chany2

"But for now, the sweet lady at the boutique just has this: privacyreporter@stopaskingme.com." -- Haha

I actually think that them asking for my email is okay. Or give them a fake or my junk email.

Because, sooner or later, they want to tap our actual identity, or ask our Facebook account or Twitter account. Query our information there...

I think its okay, isn't it the ultimate LITMUS TEST. If you instantly gave up after you googled that the idea has be done or "stolen". Then you were never passion enough to tackle it in the first place - in the first sign of 'competition'.

We are naturally go through this - and yes those people need to suck it up and should be actually EXCITED their idea was implemented - and if you are truly passionate about the idea, you should consider on joining the new team rather than scorn them.

They brag about their idea was "stolen" because they just desire the riches the successful implementation founders have received.

I think MSFT would be better off with a COO with a huge tech interest similar to Dick Costolo or Tim Cook.

Allows to think leaner within operations, without hindering the progress of innovation because it is such a core fundamental mindset in that COO's mind.

I am pretty sure (depending on what company you want to work for), "degrees" and "education" doesn't matter anymore.

If you can do several passion projects of your own, no GOOD employer would discredit you.

But I recommend, double down. Create something you love (no business intention behind it) while taking the MIT course.

I am fan and follower of the space however I don't use CRM in my daily job.

I think to compete with Salesforces, more 'insightful' organizations are considering the inclusion of the big data aspect of it (whether its a buzz thread of recent that people are all leaning towards).

Lattice Engines, InsideView, etc... adding intelligence behind it. Also sales people hate re-entering information and likes the possibility of scoring sales. CRMs and Gmail CRM Plugins would be brought no-doubt about that but are they actually useful from the sales person's POV? - if you are trying to think whats the next step in innovation for CRMs.

Depending on what you are building, I think its natural to make mistakes. If you are building your own product, your mind is probably spinning between technical, design, and marketing. Within each buckets, you are also trying to think more innovative-ly. With inclusion of you doing research, and constantly thinking outside-of-the-box, its human to forget a previous step or two.

The other option is using stuff like Koality, which allow you to test your code in development with a production environment.

Well said. I am also thinking, we have so many apps in our lives nowadays and they get update often enough. Most people would not want to explore all the different options and features.

Even tutorials are skipped and forgotten. Need to keep it simple as much as possible.

I imagine in the future, all apps would be self-learning / machine-learning according to the users frequent usage - to the point it would be even smarter than Google Now or with a Watson-like API in the back of each app.

I am building an productivity email app - primary geared towards enterprises, organizations, and teams. What are some channels where I can reach folks to challenge my hack?

I actually agree with your post. And subscribed to you afterwards.

I often encounter the same issue.

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Typical Example: Friends ask me what I am doing over the weekend? I said I got some work to do. I have to learn NodeJs, figure out how to parse BCC address off an email, focus on my UI and UX design for my email app, go do more research on hashtags for emails, etc...

What I cited there are not "work" per say as coined in most people's mind as the dreary 8 hour work life.

What I am actually saying is "I GOT A PROBLEM I AM PASSIONATED IN SOLVING. I AM GOING TO SPEND MY WEEKEND AND NIGHTS RESEARCHING TO SOLVE IT BECAUSE ITS FUN. IT IS MY VIDEOGAME, AND MY WAY OF GAINING SATISFACTION TO IMPROVE MYSELF."

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So basically if you replaced "In 2014, if you want happiness, choose work" with "In 2014, if you want happiness, choose PASSION". No one would unsubscribe.

Thanks for this post. Needed it. Building an email app - which is such a large market... and large customer base. Need to narrow it down.

* Not sure if my response was posted on your site. Repeated here:

It seems like what you and your team really need is 'like' a Sharepoint / Dropbox for Emails where anyone (if permissions are set) can read through email content and project progression highlighted in email communication.

I recently put together a hack introducing Hashtags for Email. The idea is you hashtag important emails (in your case, most to all emails). Ex: "This Tuesday, I giving a #Project_A demo on #storage strategy at #Boxcon." This creates hashtag threads #Project_A, #storage, and #Boxcon. Non-storage team members can be invited to the thread read through the email discussion.

This stems from activity done personally, saving important content - Evernote for Email. In a team environment, email can be distributed - Sharepoint for Email.

Demo @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948659

Granted, there are differences in your team's implementation vs. hashtagging contents. i.e. email client agnostic

Rework by 37Signals ^ is good.

Personal favorite are:

1) As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

2) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

3) 2nd half of Steve Jobs Bio

4) Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy

5) The Big Short by Michael Lewis

6) The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

You are completely right.

Email is slow, too formal, and misused over the last 2 decades.

I want to get your feedback on Hop (I have no association with them) http://gethop.com/ . Its basically turning emails into instant messages.

