How to Sell a Useless App (Ft. Superhuman)
- Tarasekhar Padhy
- Nov 27, 2024
- 5 min read
Since the dawn of capitalism, there have been a lot of useless apps that no one needs.
Panels wallpaper app, Apple Maps, Internet Explorer, and Skype are a few that come to mind.
However, none of them come close to Superhuman in terms of uselessness.
In this article, let’s briefly look at Superhuman’s “features” and analyze how it was marketed to a broader audience.
What is Superhuman
Superhuman is a Gmail wrapper or a Gmail theme that costs $30/month.
Created by Rahul Vohra in 2014, the so-called productivity app has raised $118 million in three stages, as of September 2024. [1]
Later the tool increased support to Outlook and rolled in AI-powered features in 2024.
Its features include (according to their website):
A new look to your existing Gmail/Outlook account. The email thread looks like a chat interface of a social media platform.
Automatic email segmentation. Depending on the sender’s ID, it will put the message in a different bucket. You can do this for free in Gmail.
Follow-up reminders. Available in Gmail too.
Share live email threads with co-workers. Gmail offers this functionality via email delegation.
Email templates and typing assistant. Gmail offers this for free as well.
Send later and instant reply suggestions. Yes, you guessed it, Gmail gives it for free too.
Quick “unsubscribe” button. Gmail has it as well.
Keyboard shortcuts.
Read receipts that you can share with your team as well. It is available in Google Workspace accounts by default but the recipient may need to give permission.
Autocorrect and spellcheck.
See when someone is “typing” a reply like you do when texting with someone.
Integration with calendars.
Basically, you will get 100% of Gmail in a fresh new look and pay $30/month.
So, how on earth did they manage to sell this piece of garbage?
Marketing tactics of Rahul Vohra
Before we dive into the “tactics” I need to say that the name Rahul Vohra and the face that comes with it has pretentious vibes. I won’t trust this mf with anything. If this dude says “Good morning” I will pop outside to verify if the sun is out.
1. Lie about the impact of the product
The homepage says that Superhuman will help you save 4 hours per week and has already helped teams save 10 million hours per year. They also mention this in countless articles in their blog.
I haven’t seen any proof behind those numbers whatsoever. No research, no survey, no nothing.
My assumption is they have tried the app themselves for a couple of hours for something quite generic, such as setting a follow-up reminder or replying to a colleague, and maybe saved a couple of minutes, which they have extrapolated, quite illogically to be honest, to reach those bogus figures.
2. Target the intellectually handicapped
When Superhuman was launched first in 2014, it was exclusively available to Apple users. [2]
As you know, pretentious dumb fucks who like to pretend to be disrupters or trendsetters while being an NPC love Apple products and everything it stands for. Their lives are so dry and destitute of achievements, that they find a lot of solace in overpaying for mediocre products because it traps them in a walled garden.
Who else is the right audience apart from these folks who have mud for brains?
I admit that MacBooks are amazing after the release of M-series chips, but before that, they were just overpriced computers.
Even today, the only advantage MacBooks have over Windows laptops is in the battery life, speakers, webcam, and trackpad — which, if I am being honest, is not a big deal considering you can do anything you want with the latter and save a wad of cash.
3. Get the victims invested
Plenty of people remain in terrible relationships or continue to sink resources into endeavors because they have already invested so much. The last tinge of hope and the desire to get something great by overcoming the potentially momentary dip keeps them going.
That’s exactly what Rahul Vohra did. The scumbag clearly understands this psychological tendency of human beings and has used it to his advantage, even though it meant selling a Gmail theme that brings less to the table than a used tampon.
The initial onboarding process to Superhuman was arduous. First, you had to be invited through referral. This was done to create the illusion of premium exclusivity, something Apple does well.
Next, you need to spend hours of your life filling out questionnaires and answering their follow-up questions, sometimes through interviews. Many tech enthusiasts who wanted to try this out felt as if the email app was being built just for them. [3]
A cruel trick, indeed.
4. Make them better Gmail users
Do you know you can use ‘Ctrl + Backspace’ to delete entire words? It works in any text editor.
That is one of the many keyboard shortcuts that boost productivity. The same goes with Gmail. Most of us use the app so sparingly or for only a handful of use cases that we don’t bother to learn them.
In the onboarding process of Superhuman, Vohra and his team of compliance specialists did just that, but for their app. [4]
Keep in mind that Superhuman is basically Gmail, so they did not create any new keyboard shortcuts. They simply changed the shortcuts a bit here and there to make it look like they have done some innovation.
When users discover the same and use it, they are bound to be more productive. This is true for any kind of keyboard shortcut for an everyday app. And voila, the lizard brain did the rest.
5. Influencer ‘reviews’
This happens way too much in the SaaS or tech world.
Average products that have just released a few weeks ago have raving reviews on public forums about how teams “can’t live without it” and that it has helped them be “more productive than ever.”
I’ve been doing content marketing for about five years now, so let me tell you a little secret.
Most of these reviews are fake. Founders like Rahul Vohra know very well that their product is a legal grift. To make money, they need some form of social proof. They invite influencers and entrepreneurs to try their products and ask them to share how they felt online.
Additionally, there are a bunch of tech enthusiasts who don’t have the balls to keep it real.
Combine it all, and you will get a “wall of love.”
By the way, this is what most laptop reviews are on YouTube. The company sends in a unit and requests the creator to “try and share honest feedback” on their product.
It’s the world we live in.
Conclusion: All style, no substance
Thankfully for Vohra, there are a lot of talentless dumb window lickers who love to part ways with their money to feel special. Little do they know, they already are special, because the word ‘retarded’ is canceled.
Actual entrepreneurs that want to be productive and are serious about getting things done don’t have a damn to spare for these veneers.
So do most people.
I am not hating on Rahul at all, although it is a bit low when you are targeting people who are intellectually handicapped, I am just laughing at the pricks that make him rich.
