Email’s Untapped Potential: Nicolas Toper on What’s Next

This episode features an engaging discussion with Nicolas Toper, a seasoned entrepreneur known for founding Crit Send and later Inbox Booster. Nicolas delves into his unique educational journey at the CNA school in France, highlighting how its unconventional night-class system catered to working individuals and shaped his entrepreneurial path. He shares the challenging transition from academia to launching his startups, emphasizing the real-world applications and difficulties of innovating within the email delivery and marketing space. His insights shed light on the evolving landscape of email technology and startup culture, providing a valuable perspective for aspiring entrepreneurs and industry professionals.

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[00:00:00] Nicolas: Email is important. If you think about it. Email is, uh, there’s something, uh, beautiful about it that no other platform has replicated, like communication platform has replicated so far. Everybody can open a network, can open a server, everybody can send email. And everybody has an email account, at least in the accidental versus there is results and it’s owned by no one.

[00:00:19] So that’s kind of a collective comment that needs to be maintained and needs to be, uh, yeah, recognized.

[00:00:34] Ken: NicNicolasper, thank you for joining me on the Mail Channels podcast. Uh. I’m so excited to talk to you about your entrepreneurial journey, uh, with your startup Crit Send and more recently with Inbox Booster. But to get started, I wonder if you could talk about your experience at university in, uh, at the CNA school in France, and how that influenced your entrepreneurial journey. Uh, so it’s, it’s in France. It’s, 

[00:01:02] Nicolas: uh, Kana as, uh, we say it’s, uh, it’s a very unusual, uh, school because it’s, uh, the one that’s, uh, open to all and it’s only night classes and you can go all the way to PhD. So, uh, so it’s basically open only to people who work. So I had to work, uh, after high school. So I did that.

[00:01:20] I did my classes there, and I got my master, uh. Technically in three years except the thesis. But I did one from, uh, graduation to, uh, to, to, to, to, uh, to master in three years because you can, uh, while working, because you can, uh, take as many classes as you want. And I kind of realized that, uh, in theory it takes you 10 years, you’re not supposed.

[00:01:41] But, uh, a lot of the classes do factor with each other because if you understand network in, uh, at bachelor level, then you probably, well, if you understand network at master level, then you kind of understand them at bachelor level. Uh, so, so you could factor in the classes like that. Uh, and that was kind of, uh, an unusual way of doing that, but that worked really well.

[00:02:03] And, uh, because I had like, uh, really good grades and all that. And, uh, and that’s where I’ve learned that, uh, you should not do what everybody’s telling you to do. And there is a, a line between, uh, what people really expect and what people actually want you to do and, uh, what’s actually being rewarded. Uh, in front we have this idea that, uh, everything is based on talent and it’s based on, uh, how good you, how gifted you are at birth, which is a very aristocratic idea if you think about it.

[00:02:34] Uh, and, uh, here is literally about hard work. I. Because it’s not very hard, but, uh, school finished starts at six, finishes at 10:00 PM so because you’re supposed to work again. So, uh, so who wants to be, uh, when it’s cold in February when it’s dark even, it’s not as cold or as dark as in Canada, but it’s still pretty bad.

[00:02:57] It’d be surprised. You’d be surprised it might be. [00:03:00] So a lot of it is about, uh, work ethic. Uh, and uh, and that’s kind of the, the interesting bit that I’ve learned there. 

[00:03:08] Ken: One of the things you mentioned, uh, on, uh, on your LinkedIn profile is that you started your first company Crit Send while you were working on your Master’s thesis.

[00:03:18] So you actually paused your master’s program to go and do the startup. Uh, so tell me like what caused you to pause your work on your thesis to go and start this company? So, 

[00:03:31] Nicolas: uh, initially I was supposed to do my math, so in France, so in this school, uh, you’re supposed to go, uh, work on a research subject for, uh, a year.

[00:03:40] Uh, in a company and, uh, kind of, uh, write up a summary about what you learn, what scientific problem you fix and so, and when you’re not. And it was really, really hard for me to find that because, uh, people wanted, uh, it was easy to find companies who wanted me as a cheap worker, but, uh, because I didn’t come from the right background, I couldn’t find a company who would want me to work on a scientific problem.

[00:04:02] So I could either do it for free in university, which I couldn’t afford. Or I could, uh, uh, do or, uh, or I had, or, uh, or I had to kinda find most, uh, people, what they do is they find a way to do it, uh, uh, working on this side in their companies or working, uh, or working for free, roughly, which again, I couldn’t afford.

[00:04:23] So, uh, I was like, okay, let’s, so I went to Germany to industry actually to build, uh, to, to try to do that. But it kind of backfired. I mean, I got laid out, uh, uh, just before Christmas. 

[00:04:36] Ken: Ugh. 

[00:04:36] Nicolas: And uh, and so I was supposed to write it there, but it didn’t gimme time actually to write it. So, uh, so, and that was, uh, and this was a startup, so it’s not a bad setup for that because it’s not what you can do at startup.

[00:04:48] Uh, and uh, and so, uh, so I was like, oh, okay, then I’ll just, uh, create my company, uh, would be kind of the same thing. So, uh, at least, so that’s why I started. And then the company, uh, took off. [00:05:00] Wow. Wow. Uh, and, uh, and I didn’t have time to write it. And, uh, just before, uh, late leaving the company and selling it, or during the transition period, I kind of completed the, the master this disease.

And then I kind of, uh, applied, uh, for it and, uh, and, and, and I got it. 

[00:05:15] Ken: That’s amazing. So you, you went back and finished your master’s degree, which is, is like a very unusual, it’s a very uncommon story. In Silicon Valley, you’re supposed to quit school and never go back. Maybe get an honorary degree one day, but certainly not go back and actually finish your degree.

[00:05:32] Yeah. 

[00:05:33] Nicolas: Uh, but 

[00:05:33] Ken: this is really writing 50 pages 

[00:05:35] Nicolas: from the, making a presentation. So it’s not like I had to go to school for six months. Uh, I did that because I just want to let like, uh, the tie, uh, to, to, to, I just wanted to complete things ’cause it was the right time. Uh, and, uh, and I did that, but then I didn’t.

[00:05:51] Uh, but in hindsight, I’m happy to have done it. Not because I’ve learned things on the way. 

[00:05:55] Ken: So Crit send, uh, what was the idea behind Crit Send? [00:06:00] What, what was the company created to do? What was the problem you were solving? So, first of all, we were created in 

[00:06:06] Nicolas: 26. So it’s old, almost 20 years old. Wow. And, uh, and at that time, uh, you could see that AWS was starting off.

