Time For An Email Refresh

I’m in San Francisco for the week. Being in the same city as Will is always super fun and energetic. It’s hard to be away from my 3 girls; one adult, one 1 year old and one dog that thinks she’s a human.

Two of my closest friends from college are in town this week as well. Ian is here for fundraising meetings and Luke is here for work. Amazingly, Luke’s office and our SF coworking space are in the same building.

We had an incredible dinner at Flour and Water Pizzeria in the Mission last night. I have a bit of a pizza addiction and am pretty sure I took down a full pie alone.

During dinner, Ian started telling us about a new product that has been incredible for his work life, Superhuman. He described how it had greatly reduced his struggles with email, allowing him to move quickly through the 100 or so emails he gets each day.

Last week, Front announced their $59M Series C, promising to rethink the inbox and provide a better email experience.

And this morning Jason Fried of 37 Signals announced Hey. A product that hopes to restore the joy of email. I’m personally not sure that email was ever joyful, but it can definitely be improved from the current state of affairs.

Email needs a major refresh. I’m interested to see how these new services approach the challenge.