How Superhuman Took Over Silicon Valley Email
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.
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Inside the New Superhuman: $700M ARR, 40M Daily Users with Rahul Vohra
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/
The Grammarly–Superhuman Megadeal, plus TWiST 500 chats with LabelBox and Apptronik’s founders | E2146
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
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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
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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO)
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.
—
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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
The Incredible Double Interview: Superhuman and Robinhood | E2090
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
Superhuman 2.0: The AI edge, top productivity hacks, and the future of email | E2002
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
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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:
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*
Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
SaaS Product-Market Fit: 5 Founders Share What Worked
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
SaaS Product-Market Fit: From 22% to 58% With Data
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
Product | Scaling Your Startup S2 E5 with Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra & Fitbod’s Jesse Venticique | E1214
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
#135 with Rahul Vohra (Superhuman Founder) - Why He Started Superhuman and The Ideas He'd Like To See Built
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.
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Special: Superhuman Part II - Designing Software to Feel like a Game (with Rahul Vohra)
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
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Masterclass: Superhuman's Fundraising Playbook (with CEO Rahul Vohra)
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 - Using Emotion to Design Great Products - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.1]
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
20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How 1-1 Customer Onboarding Can Scale Efficiently to $100M ARR, Why Gamification Does Not Work But Game Design Does & What Game Design Means For The Next Generation Of Product Managers
Rahul Vohra is the Founder & CEO @ Superhuman, the startup that has rebuilt the inbox from the ground up creating the fastest email experience ever made. To date, Rahul has raised over $56m with Superhuman from some of the best in the business including a16z, First Round, Box Group and then 2 of my favourites in Jeff Morris Jr @ Chapter One and Ed and Elliot @ Boldstart. Prior to founding Superhuman, Rahul was the Founder @ Rapportive, a company later acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. If that was not enough, Rahul is also an investor having co-founded a new firm with Todd Goldberg just last year.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Rahul made his way from making the first plugin for Gmail with Rapportive to changing how we think about email today with Superhuman?
2.) Why does Rahul believe game design is worth doing? What is the difference between game design and gamification? What does it take to create a game? What is the truth on game design?
3.) What are the core 5 factors that make up effective game design? How can products incorporate goals to make the user feel emotion when engaging? What emotions does one want the user to feel? How can they be tested? What controls should be placed around the UX? Why are controls so fundamental?
4.) What is the difference between a toy and a game? How can one effectively incorporate toys into their product? How has Superhuman done this effectively to date? Hw can designers create a system of flow in the user experience? What works? What does not work?
5.) Did Rahul intentionally create an entirely new category when it comes to onboarding? Why does Rahul pushback on people that suggest 1-1 onboarding is not scalable? What does the unit economics look like? How does this scale to $100M ARR?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Rahul's Fave Book: The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses
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.
Carta simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta's team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off.
20VC: Rahul Vohra @ Superhuman, The Most Downloaded Founder Episode of 2019
Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO @ Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Fun fact, users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! To date, they have raised funds from our friends at Boldstart, First Round, John Collison, Sam Altman, Wayne Chang, Mike Ghaffery and Yes VC just to name a few. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Rahul make his way into the world of startups with the founding of Rapportive and how did that transition to changing the world of email with Superhuman?
2.) What does Rahul mean when he says, "you can reverse engineer a process to get to product-market fit"? What does Rahul believe is the defining metric which determines your "product-market fit score"? What is Julie Supan's framework? How did Dropbox and Airbnb use it to increase their product-market fit? How can founders implement it into their process?
3.) What can founders do to expand the customer base to include users that currently are "somewhat disappointed"? What are the right questions to ask? What do we do with this feedback? How do we further segment the user base? Why should we "disregard the users whereby the primary benefit of the product does not resonate"?