[00:06:14] Yeah. Uh, and it was. Going to be big, but all emails, I knew that all emails were built on, uh, IP at that time, like all remote reputation was built on IP and cloud was is dy. Uh, with cloud, there is, uh, this, uh, this pre this, uh, I mean having cloud for forces you to have dynamic IP because you cannot really con, you do not have static ip.

[00:06:36] So everything was dynamic. So, uh, a consequence like the of, uh, the. Cloud growing means a lot of dynamic ip, which mean that all those people sending emails and at that time this was really important. Mm-Hmm. They had to use an SMTP. And there were, uh, SMTP relay that, you know about that, but they were not made for that at that time.

[00:06:54] They were not made for mass mailing. They were made for, uh, I’m traveling and my, uh, e and my ISPs blocking my, uh, 25 ports. So, uh, uh, also, how can I work around? Or you had marketing companies for, uh, sending newsletters or, uh, a lot of, uh. Marketing emails. So you didn’t have, uh, that capacity and it’s really, really hard to build.

[00:07:14] ’cause you also had this idea that, uh, ESPs like Outlook, which was big at that time, wanted you to, uh, was delegating you to the reputation, to you. And you’re supposed to send good emails to pass the first filter, but if you were just starting out, it was not impossible. And, uh, you had, you had this. Cloud company, then cloud was becoming huge.

[00:07:34] And it was before it was obvious that it would be huge. But I remember, uh, in Australia when I was, uh, working there. They were, it was, uh, enterprise, uh, software. And they were like, oh, yeah, but nobody’s going to use the cloud because why? Companies would do that. And uh, and in France we had, uh, a cheap host called, uh, OVH, uh, and, uh, which probably heard, uh, about, and uh, and, uh, and they, and this was exactly the same thing, like, yeah, who would like to use, uh, why would I pay a $10?

[00:07:59] Why would I pay $10? My server, well, I could pay a thousand. Uh, and uh, and the pitch was they would do more, but, uh, because it wasn’t a proper data center and all that, but. But in practice, every companies had the Navigate server where they were running critical workload. Right. It was kind of a shadow it thing because it was too cheap that, uh, and it was easy ’cause you clicked on the button.

[00:08:20] So I was like, yeah, it’s going to be exactly the same. Plus it’s AWS so it’s Amazon, so they know what they’re doing. So, uh, uh, I’m not going to be able to compete with them because it was just me and nobody wanted to work with me at that time. Mm-hmm. So, uh, so email was a kind of a, a good deal. Uh, and in my previous, uh, as an employee, I was, um, doing, I was in employed in the email marketing company, so they, so I knew a little bit how that worked.

[00:08:45] And interestingly, uh, my, one of my network professor actually was a guy who wrote the a UL Pam filter of that time. So, uh, no way. So, yeah, that was random. So, but he explained to me how that worked and I was like, oh, okay then. So because, uh, so, so my point [00:09:00] being that, uh, uh, I had, uh, the skills. And this was, uh, this, and this was, uh, obvious at that time.

[00:09:07] It was obvious that the cloud would get big, uh, the important people or the power of that bit didn’t take that seriously, but it was growing. So, uh, and that’s kind of one thing I’ve learned is you need to, if people are saying something, but the world is doing something out and you should believe the world and not what the people are saying.

[00:09:24] Uh, so, uh, and so, uh, you got that, uh, and that’s how, uh, that’s how I got in and I was like, oh, okay. Then if I position like that, I should just wait and I’ll move from, uh, port to uh, uh. Okay. 

[00:09:39] Ken: So Cri, so Crit Sand, was it a, uh, was it a sending platform? Like, did you make a email sending service or Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:47] Nicolas: We were on TP relay basically. Got it. Okay. We were on SMTP relay. We started with an API, then we built an SMTP gateway and, uh, yeah, sorry. So, so, and, and that was important because, uh, uh, we had like, um, I. So we had dedicated, [00:10:00] we had static ips, so cloud companies could, not cloud companies like aws, but customers of these cloud companies could use us directly to send their email instead of not sending emails.

[00:10:09] And again, at that time it was, uh, we were one of the first on the market. It was very important and they had, email was very, very important, couldn’t go without it. And they had no other options. 

[00:10:18] Ken: So, uh, you know what’s really interesting? Before, before we recorded the podcast, and I was, I was researching you, I actually found an old email from you, uh, back in 2009, uh, because mail channels had, uh, at that time we were looking at maybe building an email, sending API for AWS customers, and we put out a form, uh, in the AWS developer Forum.

[00:10:48] And you were one of the people who submitted the form or someone else named Nico? 

[00:10:52] Nicolas: No, 

[00:10:52] Ken: no, it’s me. No, no. It’s me. It’s me. Because I, I knew, uh, yeah, it’s me because, uh, 

[00:10:56] Nicolas: I knew your company also. Uh, uh, uh, it’s, [00:11:00] uh, because I was active at that time, were active in marketing at that time and all that. Yeah. 

[00:11:03] Ken: Yeah. I thought that was really interesting.

[00:11:05] You know, even back then, you know, uh, well, we didn’t know what, we didn’t know what we had in our hands. Right? There were, I think we put the form out and within 24 hours we had 300 inquiries. Uh, from AWS customers and just, I was flipping through those inquiries, uh, a few days ago. Uh, and there’s, there’s some big name SaaS companies in there that were looking, but, you know, back then they were literally startups.

[00:11:32] They were just getting going. Uh, they had like a couple employees and now they’re huge, huge SaaS companies, and they had inquired about an email sending API. Uh, very interesting that you went off in the direction of creating an email, sending API, and we went in another direction, uh, eventually realizing that we should create an email sending service for the web hosting industry, a completely, you know, unique, uh, situation.

[00:11:57] Nicolas: Um, which is one thing we investigated [00:12:00] also, uh, at prison. And, uh, the reason we didn’t do it is because, uh, you were there. So, 

[00:12:04] Ken: oh, really? No kidding. Yeah. I thought maybe I didn’t do it. ‘

[00:12:06] Nicolas: cause it’s scary. No, no it’s not. The problem is so scary. The thing when you have an STP relay is, um, uh, a third. So basically, uh, a, a retro cost is roughly servers.

[00:12:18] Uh, we managed to get them, uh, very under control and we’re paranoid about that. Another third of your cost to like, uh, marketing or, uh, ops and all that. But another third of it is really, um, security. Yes, you really have, uh, people trying to, uh, abuse your system all the time, all the time. So, so you need to develop skills here, uh, and you, and you have two types of abuse.

