I'm I the only person who is reluctant to add a service hosted by a startup to your email process? What kind of plans do you have for when they close/exit/pivot/whatever were calling it these days? How is this not going to be another Sparrow or Fluent?
I'm I the only person who is reluctant to add a service hosted by a startup to your email process?
No, you're not.
When I'm choosing businesses to work with, one of the first things I consider is longevity. Of course there's always a possibility that another business will close down after you start working with them, but there's not much point building a relationship with a business if you actively expect that to happen in the near future.
I think this is something that a certain part of the start-up culture doesn't really take into account yet. The current popularity of acqui-hires and the obvious goal of some founders/investors to just get the company sold at the earliest possible opportunity make me very wary of dealing with small, young companies that have taken a lot of investment or were started by "serial entrepreneurs".
I suppose you go back to doing whatever you were doing before you used the service. Annoying yes, but it's not like they're hosting your mail and you have to rush to find a new host.
In this case? Hope you have a record of all your filters, then re-implement them using Python's POP or IMAP library. If they fold after demonstrating significant market interest, I'd be happy to set up a competing service with improved usability and monetization.
It's not something I'd try to launch otherwise. I'd be more about a B2B service which aims to improve issue tracking, response times, and accountability. If that does well, go on to work on knowledge retention and retrieval, which is pretty much a giant black hole you can play in forever.
