Superhuman

Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman, the premium email client for power users. He previously built the Gmail plug-in Reportive and sold it to LinkedIn. He began somewhere unexpected though, as a game designer on RuneScape. In this conversation, Rahul breaks down why most founders misunderstand product market fit, why premium can actually hurt your business, and how deliberate constraint can become your biggest advantage.   Follow Rahul Vohra on X: https://x.com/rahulvohra Follow Fareed Mosavat on X: https://x.com/far33d Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Back in August, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allowed you to get writing suggestions from AI-cloned “experts,” and recently, reporters at The Verge and other outlets discovered that those experts included me, among many others.  No one ever asked permission to use our names this way, and a lot of reporters were outraged by this. To Shishir’s credit, he did not cancel our interview and he came on and stuck it out. This conversation got tense at times, and it’s clear we disagree about how extractive AI feels for people. There’s a lot in this one, and I’m excited to hear what you think. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: Why I’m suing Grammarly | New York Times Grammarly will stop using identities without permission | The Verge Grammarly to keep using writer identities unless they opt out | The Verge Grammarly turned me into an AI editor and I hate it | Platformer Grammarly is using our identities without permission | The Verge Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman | The Verge Grammarly wants to become an ‘AI productivity platform’ | The Verge Viacom v. YouTube, 2007 | Electronic Frontier Foundation Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years, he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of Product Management at Google where he was responsible for all of Youtube's applications. AGENDA: 03:43 What is Great Product Leadership in a World of AI 07:45 Does the Design Phase Die in a World of Vibe Coding 12:21 How AI Changes Product Development Most 22:23 Accelerating Product Development 29:32 AI's Impact on Product Building 34:19 Predictions for 2026 34:45 Quick Fire Round 38:41 Reflections and Future Plans

Noam Lovinsky

Chief Product Officer

GrammarlySuperhuman

From applied cryptography and offensive security in France’s defense industry to optimizing nuclear submarine workflows, then selling his e-signature startup to Docusign (https://www.docusign.com/company/news-center/opentrust-joins-docusign-global-trust-network and now running AI as CTO of Superhuman Mail (Superhuman, recently acquired by Grammarly https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/01/grammarly-acquires-ai-email-client-superhuman/), Loïc Houssier has lived the full arc from deep infra and compliance hell to obsessing over 100ms product experiences and AI-native email. We sat down with Loïc to dig into how you actually put AI into an inbox without adding latency, why Superhuman leans so hard into agentic search and “Ask AI” over your entire email history, how they design tools vs. agents and fight agent laziness, what box-priced inference and local-first caching mean for cost and reliability, and his bet that your inbox will power your future AI EA while AI massively widens the gap between engineers with real fundamentals and those faking it. We discuss: * Loïc’s path from applied cryptography and offensive security in France’s defense industry to submarines, e-signatures, Docusign, and now Superhuman Mail * What 3,000+ engineers actually do at a “simple” product like Docusign: regional compliance, on-prem appliances, and why global scale explodes complexity * How Superhuman thinks about AI in email: auto-labels, smart summaries, follow-up nudges, “Ask AI” search, and the rule that AI must never add latency or friction * Superhuman’s agentic framework: tools vs. agents, fighting “agent laziness,” deep semantic search over huge inboxes, and pagination strategies to find the real needle in the haystack * How they evaluate OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and open models: canonical queries, end-to-end evals, date reasoning, and Rahul’s infamous “what wood was my table?” test * Infra and cost philosophy: local-first caching, vector search backends, Baseten “box” pricing vs. per-token pricing, and thinking in price-per-trillion-tokens instead of price-per-million * The vision of Superhuman as your AI EA: auto-drafting replies in your voice, scheduling on your behalf, and using your inbox as the ultimate private data source * How the Grammarly + Coda + Superhuman stack could power truly context-aware assistance across email, docs, calendars, contracts, and more * Inside Superhuman’s AI-dev culture: free-for-all tool adoption, tracking AI usage on PRs, and going from ~4 to ~6 PRs per engineer per week * Why Loïc believes everyone should still learn to code, and how AI will amplify great engineers with strong fundamentals while exposing shallow ones even faster — Loïc Houssier * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/houssier/ Where to find Latent Space * X: https://x.com/latentspacepod Full Video Episode Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction and Loïc's Journey from Nuclear Submarines to Superhuman00:06:40 Docusign Acquisition and the Enterprise Email Stack00:10:26 Superhuman's AI Vision: Your Inbox as the Real AI Agent00:13:20 Ask AI: Agentic Search and the Quality Problem00:18:20 Infrastructure Choices: Model Selection, Base10, and Cost Management00:27:30 Local-First Architecture and the Database Stack00:30:50 Evals, Quality, and the Rahul Wood Table Test00:42:30 The Future EA: Auto-Drafting and Proactive Assistance00:46:40 Grammarly Acquisition and the Contextual Advantage00:38:40 Voice, Video, and the End of Writing00:51:40 Knowledge Graphs: The Hard Problem Nobody Has Solved00:56:40 Competing with OpenAI and the Browser Question01:02:30 AI Coding Tools: From 4 to 6 PRs Per Week01:08:00 Engineering Culture, Hiring, and the Future of Software Development This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.latent.space/subscribe