[00:12:38] You have, uh, actual abuse, like people sending a phishing email. 

[00:12:42] Ken: Yeah. 

[00:12:42] Nicolas: And they’re paying you with the credit card they collected, so it’s not, and you have, uh, and you also have a very sketchy customer, so you need to kind of manage this too. Mm-Hmm. And, uh, and sketchy practices too. So, uh, the choice we made at CI made was to, because again, I don’t have any money and I don’t have any capital.

[00:13:01] And in France, uh, the VCs, uh, uh, they were, uh. Either insulting or despising. I don’t how to explain, but it didn’t really took me seriously. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of like, it didn’t, I mean, uh, uh, so I, it was very hard to venture capital, but like, yeah, let’s just, uh, grow the business and I have a very profitable business.

[00:13:20] Yeah. And, and that’s it. So that was basically the, the, the thing. And I, uh, and I, and this was fine as a business. Uh, it’s, it was, it is created a lot of other problems that I learn from, but it was fine as a business. So we really took, uh. Uh, countries, for instance, hung they really tried to grow as fast as possible.

[00:13:37] Uh, they came here two years after us. Yeah, yeah. Uh, with the same ideas. And, uh, again, this, uh, the same diagnosis that cloud will be big and all that. Um. But it’s, uh, but we took kind of, uh, we kind of carved out the profitable segment of the market. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Uh, that postmark has now, I guess, in that space.

[00:13:54] Oh yeah. Right. Uh, so we were just really doing, uh, transactional emails, that little bit of marketing, but not too much. And if you were doing, uh, we stuff, uh, with non optin stuff we’re not doing. So that’s, uh, so that is kind of a very, uh, easy to manage our workload because. But, but that’s, uh, that means that you want to be ahead and that’s really good to be ahead.

Uh, uh, and you need to have a c as to why it’ll be to coming. 

[00:14:21] Ken: Hmm. 

[00:14:21] Nicolas: But those small companies that you mentioned, um, yeah, I knew they were going to be small. I mean, sorry, I knew they were small and they were going to be big. I dunno which ones. Uh, I, but it was kind of obvious that they were, which kind of, uh, lead me to the other thing that I should have invested in them.

[00:14:36] But, uh, yeah, right. I have the money, but some, it was obvious that they were going to become huge. It was kind of obvious. You could see it. And just with the email traffic, for instance, yeah, we could see who would going to be huge or not simply because we could see, because uh, each time you logged in they were sending emails and there were invitations and so, so you kind of had an idea about the traffic and uh, you could just, uh.

[00:14:57] At that time, it’s crazy ’cause you could see, uh, who we were growing by just looking at, uh, how big your invoice was, grew, and you could, uh, and if you had invested there, it would’ve made, uh, a lot of money. 

[00:15:06] Ken: Very interesting. I that would’ve been a very interesting strategy to just, you know, to tie a venture capital fund onto the side of an email delivery company.

[00:15:16] I, I’m gonna take that idea. I’m gonna take that idea. Um. I’m not sure it can work now, because 

[00:15:21] Nicolas: email 

[00:15:22] Ken: is not, 

[00:15:22] Nicolas: it’s more of a niche channel now. Yeah, yeah. Uh, it’s not, it’s still important, but it’s, uh, but you have notifications by mobile. You have, uh, a login that’s, uh, happens through Google and all that. So you don’t, it’s not as, it’s not, uh, it’s not the same.

[00:15:36] Ken: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, uh, you, uh, you transitioned somehow, uh, over to Silicon Valley, um, and ended up at Y Combinator. So how did you make the move from si from France to Silicon Valley? What prompted you to cross the ocean? 

[00:15:53] Nicolas: Uh, so, uh, so I sold a c and, uh, I was like, what am I, so I did a couple of other things, but in France, uh, there is, so I have a, so, so I have a problem with, uh, how French people work, not in I have bad work ethic or anything, uh, really because they, uh, they want to stay, they want to work with you long term.

[00:16:15] So it’s like, uh, I have this concept where it’s like lifetime. It’s not lifetime employment, but it’s all not that. So you have that plus the classist, uh, view, meaning, uh, people don’t really mix. Uh, they’ll like me for saying that, but they really don’t mix. Like, uh, I can add them and they’ll be like, uh, no, we don’t know those people.

[00:16:32] Uh, so, uh, it was hard to group past a certain stage because once you’re a startup, you really don’t know who you’re hiring because you don’t know what you’re doing. So you cannot hire the right person, which means that, uh, you have to let go A lot of people. And in France, it’s always dramatic when you do that because it’s really painful for everybody, like for the employee, which is normal because it’s not the system.

[00:16:54] If you let go at a company, uh, this is a big deal. It’s big deal everywhere, but it’s a huge deal here. Like you can really have, uh, trouble, uh, and it’s hard, it’s hard to find a job. So, uh. And if you’re let go, it’s highly suspect. It’s kind of like, I would say in, in the us uh, if you’re let go from five companies after saying two months or three companies in the row after saying two months, uh, one like that, or it’s kind of too much already in France.

[00:17:21] So, so it’s a huge deal. And the promise not their fault. In France, it’s literally ’cause you don’t know who you’re hiring because again, you don’t know who you need. And even if you have someone that’s good, it doesn’t matter, the customer is going to be good in a year because the company will have evolved.

[00:17:35] So, uh, uh, I really felt bad about that. Like literally I didn’t like to doing that ’cause I felt, uh. Disingenuous towards employed. ’cause you couldn’t really afford, because again, you were saying, yeah, you’ll have a job in five years. I literally have no clue. And that’s what they want. And because I felt this was dis ingen and that’s also what they need and that the system want, so I felt I was kind of going countercurrent because of that.

[00:17:58] And I felt, uh, bad about that literally because I was like, yeah, they want that. I’m not able to provide that. I’m don’t want to lie. So, uh, how do I reconcile that? Uh, moving to the US is basically, that’s basically answer because especially in Silicon Valley, uh, people understand that and they’re looking for it.

[00:18:19] There is an, and there is an upside that they didn’t have in France. Like, uh, if you are, uh. If you do something good, uh, even if the company fail, you’ll have a better job out of it. Provided that the companies that delivered some innovative thing that are interesting and all that in France, uh, I would have failed.

