
I also really like the experience. Are you using it in addition to your existing email or forwarding?
If they offered a way to port my existing email I'd be there in a second. The fact that they decided not to is really interesting!
At the moment I’m forwarding my emails, it would have been great if HEY was just an email client and would plug-in to existing mail accounts, unfortunately that’s not the case.
I Signed up just now and could'nt find any reason to stick around. Still happy with my traditional emails. Why would some move to a new email if he has been using an email for past 10 years and has all the documents/ contacts in that email .
That's a great question that you have to assume they asked themselves too... and then still kept going without an import feature!
We probably need to define 'successful'.
They will probably be profitable. Basecamp doesn't need a home run or to sell the company for billions.
Will they change the landscape of the email world? I don't think so.
But I could be totally wrong.
Feels like email is a commodity and people can switch very easily.
Most email systems are free, so $99 a year could slow their growth.
I believe the key to understanding HEY Is understanding the people behind it and that they don't define "success" like most other companies. And based on their definition I'dbet they'll be successful
Hey refreshingly new way to look at the email. Founders are obsessed with the problem and they are great marketers. Competitors are popular but weak. Gmail is too slow and Superhuman is too expensive. I think Hey will be immensely successful.
Its a great product isn't it. I think they will be successful but by their own standards. Free email like Gmail isn't going away, but you don't need to dethrone Gmail to have a successful product for a 50 person company. That's what I love about their approach; they are not doing the default which is to be the biggest
Free email services like gmail won't go anywhere. We need free services like gmail but apps like hey would be very helpful to busy people. Might be a niche market but a very good profitable one.
I've signed up. But because it's a "closed loop", with no SMTP, and i can't send/receive emails from my own domains, then it's not really got any relevance for me.
I don't want or need another email address. I'm happy with the 7 i've already got!
If this was a client i would happily move over, and pay, for all that sweet functionality. I don't know if that's in their gameplan. But seeing as it's "just" an email address for now, it's difficult for me to justify using it.
💯😄
I was bummed that there was no way to use an existing address – I'd pay $99 for a client too.
Yeah, I hope that's on their roadmap. It just doesn't really solve a problem for me at the moment.
I was excited as well, though I'm not blown away after getting in. I think they are comfortable that will be the case for many, as Basecamp seems to always have been very focused on those who want what they make rather than pleasing everyone.
There are people who would pay for exclusivity of a HEY address (fairly powerful driver), who like the UI/flow, and who may spend a lot of time writing personal emails or consuming newsletters and want to curate that space for it. The file management/search is really nice, though I rarely would look for a file on my personal account. Business email may make it more worthwhile.
I really dislike the approve/deny on every new inbound email address. It seems the better way would be to make it quick and easy to just deny if something you don't want arrives. One-off confirmation emails etc mean a couple of additional clicks every time, though this is probably more annoying at the start when almost every email is from a new sender.
Success for them will mean covering their costs and making some money off of it rather than taking significant market share (I'm sure they will make plenty - niche email can still be enormous). The moral/privacy focused branding it will give Basecamp is a bonus.
That's a very interesting idea – I could see some people treating it as a sanctuary after having their existing email turn into a call center
💯 Agree
Seems a good product, but I don't think it will be THE product that will replace the emailing. But they will get people for sure.
First, I'm not really in the target.
For example, about privacy "Problem is, most people don't care about privacy" -> I'm in that case, privacy is not my priority, so I don't see it a problem.
About privacy, protonmail is perfect for that. So I don't see any added value for people that are concerned about privacy and that are using proton to switch to hey.com
An other point, is the spam. Google/Microsoft/... are spending tons of money to improve the spam filter (and it's working good so far), and I'm not sure that the hey team will have enough money to achieve that.
But still a nice product, that can make an exit quickly
I was also wondering how they were doing that. I'm assuming there's a "spam filter as a service" somewhere. I can't imagine they're rolling their own
I would love to know if such service exists. I don't think so, but maybe yes..
And I hope for them that they won't rely on spamassassin :)
Hey is already successful, if you go by indie definitions. They have rolled over over a total of 100,000 signups since launch. Since its a paid product with the lowest price point starting at $99 per year, you can do the math and see how good they are doing so far.
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Respectfully disagree – Basecamp is a big company, but they're nowhere hear "huge". I seem to remember DHH saying they had ~60 employees?
I'm sure they'd like more than 10,000 subscribers, and FWIW I think they'll get them. I'm sure they'll make money on this.
Remember also that Basecamp is very good at playing the long game. They'll bring their support costs down. They'll gradually pull in more users. They'll retain the users they have. In 10 years I have no doubt that this will be a healthy earner for them.
Also don't forget that two-letter usernames were, what, $1k/year? That could be $676,000 right there.
I personally think you'd be mad to pay that but there are plenty of people with the money who want a cool email address.
I originally thought that they might be rolling out features for business users at higher price points (and maybe they are) but as I thought about it more, they're less likely to be successful with businesses because businesses need collaboration. I can't imagine any business choosing HEY for email and paying again for Google for Work or 365.