Loïc Houssier

CTO

Superhuman

Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO of Superhuman Mail. Rahul sold his company to Grammarly in July of 2025, which had just acquired Coda in 2024. Following the acquisitions, the combined companies rebranded to Superhuman in October of 2025. And it’s quietly one of the most underrated businesses that no one is talking about, with over $700 million ARR and 40 million Daily Active Users. Grammarly spent 15+ years building integrations with over a million other products, that they’re now layering more AI products on top of. We talk about Rahul’s journey building Superhuman, go inside the acquisition, all the lessons he’s learned from selling two companies, why you should design your product like a video game, and we also re-visit his famous quantitative guide to finding PMF. Thanks to Todd Goldberg, Ed Sim, Shomik Ghosh, Ryan Hoover, and Rahul’s brother Gaurav Vohra for helping brainstorm topics for this conversation. Thank you to Hanover Park for supporting this episode! Upgrade your fund admin to the 21st century https://www.hanoverpark.com/Turner Timestamps: (2:42) Inside the Superhuman acquisition (11:09) Grammarly: $700M ARR, 40M DAUs (18:53) How to sequence your product roadmap (24:43) Vision for the new Superhuman (32:43) Build your product like a video game (38:24) Designing Karamja island in Runescape (41:10) Build products like toys and games (44:53) Starting a Machine Learning PhD in 2006 (48:49) Dropping out to start his first company (50:47) Rapportive’s crazy accidental launch (57:56) Meeting Superhuman co-founders (1:02:17) Being 1 of 20 to access LinkedIn’s API (1:06:38) Almost getting acquired by LinkedIn (1:10:32) Nearly dieing, getting acquired with 2 weeks of runway (1:20:08) Diligence from VCs vs Acquirers (1:26:37) Rahul’s quantitative framework for PMF (1:30:45) How to build an enduring brand (1:31:51) Rahul’s AI-powered productivity stack (1:35:01) Todd and Rahul’s angel fund (1:36:45) We need more solo founders Referenced Superhuman: https://www.superhuman.com Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com High Resolution Fundraising: https://paulgraham.com/hiresfund.html High Resolution Fundraising: https://paulgraham.com/hiresfund.html Superhuman Quantitative Framework for Finding PMF: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/ Whisper Flow: https://wisprflow.ai Follow Rahul Twitter: https://x.com/rahulvohra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Today’s show: *Why rebrand an app with 40 million daily active users? On TWiST, Grammarly CEO Shishir Mehrotra swings by to explain why he’s renaming his company after the mail app he just purchased, Superhuman. Plus he’s giving us a first look at the startup’s new AI assistant, Superhuman Go, digging into their new agent-centered strategy, looking ahead at the potential for AI job displacement, and more. Jason and Alex also talk about our new nuclear deal with Westinghouse and Japan, OpenAI’s conversion and what it means for Microsoft, 1x’s tele-operated Neo-bot for chores, and much more! Timestamps: (00:07:56) Jason is headed to Tokyo, and NOT just for skiing this time! (10:00) Uber AI Solutions**:** Your trusted partner to get AI to work in the real world. Book a demo with them TODAY at Uber.com/twist (00:12:21) Untangling this US government-Japan-Westinghouse deal for nuclear power… and why nuclear power is SO important (20:00)DevStats translates complex engineering metrics into a shared language everyone at your company can understand. Get 20% off by going to https://www.DevStats.com/twist (00:20:04) Why Jason says sabbaticals and 4 day work weeks are for established brands, not startups (30:00) Perspective AI: Real insights, straight from your customers, and your first two months are on us. Just go to getperspective.ai/twist. (00:33:01) Will income inequality become a concern, even for the wealthy? Jason says YES. (00:37:29) Shishir Mehrotra from Gram— NO WAIT, Superhuman! joins us to talk name changes (00:38:16) Using Grammarly as a model for the new AI assistant, Superhuman Go. (01:08:39) Nvidia shot past $5 TRILLION in value… How is no one freaked out about this?! (01:14:52) OpenAI executed their conversion… but Jason says “public benefit corporation” status is pretty meaningless (01:25:02) Checking out the Neo robot from 1x… he wants to help you with chores and he’s for sale! (01:32:09) Uber’s speeding up its self-driving plans Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: Perspective AI - Real insights, straight from your customers, and your first two months are on us. Just go to getperspective.ai/twist. DevStats translates complex engineering metrics into a shared language everyone at your company can understand. Get 20% off by going to https://www.DevStats.com/twist Uber AI Solutions: Your trusted partner to get AI to work in the real world. Book a demo with them TODAY at Uber.com/twist Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

What if your tools shared context like your team does? This week on Grit, Shishir Mehrotra shares how the Coda and Grammarly collaboration unlocks context as a “superpower,” reflects on his early days at Google and YouTube, and hints at a future where tools anticipate intent and amplify how we work. He also shares how this paves the way for agent-based workflows and AI-native communication, beginning with Superhuman’s email experience. Guest: Shishir Mehrotra, co-founder of Coda and CEO of Grammarly Connect with Shishir X LinkedIn Chapters: 00:00 Trailer 01:24 Introduction 02:09 Zoo vs safari 12:02 A TV ahead of its time 21:25 Product decisions 31:25 The data behind the algorithm 37:26 The AI native productivity suite 48:06 Agents are digital humans 57:55 Pressure trade-off 1:12:50 Insulated from judgment 1:25:19 Who Grammarly is hiring 1:25:51 What “grit” means to Shishir 1:29:30 Outro Mentioned in this episode: YouTube, Ray William Johnson, Spotify, Twitch, MTV, Chris Cox, Facebook, TikTok, Google TV, Centrata, Google Chrome, Android, Gmail, Microsoft, Super Bowl, Mosaic, Panasonic, Sony, Susan Wojcicki, Rishi Chandra, Apple TV, Amazon Firestick, Comcast, LoudCloud (Opsware), Quest Communications, AT&T Southwestern Bell, Salar Kamangar, Patrick Pichette, Eric Schmidt, OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms, Sundar Pichai, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Hamilton, Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, Tesla, Waymo, Airtable, Notion, Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, Superhuman, Duolingo, Luis von Ahn, Khan Academy, MrBeast, Facebook Messenger, Snap (Snapchat), WhatsApp, Google+, Meta LLaMa, Satya Nadella, Tim Cook, Daniel Gross Connect with Joubin X LinkedIn Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

In this episode of Leaders of Code, Ben Matthews, Senior Director of Engineering at Stack Overflow, and Loïc Houssier, CTO at Superhuman, dive into how engineering teams can navigate paradigm shifts in a world of constant technological change. They discuss the importance of leadership in an ever-shifting industry and highlight the concept of aligned autonomy as a way to empower teams and increase organizational velocity. The conversation also covers: The impact of AI on workflows and practices across the entire organization at Superhuman, including improving onboarding, helping employees streamline their work, and enabling teams to tackle projects that were previously put on hold. The strategic use of qualitative and quantitative engineering performance metrics to measure and improve team effectiveness. Episode notes: Connect with Loïc Houssier on LinkedIn. Learn more about Superhuman, the leading AI-native email app for high-performing teams. Connect with Ben Matthews on LinkedIn or Bluesky. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Loïc Houssier