[00:18:38] I would’ve been all homeless. Right? ’cause I, and, and that’s the other, that’s also the last point. I tried to find a job in France, uh, and I couldn’t, uh, right. I don’t have a profile that people didn’t want to hire me as a full-time employee or, uh, at, uh, a little bit more than minimum wage. So, uh. So, and I didn’t know if I wanted to create another business.

[00:18:57] Uh, so there was two reasons mostly. Wow. Okay. So you moved to, you 

[00:19:01] Ken: moved to Silicon Valley and, and, uh, and you signed up for Y Combinator. Um, now Y Combinator requires you to have a really good idea, like you have to pitch them, you have to actually get accepted. So is that the idea for Inbox booster that you pitched to Y Combinator?

[00:19:17] Uh, 

[00:19:18] Nicolas: no. I pitched them another idea to which we’re still working on, but, uh, it doesn’t require you to have a, a really good idea because they have no clue. What’s a really good idea is, uh, and, uh, they don’t care. Uh, what it requires you to is be good at pitching, which you mentioned. And, uh, and what it requires you is, uh, is this have, uh, an thesis.

[00:19:39] That you’re able to articulate in 10 seconds because they have short attention span because, uh, I don’t know why, but they have short, very short attention span. And, uh, so you need to explain them in 10 seconds and why this could be huge. So this is what you need. So for instance, uh, I cure HIV, this would be huge.

[00:19:58] The how do you do that? Then they might, oh, how do you do that? Yeah. And then if you have a thesis as to why you can do it. Right. That makes sense. Uh, but cancer will be making more money than HIV because, uh, right. People with cancer has more money than people with HIV. So this is literally how the thing Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:14] Got it. Uh, so you need to have, uh, that this is ready and, uh, and that works. Uh, and that’s really what they want. So, uh, and then they’re looking for a bit of a business per ac acumen. That’s how you say, I think like, uh, you know what you’re doing. You’ve done it a bit before. And that’s, uh, that’s kind of, uh, that’s kind of it, but.

[00:20:34] The, the reason here, and this is uh, uh, because I thought a lot about it, and the reason I think it’s working is because you being able to pitch them is a good correlation with you going be able to pitch vc, which means that you can raise funding, which mean you can deliver on your vision and if, and they’re aiming for one or two or three ride out of 400.

[00:20:56] So, uh, uh, so they don’t, I think they can almost be random at this point. Uh, and they just, uh, so they need to, they have a marketing arm that’s really good where they actually hire, they attract everybody, like all the best founders, right? And that’s kind of, I think, uh, where they want to be. And then I think, uh, there is a kind of a ritual about how they hire you and define you and so on.

[00:21:17] But, um, my guess is this for dys and they decide, I mean, I’m pretty sure they would have some results. I’m not, uh, once they interview, I’m pretty sure, uh, our, uh, they kind do a cutoff, uh, if they kind are able to talk, uh, good well enough, and then throw the eyes for yes or no. And that’s probably good enough.

[00:21:32] It’s a statistical model, so it’s, uh, so that’s, that’s why. And so, uh, getting in is, uh, in other words, it’s, uh, the way I would uh, describe it is, uh, pro like, 

[00:21:43] Ken: yeah. Right. Okay. Got it. And, and so, uh, you, um. Let, let’s move on to, to look at Inbox Booster. So Inbox booster, you’ve been building for a while now. Uh, and you talk about, uh, having some technology that was trained on a data set of a hundred million emails.

[00:22:02] Uh, but before, maybe before we talk about the tech, can you explain what the, what problem inbox booster solves for? So customers. 

[00:22:13] Nicolas: Uh, so I’ll, I’ll give you an example, uh, with, uh, Mel Charles Mm-Hmm. Uh, so say you have a WordPress account, you want send an email, uh, the, your, uh, the email is going to be called by, uh, uh, by your filter.

[00:22:25] Mm-Hmm. Uh, you’re a user. What do you do? That’s what we fix. I mean, yeah. 

[00:22:32] Ken: Like, I’m immediately thinking, uh, the average person has no idea what they’re supposed to do about that to file a support ticket, maybe. 

[00:22:41] Nicolas: Yeah, that’s what they would do. But that’s so, uh, but now if you are, so, now the problem with Google is you can file your ticket.

[00:22:46] They’re not gonna censor you. So that’s what we do. And the problem here is, uh, spam filters have false positive, uh, spam, and they also have real positive. So the problem here is the average person doesn’t know if it’s actually a problem on your side or on their side, right? So we’re telling you that for free.

[00:23:06] And that’s already a huge, and then if it’s on your side, uh, of you being the user, not being the spa filter, we’re telling you, uh, how to fix it and where it’s coming from and what you need to do, uh, which, which would be in, uh, the case of, uh, mail Channel, probably a secure WordPress Hook account. Yeah.

[00:23:27] WordPress installation. Uh, but in the case of, um. A lot of, uh, our customers are a little bit more, uh, skilled and it’s going to be more, oh, I’ve had an attack. How do I fix it? Or afterward, everything’s going to spa because my account was compromised. How do I fix it? This is this type of discussion or help that we’re going to do to have, and also we’re helping, uh, fix, uh, the false positive.

[00:23:53] Uh. On the span filter side, that happens also. Cool. Huh uh, and there is, it’s uh, uh, so spam filters are now, uh, one out of a thousand. So 1% of false positive. Our experience is more like 10%. Right. Uh, uh, which is, and the truth is probably in between because, uh, we obviously see the, we have a bias on more people like that.

[00:24:15] And you have a tendency to overcount it because, uh, if you were able to count it, then they wouldn’t be false positive. So, uh. 

[00:24:24] Ken: It’s always a, you know, it’s a false positive in the eye of the beholder, right? Yeah. And so depending on who you are, uh, 

[00:24:30] Nicolas: no, no, no. Here, uh, no, no here, it’s, uh, looks like I remember, um, we had, uh, a couple of weeks ago we had a customer, uh, from yc and they were sending, uh, one of the YC batch company, and they were sending a transactional email.

[00:24:41] I. And, uh, they send a, they had a sentence at the end of their, uh, sign up email that were sending them in spam. And literally, uh, this was like a, this email received in Europe, please ignore it. Or it was something around that. And this was putting them in spam huh? At Google. So, interesting. This, this is literally a false positive.

[00:24:59] Ken: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. So, so you basically just determine what it was that was causing him to go into the junk folder? Yes. 