I think its a great idea on paper because it creates a transition point for your senders/recipients not to give up email - and on your end, you have a different UI and UX.

Then after thinking about it as well as re-watching their demo video, email is no longer associated with "entertainment" or "connection" - like you mention. We have LinkedIn, Facebook, Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, (if younger, Snapchat, Instagram.. ) etc... So for Hop to do it for the average user, I think it just doesn't work.

There can be a play here for Enterprise though - where organization communication need to be more fluent, and efficient - thus leading to the short burst of replies (skip the 'Hi John' and skip the 'Best, Tim'), automatic threading based on discussion/wall-like layout, integration of directory + Sharepoint / Dropbox onto the fold, etc...)

I put your idea into consideration. See Image#3 at http://garyyauchan.com/sharepoint-for-emails/ . I definitely see the need only if this new Important-Email-Inbox on my app becomes very abundant with content. Then the need to filter becomes important.

There are two things I want to stay away from at that moment.

1) Calling this app I am developing as a "New Inbox", I think it would give the idea there is another source for their incoming mails. The idea is you hashtag ONLY IMPORTANT EMAILS to set yourself as a reminder, etc...

2) I would also like to avoid the Search / Filtering feature - which leads back down to the road of Gmail's Search. One of the cases for developing this app is because Search is not intelligent enough when there is a massive volume of emails.

Also I am going to re-think the idea of Flipboard as the new UI medium to become the differentiator to other email apps. Great feedback btw!

Email is not broken. The usage of email is however mishandled.

- Overload of messages

- Email Search / Discovery

- Finding important content

- Unnecessary CCs

- Major contents still live in emails

- Go-to place for everything; filtering important vs non-important

@byoung2, I think you reference a critical problem with email as I listed above. Sorting emails by "Actionable Categorization" by both sender and recipient.

Getting hold of the most important information asap without re-reading the content.

Currently, I am hacking with an idea on Hashtags for Important Email.

- Sender can write hashtag inside contents of the emails to group them appropriately for the recipient.

- Multiple users using hashtag help group important content together; leading to a Sharepoint for Email.

- Long email threads would be summarize to get the most relevant information possible.

Love to get your feedback @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948659

I think most of the issues relies on the searching for emails as you explained. After you file them into labels/folders, to retrieve emails became pretty cumbersome as well.

Currently, I am hacking on an idea using Hashtags for Email, love to get your feedback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948659

Just curious, based on your research, are people really concern about security of their confidential emails?

When do the access to better features outweight the need of security?

If you use Mailbox, they actually temporarily hold on to your rebounce emails as well. Other email apps such as Skimbox, the emails are stored in their MongoDB server. Obviously the value of this 2 applications, granted they are still alive and used by folks, then the features > security concern. Not that they are compromising your messages anyway.

I am sure different people have different priorities. Just a curious question based on your findings.

Btw I also called myself an aspiring entrepreneur in most of my email introductions. I think its just my humble way of saying I am working on it and dedicated to growing - as oppose to being too boastful when asking for advice.

Find me @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyyauchan/

Also love to get your feedback for Hashtags for Email @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948659

Thanks for the support. Please do sign up @ http://www.sharemoto.io for early beta access.

Correct those are great questions. How I can get interest of organizations to invest in such an email solution?

So hashtagging contents once adopted would be the base platform of plentiful features that can be used on top of it. Quick examples:

1. Accessing content in emails to build a Powerpoint Deck with one button.

2.Or contributing to a CRM / Relationship Development application.

Essentially how do I first demonstrate the need. You can also review this IBM research paper @ http://lifehacker.com/5848244/email-folders-might-actually-d...

Long answer: In the future, Mobile / Tablet would be more prominent in our professional setting. The requirement of a device centric experience becomes a must have.

Short answer: It would double up as a web version. Just didn't show it in the demo.

I believe what you are discussing about is very similar to CCLoop

- http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/24/can-ccloop-rid-us-of-our-co...

- http://www.quora.com/ccLoop/Why-did-ccLoop-pivot

If I am correct, the challenge of CCLoop or mailing lists is that it only works if everyone is part of it.

The hashtag concept works starting off as "Evernote for your Emails" - helping you organize first. With the inclusion of other teammates picking it up, then the added effect is that it becomes a "Sharepoint for Emails".

Discussed your article with a friend of mine. People join LinkedIn to initially build an online resume which advanced into LinkedIn selling data or became a hangout spot for sales rep or HR - thus there is so much spam content.

Let's say tomorrow you are to make a quality linking connections platform. Why would people join it? What incentive would people have to join yours when they can still do it on LinkedIn, even if LinkedIn is horrendous?

It is quite difficult in the beginning when you have to differentiate yourself from LinkedIn while convincing others to join and build your community.

I like to hear more of your thoughts on this issue - I think its quite fascinating to think about "how to build a new LinkedIn?".