CTO

Superhuman

Wes and Scott talk with Loïc Houssier about how Superhuman builds lightning-fast, delightfully-designed email software. They dig into engineering philosophy, offline-first architecture, local databases, AI-powered productivity, and what it takes to create tools that people love. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 03:05 Inside Superhuman and Loïc’s role 06:49 Is Superhuman native? What’s the tech stack? 08:16 How Superhuman approaches product design and speed 12:17 Local-first architecture – Sync, storage, and performance Realm 13:46 Vector search, AI, and privacy considerations 18:12 How the team ships fast and stays focused 21:27 Rethinking email for the future 26:54 Brought to you by Sentry.io 27:19 How calendar integration and smart features work 29:54 Where new ideas come from 31:54 Will there ever be a true dark mode? 33:02 Are people actually using keyboard shortcuts? 36:42 How shortcuts work and the role of the command palette 41:28 Engineering for speed – Costs and trade-offs 43:32 How Superhuman’s sync engine works 46:09 What code runs locally and what runs on the server? 46:51 How Superhuman handled the Google and Cloudflare outage Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Loïc Houssier

CTO

Superhuman

Today’s show: Grammarly is acquiring the beloved email app Superhuman! In today’s extremely timely episode, @alex sits down with Grammarly CEO Shishir Mehrotra and Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra to unpack why they’re merging, how they plan to combine apps and AI agents, and what it means for the future of email and work. PLUS they reveal how Grammarly’s 40M+ daily users already rely on email—and why this deal is the key to building the ultimate communication assistant. Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most exciting AI acquisitions yet! #AI #Startups #Productivity #Grammarly #Superhuman #VentureCapital #MergersAndAcquisitions Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction to the future of robotics and AI regulation(1:11) Introduction of hosts and overview of today's topics(4:19) Cloudflare's new pay per crawl product (09:37) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!(10:41) Polymarket segment on Apple's acquisition prospects(14:29) Grammarly and Superhuman CEOs interviews (19:42) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today.(24:09) AI in productivity tools and email agents discussion(29:23) AWS Activate - AWS Activate helps startups bring their ideas to life. Apply to AWS Activate today to learn more. Visit aws.amazon.com/startups/credits(30:46) Grammarly's AI platform and the acquisition of Superhuman(41:16) Introduction of Manu Sharma from Labelbox(41:47) The role of data labeling in AI and Labelbox's data factory(53:44) Labelbox's market position and capital efficiency post-ChatGPT(1:03:00) Advances in humanoid robotics with Jeff Cardenas from Apptronik(1:07:09) Market readiness and capabilities of Apollo 2 robots(1:13:27) Humanoid robotics: Google DeepMind partnership and international competition(1:20:54) US federal support for R&D in robotics(1:22:10) The evolution of humanoid robotics and Apptronik's growth in Austin Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: (09:37) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today! (19:42) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today. (29:23) AWS Activate - AWS Activate helps startups bring their ideas to life. Apply to AWS Activate today to learn more. Visit aws.amazon.com/startups/credits Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Loïc Houssier, Head of Engineering at Superhuman, joins us to discuss how AI and LLMs are reshaping the email experience. He highlights challenges related to the variability of user prompts and infrastructure optimization. Loïc emphasizes that a deep focus on user experience and real human workflows is key to building AI tools people actually love to use. Featuring: Loïc Houssier – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X Links: Superhuman Referral Code for a Free month Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco – AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