[00:25:05] Nicolas: Automatically. And we’re telling them that sometimes remove it in inbox and. The, the problem here is because it’s, uh, and their, uh, statistical system and ML based system. Mm-Hmm. Uh, ev once we tell them, they’re like, yeah, then you need to keep paying us for a couple of weeks.

[00:25:21] So we’re sure that it’s not another problem because there could be another problem behind it. Right. So we need to, and then we’ll see if it’s a, if, if it’s a combination or not. And then your feedback behind. Right. But we’re really doing that work of explaining, but that’s on the one hand, so that’s typically a false positive.

[00:25:36] This happens. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s a sort of our business, so it’s actually a, a problem more so it happens a lot. And there is, uh, also, uh, people with repetition issue. 

[00:25:45] Ken: Hmm. 

[00:25:46] Nicolas: Uh, meaning that, uh, their past history has been bad, uh, has been bad, but because they have no tooling, they have no clue, uh, what release they’ve been doing wrong.

[00:25:57] So, so we explain them to them and they cannot fix it, and it’s good. And that works. Uh. And then we have a little bit of customers who are trying to kind of play at the limit of like what they were allowed to do. Uh, and that’s, uh, that, that, that’s probably like maybe 5% of the customer base. So they use us for monitoring, uh, and fixing when it happens.

[00:26:18] But it’s, uh, and, and, and there are a lot of other customers we don’t take, which are, uh, the one who are actively trying to deceive, uh, the spa filters. But that doesn’t work. ’cause we’re just really, uh, because, uh, I, we tried working with them and they’re like, oh yeah, I’m sending, uh, crap. And that’s why I says, Pam, can you do anything about it?

[00:26:34] And I’m like, yes. Stop sending 

[00:26:36] Ken: it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and like, uh, I, I think, uh. Certainly any, anytime you, you know, we, we get inquiries from all kinds of companies that wanna send email. They don’t like our, our, our product is, is designed for web hosting providers. And so if we get an inquiry from a web hosting provider, it’s great, no problem.

[00:26:55] But we also get inquiries from just anybody, like a, you know, a, a casino in Brazil that wants to send mail and, you know. We’ve tried taking those customers as an experiment, but it never goes well. Uh, you know, companies that just don’t get it aren and are just looking for a way to send out low quality email are going to have poor results, uh, everywhere they go.

[00:27:19] Uh, and at the end of the day, they’re really unreliable at paying you, um, even if they do stick around. So, uh, we’ve learned to be very selective about the customers that we add to the platform. Uh. Uh, I guess you could have a different kind of email sending service, uh, that has a different message where you’re, you’ll just take anybody and hope for the best, but that’s, that’s not the kind of service that we have.

[00:27:43] And it sounds like yours as well is, is not, uh, for that kind of customer I. So, 

[00:27:48] Nicolas: so it’s not working. It’s not even, uh, we, it’s just simply not working for them. So it’s really not useful, uh, because our customers is really, uh, uh, yeah. It’s like a startup. Founder don’t care about email. They want to sign up email.

[00:28:02] They want it to work. It’s not working what they do. Or it’s, uh, or it’s, uh, I’m a marketing, uh, person. I have a vp. I have no clue how email works. It’s in spam. What do I do? Uh, how do I fix it? And, uh, I don’t really care. I just want it to work. So, uh, but for, not like, uh. Competing with, uh, deliverability consultant and all that because, uh, sometimes customers go see us for that, but that’s not what we do because we’re not, uh, going to, it’s a tool.

[00:28:31] It’s not, uh, it’s a tool and it’s an instrument telling you why you’re in spam, but it’s not, uh, telling, it’s not telling you how to deceive the spam feature. Uh, or it’s not really going to kind of take your hand and say, this is how you should deal with lifecycle and all that. So we do plan, we do have guides and all that, but we’re not, uh, we’re not doing that.

[00:28:50] So it’s more, uh, it’s really, uh, the, the reasoning behind it is really like, uh, email is important. Uh, you think about it, email is, uh, there’s something, uh, beautiful about it that no other platform has replicated. Like communication platform has replicated so far. Everybody can open a network. I can open a server.

[00:29:10] Everybody can send email and everybody has an email account, at least in the accidental. So there is, uh, so, um. And even, and in China they don’t. But, uh, that’s kind of the only place where if they don’t, and they have reasons for that and it’s owned by no one. So that’s kind of, uh, so that’s kind of a collective common that needs to be maintained and needs to be, uh, uh, uh, yeah, recognized.

[00:29:33] So the second thing on that is, uh, it’s replaced. So that’s more, uh, like from a kind of technical point of view, from a non-technical point of view, it’s simply replacing your mailbox, like the physical mailbox. Mm-Hmm. Everything now is by mail. So you start to have really, and in your physical mailbox, you have junk email.

[00:29:49] You have, uh, sometimes postcards and you have, uh, really important things like uh, invoices stacks and stuff like that. And that’s roughly, or, uh, business proposals and stuff like that. So that’s really what you’re kind of having on your mailbox. So it’s not disappearing, but it’s changing, it’s evolving. I.

[00:30:06] And, um, and that means, and because right now everything is very heavily centralized around Google and Outlook, you have, uh, and they don’t care. So they care about Samsung. They care for, for instance, uh, we have, we had used to have as a customer match.com, uh, subsidiary in France, and they were, uh, in spam, I think on Google.

[00:30:26] And, uh, one day from my team at C worked at Google and was like, yeah, I asked them to call their, uh, Google ad representative. Uh, they’ll fix it. Which they did. Seriously. Yeah. The Edward Sky could fix an email problem. Uh, you have to the ticket. I don’t know what they did, but this fix a problem. That’s amazing.

[00:30:43] Oh my god. Samsung soon has the same type of agreement with Google, right? Uh, we on the last one customer for same type of reason. So basically this is fixed for. For, uh, this is roughly a fixed problem for big companies either through, uh, personal relationships. Yeah. Uh, by the way, they’re still going through promotion.

[00:31:02] They don’t, they just don’t hit the junk folder. Um. But this is fixed for, uh, as a type of companies or big companies, or they can hire consultant that will tell them what to do and all that. So, uh, so this is a problem that’s really fixed for large corporations. It’s, uh, kind of a cottage industry. Uh, and this, there is, they don’t have really problems.

[00:31:20] Now, if you’re a restaurant and you want to send a newsletter to your, uh, customers. This is, you don’t have no clue how to do it. And this is not fixed extent. This is, uh, very unfair because you could pay someone $24,000 per year who pick it, but if you’re a small business owner, you’re never going to do that.

