Why email startups fail

It seems Forward Email has come to the exact same conclusion I did in a blog post awhile back: https://marcoapp.io/blog/marco-an-introduction

I agree that "reinventing" email, or building a business based on "AI features" are both terrible ideas.

We began building Marco not to do either of these things, but simply because _there wasn't_ any actual cross-platform IMAP client.

Apple Mail exists (but is terrible) if you only have Apple devices. Lots of other options like Superhuman and Shortwave exist, but only support Gmail+Outlook.

All we're doing is building the app that should have existed 10 years ago: a cross-platform, offline-first "Thunderbird". Except far more lightweight and modern. And yes, we've built it from the ground up. And no, it's not Electron.

https://marcoapp.io

My mom would have been thrilled when she was still in the workforce 10 years ago.

She still uses Thunderbird, but she stopped checking her email.

What a piece of software. I remember when I migrated from Outlook Express to Thunderbird 20+ years ago because Outlook Express had a bad habit of being vulnerable to exploits just by receiving them; you didn't need to even open the email, or download an attachment, or open the attachment. It was enough for the email program to be open upon receiving malware, and it'd automatically get it.

I've been using FastMail's mobile app and web app for 5-10 years now.

I wish there was something better, but it's good enough.

Asking for less makes me less focused on email, which is not bad.