Loïc Houssier

CTO

Superhuman

Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. Prior to Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plug-in to scale to millions of users, which he sold to LinkedIn in 2012. He is also a prominent angel investor, and his fund has invested $50 million in over 120 companies, including Placer, Supabase, Mercury, Zip, ClassDojo, and Writer. What you’ll learn: • The unexpected insight about virality Rahul gained from LinkedIn’s head of growth. • Why Rahul restructured his entire executive team to spend 60% to 70% of his time on product, design, and marketing instead of the typical CEO responsibilities. • The counterintuitive approach to finding product-market fit using a methodical system inspired by Sean Ellis, and how this algorithmically determines your roadmap. • How manually onboarding every user (Superhuman had 20 full-time people doing this at peak) created superfans and allowed engineers to focus on product rather than onboarding flows. • The “Single Decisive Reason” framework for making better decisions by avoiding collections of weak justifications. • How Superhuman’s AI features have evolved to create a truly intelligent email experience that works while you sleep. — Brought to you by: • Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments • Fundrise Flagship Fund—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate • OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/superhumans-secret-to-success-rahul-vohra — Where to find Rahul Vohra: • X: https://x.com/rahulvohra • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/ • Email: Rahul@superhuman.com — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Rahul and Superhuman (05:00) The most pivotal moment in Rahul's career (07:01) The secret to virality (11:02) Superhuman’s product evolution and core values (13:32) Overcoming slowdowns at scale (18:06) Time management and meditation (27:35) The role of a president (30:56) Attention to detail (43:00) Finding your unique position (47:32) The power of manual onboarding (52:37) Mastering product-market fit (59:33) Game design in business software (01:05:35) Contrarian pricing strategies (01:09:29) Leveraging AI (01:15:40) Transitioning to enterprise solutions (01:19:08) The Single Decisive Reason framework (01:22:32) Conclusion and final thoughts — Referenced: • Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ • Rapportive: https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/rapportive-linkedin-acquisition/ • Elliot Shmukler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshmu/ • What Are ‘Whales’ in Video Games: https://gamerant.com/video-games-whales-concept-term-explained/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Notion: https://www.notion.com/ • Loom: https://www.loom.com/ • How to use Team Comments to reimagine email collaboration: https://blog.superhuman.com/how-to-use-team-comments-to-reimagine-email-collaboration/ • Rajiv Ayyangar’s post on X about Superhuman: https://x.com/rajivayyangar/status/1816176308130570385 • Transcendental Meditation: https://www.tm.org/ • Laurent Valosek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-valosek-18708b5a/ • Peak Leadership Institute: https://www.peakleadershipinstitute.com/ • Ed Sim’s website: https://edsim.net/ • Adelle Sans: https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/adelle-sans • Comic Sans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans • Greenfield project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project • Why Mailbox died: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/8/9873268/why-dropbox-mailbox-shutdown • Bill Trenchard on X: https://x.com/btrenchard • How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product-Market Fit: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/ • Using the Sean Ellis Test for Measuring Your Product-Market Fit: https://medium.productcoalition.com/using-sean-ellis-test-for-measuring-your-product-market-fit-c8ac98053c2c • Sean Ellis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/ • The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-original-growth-hacker-sean-ellis • The Trouble with Rewards: https://www.kornferry.com/insights/briefings-magazine/issue-13/519-the-trouble-with-rewards • The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan •  Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Westendorp%27s_Price_Sensitivity_Meter • AI-powered email for high-performing teams: https://superhuman.com/ai • Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/linears-secret-to-building-beloved-b2b-products-nan-yu • Single Decisive Reason: decision-making for fast-scaling startups: https://blog.superhuman.com/single-decisive-reason-decision-making-for-fast-scaling-startups/ • Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/ — Recommended books: • Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586 • Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Today’s show: Jason interviews Rahul Vohra, CEO and founder of Superhuman, and Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood. This is a packed episode featuring founder tips, fun stories about how Superhuman and Robinhood got their start and much more! Timestamps: (0:00) Episode teaser(2:13) Product market fit and founder journeys(3:25) Jason's investment in Superhuman and market positioning(5:14) AI's role and features in Superhuman(10:25) Lemon.io. Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist(14:37) Targeting users and competitive advantages(22:23) Evolution and new features of Superhuman (20:52) Northwest Registered Agent. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today! (24:37) Tackling spam with Superhuman's AI (27:05) Custom auto labels and email classification (29:47) Vapi. Go to Vapi.ai and use code Twist200 to get $200 in credits (32:03) Superhuman's auto reminders and drafts (34:14) Vlad Tenev and the origins of Robinhood (39:31) Product design philosophies of Robinhood and Superhuman (49:29) Scaling design principles and investment decisions( 52:31) Subjectivity in product design (55:14) Customer feedback in product development (1:00:00) Superhuman's subscription model and customer acquisition (1:05:11) PR strategies and news hijacking (1:12:06) Investment experiences with Robinhood (1:13:35) Navigating company valuation fluctuations (1:15:03) Influences on Vlad Tenev and new Robinhood desktop product (1:22:02) Company resilience and employee reorganization (1:25:52) Crypto regulation and startup mentality (1:30:05) Investment trends among Robinhood users (1:31:12) Retail benefits for startups and capital raising challenges (1:34:04) Accreditation for private investing and solutions Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Links from this episode: Check out Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ Check out Superhuman’s blog post that details all of the new features Rahul went over in the demo: https://blog.superhuman.com/the-next-superhuman-ai/.  Check out Robinhood Legend: https://robinhood.com/us/en/legend/ Article “How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit”: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/ Check out Rick Rubin’s book: https://www.amazon.ca/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886 Article on Bezos and Washington Post: https://www.newsweek.com/bezos-makes-big-change-washington-post-opinion-focus-endorsed-musk-2036618 Media Bias Chart: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart Check out “Working Backwards” book about Amazon insights: https://www.amazon.ca/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595 Check out Rahul’s article on acquisition: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rip-mailbox-founders-how-stop-worrying-love-being-acquired-vohra/ Follow Rahul: X: https://x.com/rahulvohra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/ Follow Vlad: X: https://x.com/vladtenev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vlad-tenev-7037591b/ Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: (10:25) Lemon.io. Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (20:52) Northwest Registered Agent. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today! (29:47) Vapi. Go to Vapi.ai and use code Twist200 to get $200 in credits

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Vlad Tenev

CEO

RobinhoodHarmonic

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… NetSuite. The number one cloud financial system that unifies accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into a single platform. Giving you ONE source of truth. Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning today! Visit https://www.netsuite.com/twist Lemon.io - Hire pre-vetted remote developers, get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist AssemblyAI. Get maximum value from voice data with AssemblyAI. Build powerful products and features for your end users on the industry’s leading speech-to-text models. Get 100 free hours to start building at https://www.assemblyai.com/twist * Todays show: Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra joins Jason to discuss the evolution of Superhuman. They delve into Superhuman's onboarding strategy (11:17), live demos of Superhuman's AI features (27:37), explore AI's impact on team management (52:07), and more! * Timestamps: (0:00) Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra joins Jason (2:02) Rahul Vohra's background and Superhuman's pitch (6:33) Evolution and early challenges of Superhuman (9:59) NetSuite - Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning today! Visit https://netsuite.com/twist (11:17) Superhuman's onboarding strategy and customer feedback importance (20:55) New features in Superhuman 2.0 and multiplayer email (26:00) AI's impact on podcast production (26:16) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (27:37) Live demo of Superhuman 2.0 (38:38) AssemblyAI - Get 100 free hours to start building at https://www.assemblyai.com/twist (40:08) Importance of documenting conversations and Superhuman for Sales (44:17) Live demo of Superhuman's “Ask AI” feature (52:07) AI's impact on productivity and team management (58:27) AI tools for productivity (1:07:26) AI's future as a chief of staff and email management * Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Follow Rahul: X: https://x.com/rahulvohra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra Check out: https://superhuman.com * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (9:59) NetSuite - Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning today! Visit https://netsuite.com/twist (26:16) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (38:38) AssemblyAI - Get 100 free hours to start building at https://www.assemblyai.com/twist * Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

SaaStr 742: The Top 5 Secrets for Building Great Products with Leaders at Slack, Rubrik, and Grammarly As Product leaders, you have to build trust with CEOs and founders, align on vision and strategy, stay focused on the customer's problem, and effectively navigate misalignment to ensure your product has the greatest chances of success right out of the gate. But how do you tactically achieve all of that? Tamar Yehoshua, former CPO at Slack and Partner at IVP, Anneka Gupta, CPO of Rubrik, and Noam Lovinsky, CPO of Grammarly, shared practical advice at SaaStr Annual from the trenches so you can build great products and great teams all at once. Follow along with the full write-up of this podcast here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent Get more when Northwest Registered Agent starts your business. They'll form your company fast and stand up your entire business identity in minutes. That means business free domain, business email, website, hosting, address, mail scanning, business phone app, all within minutes. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC. This episode is sponsored by: Remote.com Feeling stuck in your talent search? Remote Talent is the leading job board for remote-first companies and startups. Visit Remote.com/jobs today to start building your dream team, anywhere in the world. This episode is sponsored by Pendo, the all-in-one product experience platform. Pendo helps your users do the things you really want them to do. You can try Pendo for free at Pendo.io/saastr and check out Mind The Product, the community for product people like… us.