[00:31:38] So this is really unfair. That’s what we’re trying to fix. But ’cause you’re in this kind of uneven system where, uh, uh, the big corporation, which are already big, which have already a lot of advantages, are not able to compete an email. And that’s kind of the, it’s the best, uh, thing you can do. It’s like free.

[00:31:55] You can do it without, uh, you don’t need to pay Google and to pay, uh, you don’t to pay any money. You can just, uh, uh, send an emails to your, to your customers or your users. And uh uh, and the fact that it’s not as easy as before, I understand the fact that those companies don’t want to invest in tools to make it easy for those people.

[00:32:14] I understand. Because they don’t care. Uh, but that’s our opportunity and that’s, uh, what we’re trying, that’s what we’re after. So we don’t, we’re not really after big large corporations or, uh, uh, or web plastic company. We’re really after, uh, restaurants, MEChA, uh, uh, car mechanics or zu are really, or, uh, small startup fund who are really, uh, our customers.

[00:32:34] Ken: I haven’t, I have an off the wall question, uh, that, that it wasn’t in the set of questions that I sent you before our interview. Uh, I’m really interested to hear what you think of the new Y Combinator startup called Resend. Yeah, this is a brand new transactional email service. Yeah. They’re our customers, so.

[00:32:52] Right. Okay. Interesting. Um, why, uh, you, you obviously know the transactional space. You ran one of the first transactional email sending services even before SendGrid. Uh, you’ve been in this space for a long time. What’s their pitch? Why did they start yet another transactional company, uh, that you’ll have to ask them.

[00:33:13] But, 

[00:33:14] Nicolas: uh, I’ll actually give you, uh, something that, uh, you remember je as a company. Absolutely. Je co told me. Uh, Robert, uh, so he’s French and, uh mm-Hmm. He told me something, uh, uh, which I can talk about. It’s been a long time. Uh, very insightful. He was like, yeah, we’ve built MG ml, which is like their tooling for building marketing email.

[00:33:34] Uh, and that’s how we got acquired. That’s why we got that part. So my point being that the front end, uh, so my point being that being able to code email is, uh, actually very valuable. Uh, it doesn’t mean you’re, you’re, you’re not going to monetize that directly, but if you have a framework that allows you to write, uh, good email.

[00:33:56] From for developers, for website developers, it’s valuable and they’re going to use your tooling. They’re going to use your email delivery system because of that ’cause, because it’s cannot good enough. And, uh, and it’s integrated and it’s easy and they want to help you because they want you to improve your framework.

[00:34:13] Ken: Huh. So really it’s an email authoring platform bolted onto a transactional service that just kind of, they had to have. 

[00:34:22] Nicolas: But it could understand that it’s a free module because it’s really, uh, it’s like a react module. So, uh Right, right, right. For developers, it’s, uh, kind of a no brainer to use and it’s make it really easy.

[00:34:32] And it’s the same thing as, same, uh, spiel as everybody, which is really, uh, you tried, uh, you wait those company for companies to grow and one of them will get big and. Because of that, you’ll make a lot of money. Yeah. And then you’ll lose them because they’ll put you, uh, in a, they’ll write an and they’ll have more complex needs and all that.

[00:34:47] Yeah. But you can grow with that. Now, the question you’re asking is, will they become huge? 

[00:34:52] Ken: Uh, that I don’t. Who knows? Yeah. I mean, uh, you mentioned earlier why Combinator, uh, you know, kind of rolls the dice 400 times per year. Uh, and they expect two or three to go big and the rest. Who knows, right? 

[00:35:04] Nicolas: Yeah.

[00:35:05] They’re not just, they don’t give me their numbers, but, uh, I don’t think they care. So the thing here in Silicon Valley is they give you a hundred K, but a hundred K is not for them. A lot of money. It’s like, uh, pocket money. Yeah. Literally. Uh, because those people are, uh, uber rich, like they’re, uh, they’re like private jet type of rich, so they don’t care.

[00:35:25] Uh, and uh, so for them it’s like, uh, a bet. And, uh, it’s like, uh, it doesn’t mean they didn’t think about it. It doesn’t mean, uh, it doesn’t mean they think. Uh, but, uh, but there is a, behind the super, there is a, there is humility. And this humility is, I have no clue. Uh, so they’re smart. These people who are dedicating to this life, to building this business, they pro they know more than me.

[00:35:52] And if they don’t, then I definitely should not invent there. Because they’re supposed to know more than me in their business than me. So I will have no way to tell if, uh, I don’t really have, uh, any good way to tell that if, uh, there is company is going to work out or not, simply because they know more than me.

[00:36:06] So if they think that, so either I spent two years getting the same knowledge, right. And that will not, or I just, uh, but, and that’s kind of where, uh, I Cooper with the VC French VC approach where, uh, the assumption is that the VC is smarter than the entrepreneur. And so they know better. So they’ll be able to tell if a business works or not.

[00:36:24] Uh, here there is a lot more humility as from what I’ve seen, and they’re, they understand. They don’t know. So that’s 

[00:36:32] Ken: so interesting that you say that, that investors in Silicon Valley are, are at least relatively speaking humble. Um, because I mean, not when you talk to 

[00:36:40] Nicolas: them, when you kind of peel behind what they’re saying.

[00:36:44] Ken: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s really interesting. That’s really interesting. But you know, actually come to think of it, interactions that I’ve had with Silicon Valley investors versus investors from other places that, that would be reflected in those conversations. They just kind of assume, well, you probably know what you’re doing.

[00:36:59] Uh, you know, you’re the entrepreneur. I’m just the money guy. Uh, and uh, and yet, yeah, it’s not like they’re stupid. They’re not just like burning money for nothing. There’s always a concept there. I think about Andreesen Horowitz, right? Like legendary investors. Obviously they’ve had, they’ve had a few really big hits.

[00:37:18] Um, but their fund, you know, it burned a ton of money on cryptocurrency, startups, many of which completely vaporized. They had this thesis, they were really solidly behind about crypto, and a bunch of it came was totally. False. You know, a bunch of it did not work out because, uh, the, uh, the regulatory side, uh, did not go their their way.

[00:37:41] Maybe it will eventually. I mean, never say never, but I, you know, when AI came along, when Gen AI came along, they pivoted pretty hard into that space. I. Once again, kind of being humble and assuming that the people who are the PhDs in that area know what they’re doing. Uh, you know, they just put 31 million into a German company, uh, that was founded by a few of the PhDs who worked at stability AI on stable diffusion.