4.) How does Rahul approach product roadmap and prioritisation? How can founders ensure that continuous tracking and user feedback is engrained within the organisation? What tools does Rahul do to monitor and capture this? What are some of Rahul's biggest lessons from going through this painstaking process stage by stage?
5.) Finally on fundraising, what does Rahul mean when he says, "always be raising but never be actively raising"? What are the benefits of this? How can founders transition catch up coffee into fundraising subtly? How does Rahul feel about party rounds? What are the pros? What are the downsides? How does Rahul advise founders here?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Rahul's Fave Book: The Art of Game Design
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rahul on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
E993: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra shares the formula for his Product-Market Fit Engine; Future of Angel Investing w/Jeff Clavier (Uncork), Ben Ling (Bling), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Help Scout VP of Sales Tim Thyne
0:48 Jason intros Rahul Vohra
3:21 Rahul gives a talk on building a "Product-Market Fit Engine"
29:42 Rahul takes questions from the LAUNCH Scale audience
37:28 Jason intros the "Future of Angel Investing" panelists: Ben Ling (Bling Capital), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund) & Jeff Clavier (Uncork Capital)
38:54 Has Silicon Valley reached peak entitlement?
41:44 Is "too much $ chasing too few companies" the new normal in VC
45:47 How important is price & valuation in decision making?
49:10 Importance of early revenue & strong board governance
52:28 How many of their biggest hits had multiple revenue models?
58:00 What is "venture-scale" in terms of growth rate?
1:02:40 How to train new associates to understand the importance of revenue quality?
1:09:13 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk featuring Help Scout's VP of Sales Tim Thyne
Superhuman (with CEO Rahul Vohra)
We wrap up Season 4 with a very special (and accidental!) episode, a conversation with the CEO of Superhuman, the red hot email productivity app which just announced their $33m Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz. While originally intended as a limited release episode, we felt Superhuman would provide the perfect bookend to our “modern enterprise productivity trilogy” following our Zoom and Slack episodes. We hope you enjoy the conversation with Rahul as much as we did, and we’ll see you later this summer for Season 5!
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!
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Merch Store!
© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC
LinksNew York Times article announcing the fundraise: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/technology/superhuman-email.html
Rahul’s Medium post on acquisitions: https://medium.com/swlh/rip-mailbox-or-founders-how-to-stop-worrying-and-love-being-acquired-261da4f6d566
Rahul on finding product-market fit on First Round Review: https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/
20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How To Measure Product Market Fit, How To Construct A Process To Increase It & How To Implement A Strong Feedback and Reporting Cycle To Sustain It
Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO @ Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Fun fact, users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! To date, they have raised funds from our friends at Boldstart, First Round, John Collison, Sam Altman, Wayne Chang, Mike Ghaffery and Yes VC just to name a few. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Rahul make his way into the world of startups with the founding of Rapportive and how did that transition to changing the world of email with Superhuman?
2.) What does Rahul mean when he says, "you can reverse engineer a process to get to product market fit"? What does Rahul believe is the defining metric which determines your "product market fit score"? What is Julie Supan's framework? How did Dropbox and Airbnb use it to increase their product market fit? How can founders implement it into their process?
3.) What can founders do to expand the customer base to include users that currently are "somewhat disappointed"? What are the right questions to ask? What do we do with this feedback? How do we further segment the user base? Why should we "disregard the users whereby the primary benefit of the product does not resonate"?
4.) How does Rahul approach product roadmap and prioritisation? How can founders ensure that continuous tracking and user feedback is engrained within the organisation? What tools does Rahul do to monitor and capture this? What are some of Rahul's biggest lessons from going through this painstaking process stage by stage?
5.) Finally on fundraising, what does Rahul mean when he says, "always be raising but never be actively raising"? What are the benefits of this? How can founders transition catch up coffee into fundraising subtly? How does Rahul feel about party rounds? What are the pros? What are the downsides? How does Rahul advise founders here?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Rahul's Fave Book: The Art of Game Design
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rahul on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.