Tamar Yehoshua

President of Product and Technology

GleanIVPSlack

Anneka Gupta

Chief Product Officer

Rubrik

Noam Lovinsky

Chief Product Officer

GrammarlySuperhuman

Noam Lovinsky has had a distinguished career in product, leaving an indelible mark at Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack, and currently as the chief product officer at Grammarly. At Facebook, Noam helped establish the New Product Experimentation team; at Thumbtack, he was chief product officer; and at YouTube, he was one of the early product leaders overseeing the consumer experience. In our conversation, we discuss: • Challenges and lessons from reviving growth at YouTube and Thumbtack • Lessons from building Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team • Insights into Grammarly’s success • Knowing when it’s time to kill your project • Why diversifying your growth channels is critical • The power of visioning and storytelling in shaping product strategy • How to create space for innovation at large companies • The resilience and motivation of Grammarly’s team in Ukraine — Brought to you by: • Whimsical—The iterative product workspace • Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. • LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business — Where to find Noam Lovinsky: • X: https://twitter.com/noaml • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noaml/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Noam’s background (04:18) Noam’s lack of online presence (08:06) Lessons from YouTube: advocating for what’s best for yourself and the team (14:31) Prioritizing what’s best for the business (19:37) Knowing when it’s time to kill a project (21:47) Lessons from Thumbtack: diversifying growth channels and overcoming challenges (26:24) How Thumbtack turned growth around (31:44) Building Airbnb’s instant booking feature (35:28) Lessons from Thumbtack: team collaboration and product strategy (38:38) Lessons from Facebook: building the New Product Experimentation team (40:43) The importance of starting small and building community density (46:07) Advice for building a startup within a startup (48:52) Having an incentive system (49:34) Lessons from Grammarly: adapting to changing user needs and building for the masses (54:20) The scrappiness and profitability of Grammarly (56:56) The resilience and motivation of the Grammarly team in Ukraine (59:08) General career advice (01:01:02) When to pull back (01:02:58) Closing thoughts (01:03:56) Lightning round — Referenced: • Substack: https://substack.com/ • Hunter Walk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterwalk/ • The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/ • Salar Kamangar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salar-kamangar-5a059712/ • Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/ • Thumbtack: https://www.thumbtack.com/ • FRED on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/FRED • How Airbnb Proved That Storytelling Is the Most Important Skill in Design: https://www.inc.com/yazin-akkawi/the-surprising-technique-airbnb-uses-to-better-sell-an-experience.html • Google+: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%2B • Marco Zappacosta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcozappacosta/ • Bryan Schreier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanschreier/ • Whitney Steele on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneydsteele/ • David Shein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshein/ • The magic of thinking big, by Lenny Rachitsky: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/the-magic-of-thinking-big-by-lenny-rachitsky/ • What Seven Years at Airbnb Taught Me About Building a Business: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-seven-years-at-airbnb-taught • New apps, new experiences: NPE Team, from Facebook: https://tech.facebook.com/engineering/2019/7/npe-team-from-facebook/ • The Origin Story of the BRC Trash Fence: https://journal.burningman.org/2016/05/black-rock-city/leaving-no-trace/the-origin-story-of-the-brc-trash-fence/ • Nike opens high-tech research and innovation lab: https://www.just-style.com/news/nike-opens-high-tech-research-and-innovation-lab/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ • Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/ • How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-grow-a-subscription-business-yuriy-timen-grammarly-canva-airtable/ • “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”: https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/the-cave-you-fear-to-enter-holds-the-treasure-you-seek-d624e28c3848 • Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067 • For All Mankind on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/for-all-mankind/umc.cmc.6wsi780sz5tdbqcf11k76mkp7 • Fargo TV series on Hulu: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/fargo • Arc browser: https://arc.net/ • Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/competing-with-giants-an-inside-look-at-how-the-browser-company-builds-product-josh-miller-ceo/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Noam Lovinsky

Chief Product Officer

GrammarlySuperhuman

What if the fastest way to SaaS product-market fit was to walk into a train station and start asking strangers questions? That is exactly what Jeremy King did before building Attest into an eight-figure ARR business. Five SaaS founders share hard-won lessons on customer discovery, product quality, monetization, and finding product-market fit - including Rahul Vora's product-market fit engine that helped Superhuman grow after two years of coding with no launch. Learn how to achieve SaaS product-market fit whether you are validating a new idea or measuring traction in an existing product. Featured founders: Jeremy King (Attest, $1M ARR in 8 months), Melissa Kwan (eWebinar, $750K ARR bootstrapped), Christian Owens (Paddle, nearly $100M ARR), Trevor Kaufman (Piano, $80M ARR), and Rahul Vora (Superhuman, $125M+ raised). Key Lessons 🎯 Validate by going to customers physically: Jeremy King interviewed 200 consumers at Waterloo Station before building Attest, proving demand existed beyond corporate research departments. 🛠️ Deep product experience beats surface research for SaaS product-market fit: Melissa Kwan did 1,000+ webinars before building eWebinar, knowing exactly what the product needed. 💰 Monetize from day one to compound growth: Christian Owens built every business to make money immediately, using revenue to reinvest rather than chasing distribution first. 📉 Conviction under pressure is not failure: Trevor Kaufman sold his house to keep Piano alive through years of market rejection before reaching $80M ARR. 🔄 Use the 40% benchmark for SaaS product-market fit: Rahul Vora's product-market fit engine asks users "How would you feel if you could no longer use the product?" and targets 40% answering "very disappointed." Chapters Introduction and episode overview Preview of the five founder clips Jeremy King - Attest: Zero to $1M ARR in 8 months How Jeremy validated demand through customer discovery Why Jeremy did the research for free Overcoming skepticism from store managers Melissa Kwan - eWebinar: Two years of building in silence Why Melissa refused to launch before the product was ready The cost of a bad first impression on early adopters How 1,000+ webinars gave Melissa deep problem understanding Managing competition anxiety while bootstrapped Financial projections as the real urgency driver Christian Owens - Paddle: Pragmatism and monetizing from day one How Christian approaches SaaS product-market fit incrementally Every business must be a real business from day one Trevor Kaufman - Piano: Selling his house to survive The belief that kept Trevor going through market rejection Rahul Vora - Superhuman: The Product Market Fit Engine How Sean Ellis's research inspired the PMF Engine The four steps of the Product Market Fit Engine Closing thoughts Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/357 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email