[00:38:06] Uh, and now it’s the best AI model and. You know, uh, Elon Musk is using that model inside of X and there’s some really interesting stuff happening, uh, because of that. But, you know, all, all, all all being driven essentially by, by Silicon Valley money, uh, taking bets. And that’s, 

[00:38:24] Nicolas: uh, but that’s what actually, like there are, uh, so they understand that they don’t know basically.

[00:38:28] And the other thing is if you’re an investor, you can, uh, ’cause you’re looking for huge success there. It’s by definition outlier. So if you’re able to right, uh, to capture that in statistics, then this will not work by definition. Uh, so, but if you instance, look at. The sound grid in our space. Uh, it was clear that we’d become a big company, uh, but it was not clear that, uh, I mean, that we’re doing the same.

[00:38:59] So it was clear for, for instance, in my case, we knew that we could become a huge com, uh, problem. Maybe not as big as I don’t, but we could become bigger. But instead I choose to optimize for our profitability. But I. Didn’t understand that it would be that big. And that’s kind of the thing they do understand is, uh, things could be that big there.

[00:39:18] For instance, Google people understood, would be a big company. Right. They didn’t understand it would be that big of the company. Yes. And we’re talking about, uh, a difference between, uh, let’s say, uh, a hundred million to a hundred billion. So you’re, this is the kind of, uh, and, and they’re really good at understanding that here.

[00:39:36] They’re really, and that’s what it’s, and that’s really what they’re after. They are, uh, and they understand that, uh, and a lot of things, uh, doesn’t make sense. A lot of things don’t make sense until you’re understand, until you think about they’re looking for something that will be worth a hundred billion.

[00:39:51] Right? And if you’re looking after something that, of course, a hundred billion, losing a billion, doesn’t matter. Yeah, that’s kind of the reasoning. 

[00:39:59] Ken: Yeah. 

[00:40:00] Nicolas: Uh, now losing a billion for me doesn’t matter because I don’t have them. Uh, and uh, so I’m not able to make a, so, so that’s kind of the, the, the reasoning.

[00:40:09] But for, uh, for them, uh, they put themselves as investors in this type of position. So there are obsession is to not miss a hundred billion company knowing that they have no clue where it’ll come from. Because if they knew then it’s probably not going come from, from that. Exactly. If, if that makes sense.

[00:40:27] It’s kind of like a, yeah. Uh, I want to write, uh, let’s say a movie script. Uh, and I made a chat gt, is they both to write it then? It’s probably not going to be a break, right? Because it has to be original, but not much. I mean, it’s, uh, it’s an outlier and they basically look at, uh, what’s chat. G GB is able to do things that are not 

[00:40:47] Ken: an outlier by design.

[00:40:49] Right, right, right, right. By design, it’s actually like trained to not do that. It, it probably could, but it’s trained to not do that. That’s called alignment, right? 

[00:40:57] Nicolas: Yeah. 

[00:40:57] Ken: But the reason it’s not possible is because, uh, a [00:41:00] lot of those outlier are generally bad. Totally. Like bad quality or literally dangerous and toxic.

[00:41:06] Nicolas: Yeah. Yeah. The, so, so that’s kind of, or it doesn’t make sense and all that. Yeah. So that’s kind of, uh, what you’re saying. So, so, so, so, so my point being that, uh, because we’re talking about people that the companies that don’t fit the curve, uh, then they’re coming from a, a known place and they were really, really hard to, to assess.

[00:41:28] And, uh, and even, uh, from, I mean of course if your company becomes huge, uh, it’s great. But for investors it’s not a great outcome. Like, uh, I mean huge, uh, meaning, uh, say that you make a hundred million sales, uh, it’s not a great out, depending on how much you raise, it’s not a great outcome. Uh, that’s kind of the, that, that’s kind of the thing.

[00:41:51] Um. It’s a, it’s a good outcome and of course it’s money and all that, but that’s, uh, the great outcome is really, uh, to Peter till, for instance, he put in a, I think he put in a hundred K at Facebook, right. Uh, and he made a couple of billions. That’s a great outcome. Yeah. That’s kind of what you’re after.

[00:42:10] That makes your entire 

[00:42:11] Ken: portfolio. I, I remember, uh, watching a presentation, uh, a decade ago, um, by. An angel investor organization that had done a bunch of research into angel investor portfolios, and what they found is that the entire return for an angel investor’s portfolio over 20 years will be generated by one to two companies that they invest in.

[00:42:33] Out of 50 and half of the companies, half of the companies completely a write off, they’ll never get anything back, and then the rest of them. There’s some return, but it’s very poor. It’s like less than the s and p 500, but you’re really counting on that random one or two out of the portfolio to deliver all of your returns.

[00:42:54] It’s just a really interesting, uh, an interesting way of making money. And the 

[00:42:59] Nicolas: thing is, uh, a lot of businesses are interested in that capital because it’s easier to get than bump. It’s more expensive actually. Uh, but the problem is if you want to have this model, you need to expose yourself to some risk.

[00:43:10] So say I invest in, uh, uh, 500 coffee shops, I will never get that type of return. I will have, most of them will not fail. I mean, I don’t know the numbers. Yeah. But I assume, uh, but there is, it’s very, very unlikely that, uh, one of them will get you. ’cause huge, I mean, one of them will get huge actually, but huge in that space doesn’t mean the same thing.

[00:43:31] Ken: Hmm. 

[00:43:31] Nicolas: So, uh, it means, uh, there is a line of my shop. It doesn’t mean, uh, I’m the new Starbucks. 

[00:43:37] Ken: So look in, in, in the world of email, uh, you mentioned earlier in our conversation that you, uh, just kind of look at what’s happening in the world and some things just seem obvious. Like it just seemed obvious in the early days of AWS that the hyperscalers were going to be very successful.

[00:43:56] Were going to be huge. Uh, and it, it seemed obvious that certain SaaS companies that were starting out in the early days, uh, that you knew about would be huge one day, uh, or at least that, that they had the potential to be huge. Yeah. So looking at the landscape right now, I. Uh, what has that potential to be?

[00:44:14] Huge? Uh, let’s say AI to email ai. Okay, sure, sure. But how does that, how does ai, like, is there a way that AI works into email in, in particular? Like what, what’s the future of email look like? Email gets criticized a lot, right? For, you know, being this antiquated protocol. And so in the US I think the governments have a 

[00:44:34] Nicolas: right to open your, uh, mail your mail.