That fact and the math above (which I think is reasonable) really changes my bullish-ness on HEY going forward.
I agree with you and think that they cannot be viral. I don't think 1m people would pay 99 Dollars for an email app.
Definitely not
I disagree with your point:
"Another root is that most people don't feel their email is a problem. I mean, they wish they got less email maybe but they use it, it's fine enough, and there are more important things to think about. People who do care about email (and HEY's significant improvements) are likely to be power users, but power users have high switching costs because switching requires giving up their special workflows, extensions, app integrations, organizational systems, and muscle memory."
the timing is really good for taking on the big guys nowadays. be it for privacy or otherwise. Google and the big traditional tech companies are being attacked by competitors that are succeeding.
Look at Protonmail -> it may be niche now but it's been growing consistently with a paid plan and now adding calendar and drive products.
Gmail has been declining in value they provide. Nowadays opening you gmail you'll find a ton of distractions that my piss a lot of people off.
There are two trends that are eroding Google's mind share. The "suspicious cohort" & just good alternatives coming along while big tech's products become clunky and unsable.
Like it or not, the political divide in the world has caused at least some 30% of the population in many countries to be suspicious of Big tech after many cases on Youtube and other properties. That cohort only grows as Google's own regulations causes their platform to become more and more risky for you to host anything: be it your videos, be it your email (i.e. Jordan Peterson was once locked out of his Gmail for something he posted on youtube, I think he switched to Protonmail after that). Covid is causing another wave of that where Google nudges you everywhere that they are watching.
People may switch to another email provider not so much for overall privacy itself, but for privacy from Google. Also the narrative that in a free service you're the product has never been stronger.
Secondly Gmail gets worse as a product every day. Now, more than ever there are some 3 different types of ads you need to dismiss when logging in before you actually see your messages. And it has become such a profit center for Google that they will ignore the churn rate there until it is too late: classical innovator's dilemma.
To sum up, I think the timing is right for such a business: the segment of people who do care about some privacy is growing by the day and almost any move done by Google or Facebook brings more people into it because they have such a huge surface to make mistakes, in Taleb terms Big tech are, in this sense, Concave(almost anything they do will churn users), while all this new tech is Convex (adding new features will not churn users, only bring new ones and make the switching costs lower for the next batch of users)
That's right. Most people don't think it's a problem.
But there are 3,000,000,000 people with access to the internet. 0.01% of those paying for an email service is thirty million dollars a year.
Scale, people. This is the internet. This is why we are all here.
I agree! But the people who know or feel the things you mentioned, and think the way you do are a small group and not the target market of Big Tech. Also, we've seen it many times before where the outrage last for a moment and then everyone goes back to what's most convenient. Convenience is king!
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10k paying users definitely seems achievable but it's hard to believe they will become a mainstream providers due to several factors some of which you mentioned
Seems overall to be in the same category as Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/). I doubt either of them will be mainstream but they may as well occupy a cosy niche where everyone's happy.
Long term, I think the world needs a different standard to emails. The email protocol has been created 50 or so years ago and it's largely not keeping up. I think the new email should be better at multimedia messaging (not just text), allowing more/larger attachments, allowing a better organisation of messages (ever got lost trying to understand an email chain?), perhaps better related to the identity of the sender. So in a nutshell, taking the best of various modern chat + CRM services while retaining what email is best at - being open, universal, ability to message anyone, rich formatting, flexibility to use personal/team/bot accounts etc.
Been looking into prototyping something like this as a side project a while ago, but got distracted :)
And overcoming email's network effects would require an enormous effort.
The other thing about standards like email is that they prevent new innovations. HEY Is an example of that… They use the email standards but wrapped them in their own custom implementation. Same as chat apps. Everyone wants to build their own version with their own fancy features, not to mention lock-in users
This was a great read as it was the exact same thing that I was thinking!
I was very excited about HEY, but once I got the invite and sign-up, I realized that's it's only an email. I mean, yes, the design, the usability, and UX are WAY better, but as you mentioned, email has a deeper root problem.
However, I think once of the big selling points of HEY is their easy to remember domain.
I got my first name and then @hey.com - just because I want to secure my name in case I will need another email to use. I think this can bring a significant amount of users to pay that $99 just to keep the short and easy to remember email name.
Not sure if this will be big or not, but imagine buying a domain name like "food.com" or "inurance.com" back in the day. Maybe in 10 years, short email names will have value..?
The Hype will be gone after a few months and this is what it is Right now all about. The product itself is 🥱
I haven't tried it yet, someone want to send me an invite 😅
Got one now. Thanks y'all :)
Sent one in DM on Twitter
Define “success”. I find it hard to believe that they won’t get 10,000 paying users, maybe after a couple of months. That’s a million bucks a year. That’s pretty good.
See @Primer's note above about the 10K subscribers
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💵 Cash in hand, i was ready too!