Jeremy King

Founder & CEO

AttestPinterest

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Melissa Kwan

Co-founder & CEO

eWebinar

Rahul Vohra spent two years building Superhuman without launching. When the SaaS product-market fit score came back at just 22%, he finally had data to prove they were not ready. Within a year, he drove that product-market fit score to 58% using a systematic 4-step methodology. If you are trying to measure whether you have SaaS product-market fit or wondering when to launch, this episode is essential. Rahul breaks down the exact engine he built at Superhuman - survey, segment, analyze, implement - and explains how finding product-market fit became a continuous practice, not a one-time milestone. He also shares how game design principles made the product stickier than any gamification tactic. Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman, which has raised over $125 million and serves a growing base of professionals who want the fastest email experience available. 🔑 Key Lessons SaaS product-market fit requires a metric, not a feeling - Rahul replaced subjective debate with Sean Ellis's "very disappointed" survey, giving Superhuman a concrete 22% baseline to work from. Segmenting users is the fastest path to measuring PMF - filtering non-ideal users and focusing on the highest-expectation persona jumped the score from 22% to 32% without changing the product. Split your roadmap 50/50 to increase SaaS product-market fit - half on strengthening what fans love and half on removing blockers for fence-sitters produced quarterly jumps to 58%. Finding product-market fit never stops even after 40% - Superhuman's score fluctuates as they expand segments, so Rahul runs the engine weekly and quarterly. Game design principles make SaaS products stickier than gamification - optimizing for goals, emotions, controls, and flow state beats badges and points. Chapters Introduction Rahul's mantra and what Superhuman does The "Nicole" persona and customer segmentation From game designer to entrepreneur How game design influenced Superhuman Early ventures - Mojo and Rapportive The origin story of Superhuman Spending year one without writing code The two-question async email interview strategy What Rahul learned from hundreds of interviews The problem with defining SaaS product-market fit Why Rahul knew they didn't have PMF yet Discovering Sean Ellis and the 40% benchmark The 4-step Product-Market Fit Engine explained How Superhuman applied the PMF Engine Driving the product-market fit score from 22% to 58% The 50/50 roadmap split strategy Game design principles for SaaS products Lightning Round Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/342 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Shishir Mehrotra is the co-founder and CEO of Coda, and formerly head of product and engineering at YouTube. In this episode, he shares his insights on growth strategy, how he evaluates talent, a peek at his upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams, why reference checks are the most important step in the interview process, and so much more. Join us. — Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/#transcript — Where to find Shishir Mehrotra: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/shishirmehrotra • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishirmehrotra/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Coda: http://coda.io/lenny • Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny • Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/— Referenced: • The Rituals of Great Teams Braintrust: https://coda.io/@shishir/join-the-rituals-of-great-teams-braintrust • Bing Gordon: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/people/bing-gordon/ • Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752 • PSHE diagram: https://coda.io/@shishir/pshe • Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/1627652736 • Only Murders in the Building: https://www.hulu.com/series/only-murders-in-the-building-ef31c7e1-cd0f-4e07-848d-1cbfedb50ddf • WandaVision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WandaVision • Fidji Simo: https://twitter.com/fidjissimo • Daniel Ek: https://twitter.com/eldsjal/ • Reid Hoffman: https://twitter.com/reidhoffman? • Mamoon Hamid: https://twitter.com/mamoonha • Quentin Clark: https://twitter.com/quentinclark • Sarah Guo: https://twitter.com/saranormous —In this episode, we cover:[4:13] Shishir’s background at Google and current role at Coda[7:53] How Shishir got on the board of Spotify[8:58] Black loops and blue loops and how Coda uses this internal diagram [9:52] The black loop is how a product is naturally shared[12:15] The blue loop is the emotional loop on why products are shared[14:55] Why you should think in loops instead of funnels[18:20] Mining for your business’s loops by looking at what you tell job candidates[24:37] Shishir’s upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams [26:30] The 3 golden rituals of teams[27:10] Coda’s golden ritual: Dory and Pulse[31:29] Shishir’s most impactful rituals: Arianna Huffington’s reset, Gusto’s incredible hiring call, and Coinbase’s Rapids[40:38] How you find your own team’s rituals[42:50] How to change things when change is hard[45:01] Airbnb’s unique rituals[46:45] A backstory on YouTube, and valuing consistency over comprehensiveness[53:00] Eigenquestions: What they are, how to use them, and examples[59:05] One of Shishir’s favorite retired interview questions [1:03:11] How to evaluate talent, a story about YouTube, and breaking down PSHE[1:15:20] How to approach reference checks and what questions to ask[1:24:33] Favorite books[1:25:50] Favorite TV shows and movies[1:26:50] Favorite interview questions[1:28:44] Who in the industry Shishir respects as a thought leader[1:30:10] His go-to karaoke song[1:30:40] Where you can find Shishir— Production and marketing: https://penname.co/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

Featuring 3 prominent Founders - from Calendly, Coda and LaunchDarkly - that have achieved scale, at "Founder Confidential" you will hear about the highs and lows of fundraising, working with a VC board, and real talk about what it really is like to be a true Founder. Moderator: Lloyed Lobo, Co-Founder, Boast.AI Panelists: Shishir Mehrotra, Cofounder and CEO, Coda Edith Harbaugh, Cofounder and CEO, LaunchDarkly David Barrett, Founder and CEO, Expensify Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO, SaaStr Blog post and video: https://www.saastr.com/founder-confidential-saas-fundraising-expensify-launchdarkly-coda-boast-saastr/ Sponsors: https://www.invoca.com/ https://stripe.com/ https://www.ontheclock.com/

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

Edith Harbaugh

Co-Founder and Executive Chair

LaunchDarkly

David Barrett

Founder & CEO

Expensify

Your board of directors can make or break you. In fact, Reid believes, the wrong board member can break your company faster than the right board member can make it. Learn the five vital mindset shifts that can help you create a better board, with insights from Mellody Hobson, the co-CEO of Ariel Investments and the chair of the Starbucks board, along with Lisa Shalett, co-founder of Extraordinary Women on Boards, and Shishir Mehrotra, founder and CEO of Coda (Reid's on their board). These universal lessons don’t only speak to founders assembling their very first board, or board directors looking for best practices – they also offer important advice for team-building across the board. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mellody Hobson

President

Ariel Investments

Lisa Shalett

Co-Founder

EBExtraordinary Women on Boards

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

This episode reveals the product strategies of two of Jason's high-performing portfolio companies, Superhuman & Fitbod. First, Superhuman's Founder & CEO Rahul Vohra shares his 7 principles for improving products with game design (01:40), then Fitbod's CO-founder and Product Head Jesse Venticique describes how to optimize your product hook (20:08), and to wrap up, Jason brings the two together for a Q&A session (36:44). Pod Notes: http://bit.ly/e1214tnotes

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Jesse Venticique

Co-founder

Fitbod

Check out Coda: https://coda.io FOLLOW Shishir: https://twitter.com/shishirmehrotra FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) are joined by Superhuman's Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra). They discuss: - Rahul's first startup, Rapportive - Rahul explain what it's like to work with Marc Andreesen - Will Superhuman go public? - Why doesn't Google crush Superhuman? - Rahul describes when the idea to create Superhuman struck him - Shaan asks, what're the best "Superhuman for X" ideas - How Rahul stays calm and manages time - What startups are Rahul investing in? - Rahul's startup ideas Thank you to our sponsor this episode, EPOS! EPOS are fantastic headsets that make it easy to work flexibly across situations and locations, with portable headsets including hassle-free device compatibility. If you are an IT manager running a big department or a head of a growing company looking to give your employees the best headset solution to work from home, check out eposaudio.com/millions for a free trial! Have you joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Superstar past guest and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vorha joins us for a deep dive on how Superhuman applies concepts from game design to building productivity software. We're not talking points and badges — we mean hardcore, Unreal Engine-style technical innovations and Fortnite-level understanding of fun and mastery. It's a topic where Rahul has serious cred: before Superhuman and Rapportive, he worked as a game designer on RuneScape, the pioneering browser-based MMORPG. This is a topic every founder, engineer, product and even sales person should listen to. Tune in!  You can listen to Part I of our Superhuman story with Rahul here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/superhuman Sponsors: Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25 Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry WorkOS: https://acquired.fm/unpluggedPlaying Cards: https://bit.ly/workOSshop (Code: ACQDECK) Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26 More Acquired! Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes Join the Slack Subscribe to ACQ2 Merch Store! © Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC Playbook Themes from this Episode available on our website at  https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-superhuman-part-ii-designing-software-to-feel-like-a-game-with-rahul-vohra )

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra joins us for an absolute masterclass on startup fundraising that shatters much outdated traditional wisdom in the space. We cover why it's possible to build momentum and raise even as a solo founder, how you should think about syndicates vs. "brand name" VCs, and why you always want to be preempted and how to make that happen. This episode is a 100% must-listen for anyone raising money now, or planning to in the future.  Sponsors: Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra Topics Covered: How to run a successful fundraising process Why founders should think about raising money as "creating a market" for their company's equity How to build fundraising momentum, and why you shouldn't be afraid of using outsourced design and development agencies Preempted fundraises vs marketed fundraises: why you always want to be preempted, and how to orchestrate that happening Non-obvious ways that founders should think about runway, amount to raise and raise-timing in order to always have leverage in fundraising conversations Round construction The value of "brand name" investors vs. non-traditional capital, and why you actually want both at different times Why founders might want to raise their first capital from other founders and operators (versus from funds) Why founders should put some of their own capital into early rounds How to use high-resolution financings (SAFEs and convertible debt) efficiently The concept of "interstitial financings", where you raise convertible debt in-between rounds, and when & how to use them Investing while also being a founder/operator Time/attention allocation and why it's now possible to do both effectively Flexibility to build positions over time vs. traditional fund structures Rahul's own angel fund with Todd Goldberg Bonus! The origin story behind the Superhuman name  Links: Todd & Rahul's Angel Fund: http://toddandrahulangelfund.com/

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Today’s episode represents a new chapter for Invest Like the Best, so requires a longer introduction than normal. Starting today, I’ll be bringing you two episodes per week on the same feed. On Tuesday’s, I’ll focus on investors, and on Thursday’s, I’ll host builders—founders, CEOs, and operators from all different fields. We call this new Thursday series Founder’s Field Guide. There’s nothing more interesting to me than how great businesses get build, and how investors can identify those businesses at the right time. We’ve already recorded with founders build companies in food, technology, infrastructure, shipping, collectibles, and many more categories. The goal each weak will be to have a builder share what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, and what they’ve learned along the way. We view this as a critical next step in furthering our mission: to capture and openly share the world’s best knowledge on business and investing. Onto the kickoff episode with Rahul Vohra. Rahul is the Founder & CEO of Superhuman, an extremely popular product for managing email. Rahul describes himself as a Computer Scientist, Gamer, Entrepreneur, and Designer. You’ll see quickly why it’s the intersection of these areas that sets Superhuman apart. We discuss why emotion matters when building products, and how other entrepreneurs can learn from his experience. Please enjoy the very first episode of Founder’s Field Guide, and stay tuned in future weeks as we host leaders from Nike, Cisco, Twitch, and so many more…listen in as we explore the world of cannabis, baking (not that kind), manufacturing, hardware, software, and more. Let’s dive in.   This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out.    This episode is also sponsored by Vanta.  Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick.    For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (3:56) – (First question) – His interest in game design and emotion in software creation (5:15) – Key elements of game design (6:23) – Toys in digital software creation (8:48) – Finding success in boring software solutions (11:19) – Getting confidence while building when there are no real customers (14:08) – How they landed on their final product (15:40) – The Superhuman Product/Market Fit Engine (20:46) – Determining software price (21:55) – Positioning Your Startup is Vital — Here’s How to Nail It (23:09) – Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (24:13) – Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price (26:36) – First big break for the business (29:04) – How technology companies actually grow (32:15) – Branding a software (33:57) – How he evaluates a company brand as an investor (36:07) – Questions to ask founders when considering an investment (37:35) – How the distribution of Superhuman worked so well (41:25) – Most common question asked by VC’s about Superhuman (43:00) – Why they do manual onboarding of customers (43:05) – Daniel Ek Podcast Episode (45:10) – Cost structure of a busines looking to reach the billion-dollar valuation (47:18) – Designing for flow in software business (51:21) – His design philosophy and their joy formula  (58:03) – His superpower (1:00:46) – The power of therapy (1:02:50) – Why he invests in other companies (1:05:05) – Trends in the technology space that have him excited (1:07:28) – The future for Superhuman (1:10:26) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Rahul Vohra

Founder & CEO, Superhuman

Superhuman

Shishir Mehrotra is the Founder & CEO @ Coda, the startup that brings all of your words and data into a flexible all-in-one doc. To date, Shishir has raised over $140M from some great names including Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, NEA and Homebrew to name a few. Prior to founding Coda, Shishir spent an incredible 6 years at Google in a couple of different roles; first as Director of Product for Youtube Monetisation and then moving to Youtube VP of Engineering, Product and UX. Before Google, Shishir was with Microsoft for 6 years as a Director of Program Management. Shishir also serves on the board of Spotify. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Shishir made his way into the world of tech, came to be VP of Engineering, Product and UX @ Youtube and how it led to founding Coda? 2.) What is the No 1 quality of a good decision? How does Shishir think through reversible vs irreversible decisions? What are the 4 phases of decision-making? When should decisions be based on speed vs not? How can teams adjust questions to come to more productive outcomes? 3.) How does Shishir encourage debate and dissent within team discussions? How can leaders build deep trust with their teams? How can leaders create true democracy for idea sharing and meritocracy? Should ideas always be acted on immediately? What are the pros and cons? 4.) How does Shishir think about and evaluate his own operating cadence? How has this changed over time? How does Shishir approach time allocation? What have been his core learnings? How does Shishir divide his time between proactive and reactive tasks? 5.) How does Shishir approach OKR setting? What can leaders do to create aspirational and inspirational goals? How should goals be correctly communicated across orgs? How many OKRs should one team/person have? How should attribution across OKRs be given? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Shishir's Fave Book: Switch: How to change things when change is hard As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

You need more than a good product to scale – you need strong rituals. All companies have rituals, from holding all-hands meetings to measuring KPIs. The right rituals in the right places help build your culture, cohere your team, and home in on your targets. The wrong ones can lead you horribly astray. Shishir Mehrotra, former head of YouTube and co-founder of Coda, learned this when he scaled YouTube to a billion hours of watch time each day. He kept the team focused on that audacious goal by establishing fresh new rituals. And in his new role as CEO and founder of Coda, he's learned to constantly ask: What old rituals are holding us back? And what new rituals can we create together that will be inclusive, empowering — and keep us all moving forward? Cameo appearances: George Kembel (Stanford's d.School), Tobi Lütke (Shopify), and Dr. Akhila Cadet (Change Cadet). Read more about the rituals at Coda — and add your own here: https://coda.io/@shishir/masters-of-scale-rituals Read a transcript of this episode at https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly

My guest today is Shishir Mehrotra and the topic of our conversation is the bundle: offering access to multiple products, services, or providers for a single bundled price. This topic is full of incorrect pre-conceived notions, and as it turns out, the bundle is one of the most powerful ideas in business. Properly harnessed it is good for everyone involved. Shishir explains the ins and outs of bundles in this conversation. Shishir ran product at YouTube for years and sits on the Spotify board of directors. He founded and now leads Coda (which is “A Doc” spelled backwards) in 2014, to bundle together productivity apps like docs, spreadsheets, databases, and applications. I love this wonky, detailed conversation which has me thinking differently about many businesses and business strategy. Please enjoy.   This episode is brought to by Koyfin.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (2:08) – (First question) – The arc of his career (3:32) – Why he has an interest in bundling (7:45) – The concepts of superfan, casualfan, and nonfan businesses (11:05) – Using Spotify as an example of bundles (13:24) – The first myth of bundling: Bundling is bad for consumers (17:53) – The second myth of bundling: 1st vs 3rd party providers and the bundlers (23:03) – Low usage but high Marginal Churn Contribution (MCC) business (24:26) – How insurance fits into these models   (26:37) – Myth 3 of bundling: How this impacts consumers (32:12) – How marginal costs play into the thinking of bundling (34:54) – Myth 4: Bundling things that have nothing to do with each other (39:51) – How bundling companies can apply this into their product development (43:21) – Strategic advice to companies building bundles (49:01) – How price and pricing power play into advantages for certain bundlers (54:16) – How does bundling play into his investing thesis (56:47) – Most interesting bundles he’s observed             (58:44) – Eigenquestions: The Art of Framing Problems (59:14) – What the future of this trend is (1:02:24) – What is an eigenquestion (1:06:29) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Shishir Mehrotra

Founder and CEO

CodaSuperhumanGrammarly