[00:44:37] But they have the right to open your email. Uh, that I think is, so that kind of tells you, uh, kind of well on email, you’ll actually have really important and personal conversation that you will not have, uh, on signal, for instance, uh, because it’s, uh, you’re not going to have, uh, uh. This type of, uh, discussions or they might be important, but it’s kind of the overall thing.

[00:44:59] Like in email, you literally have your tax return or you have stuff. Mm. This type of important, very confidential data. And that’s one of the axis of, uh, improvement is we’re going there and we’re not there. Totally. And the second thing is, uh, with ai, uh, uh, email will not grow in the sense that you’re not sending more emails, but this pump problem has, uh, completely changed the dynamic of it.

[00:45:22] Ken: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:45:24] Nicolas: Uh, but I think it’s, I mean, you see it with crypto, lemme you see it with crypto? With crypto, uh, people. There is a thirst for, um. Um, common thing like a blockchain or, uh, like the Ethereum or whatever, or Bitcoin. There is a need and a desire for something that’s, um, not owned by companies email if they’re doing that already.

[00:45:44] So how can you repurpose it to being able to bring that layer because it’s already there. And, uh, how can you, uh, um, make it different in the sense that, uh, it’s mostly a work tool, but what you want out of it. And that’s more, uh, the thing. And, uh, until a company has addressed those questions, it’s not going to evolve very much.

[00:46:07] Uh, and, but this is kind of to me, uh, where the obvious, uh, is the AI layer of email. I actually don’t believe it’s that much of a big deal because. I mean for it is and it is not, but uh, on the UI side, it is on the actual spam filtering side. It. Actually already there. It’s already there. Uh, and it’s been there.

[00:46:29] Uh, so what’s, uh, uh, this is kind of incremental change because you’re looking at mid, it’s before you were looking at, uh, you’re kind of delegating the smartness to people like to actual, like who’s clicking on spa and, uh, trying to make sense of that signal, but in, and you’re building, uh, subgroups of people so you could map them and so on.

[00:46:47] Instead, you can ask, uh, your LLM for that. But you still need to fine tune it and you still need to feed it with signals. So, uh, uh, it’s not that big of a difference. Uh, and you could actually look inside the email and [00:47:00] understand it, but the problem is, is too costly, so you still have some problem. It takes too much processing power, which is exactly the problem of before, because it could still do that and you don’t cost rhythm.

[00:47:09] So it’s not changing significantly the, the deal. Um, now you can auto reply. Okay, but how is that different from not replying. Uh, so, uh, so it’s, uh, so I’m not sure it’s, uh, a huge, uh, differentiator as it’s announced as much, uh, because it’s actually a lot more, uh, in this sense this, this thing, this thing is ahead.

[00:47:33] Uh, and you can see it on our side because, uh, for instance, within box booster, what we’re uh, trying to do is, uh, what we’re doing is we’re understanding the pleasure. So it’s a new field in AI called AI Interpretability. 

[00:47:45] Ken: Right, right, right. 

[00:47:46] Nicolas: Uh. There has, and, but this is literally, uh, what we’re charging our customers for.

[00:47:51] Literally, this is, uh, we’re charging them to explain, uh, what an ai, what decision, an ai, what they, why they have an AI has taken this decision. It’s about them and turning that type of, uh, uh, role like, uh, weight with weight and biases, a decision into something they can understand. So this is literally what we’re charging our comp, our customers for.

[00:48:11] Yeah, because 

[00:48:12] Ken: at Google, I mean, Google’s been using, uh, a neural network model for about 10 years within Gmail, as far as I understand it. Uh, obviously the models they’re using now are probably pretty powerful. Uh, and, and yeah, they’re probably not LLMs, uh, because that would be too expensive. Uh, but they are really sophisticated, really well fine tuned, uh, models operating at tremendous scale.

[00:48:40] And so in order to beat the filter, uh, you kind of have to mount some kind of adversarial attack against it to see what gets through. I mean, is that kind of how inbox booster works? Do you, do you try different messages? 

[00:48:54] Nicolas: Yeah, yeah. Basically that’s how it’s working and that’s how it’s working. It’s in a pattern, so, uh, so you can read it up.

[00:49:00] Oh, cool. But that’s basically how we’ve explained, huh? But it’s for exactly that we’re mounting some, uh, automatically adversarial attack to figure out, uh, what’s working. But this is the need to go around. It’s not really the point pro the hardware is to figure out, uh, to make it actionable for human being.

[00:49:16] Which is what I, why I mentioned it because it’s the same thing as, uh, in the ai it’s easy to mark an adversarial attack. What’s hard is to get to interpret it for human being. Right. Right, right. And uh, and then there are a sequel concerts, which is exactly what we have, but, uh, but then, uh, we figure out that it’s not working for partners, so it’s not really helpful.

[00:49:34] Ken: Right. Uh 

[00:49:35] Nicolas: right. So, but that’s exactly, uh, what we’re doing. And so, but my point is this is, uh, an active research area. And we’re already making money from that thing that’s being researched. So you do that in email that tells that email is a more cutting edge and people, uh, believe. Yeah. 

[00:49:52] Ken: Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think also, I mean certainly from public announcements, it does sound like Resend as a startup, as a y Combinator startup is doing well.

[00:50:02] Like there are, they are, I think they, they wrote, uh, that they have something like a thousand or 2000 paying customers, um, after one year. Yeah. You’re talking about real 

[00:50:13] Nicolas: small customers. Sure. They could be 

[00:50:15] Ken: really small customers, but nonetheless, uh. Given the hypothesis that, uh, to make email really useful for developers, you have to make it easy for them to build the emails, uh, as a React template.

[00:50:27] Uh. Having, you know, that that tells me that there’s, there’s still a lot of interest, uh, in, in keeping email going. Uh, and a lot of value from working with email. You have to, I mean, it’s not, uh, 

[00:50:39] Nicolas: it’s kind of like, uh, right. It’s just that before it used to be, uh, if you ask like the future in general, like from a business point of view, no, it’s, is important.

[00:50:49] It’s not, uh, it’s just that, uh, it moved from, uh, the hot area at some point where like, cool and all that to, uh. Uh, it’s, uh, it’s important, but it’s, uh, it’s kind of handled. Yeah. So, uh, so there is space for incremental innovation. There might be space for radical reinvention. 

[00:51:06] Ken: Hmm. 

[00:51:07] Nicolas: Uh, but not at the standard side.

[00:51:09] More on the client side, I would say. And that you can see also with superhuman and people like that. And you can see also that, uh, so for instance, we are put first and Mt. Relay. Uh, that’s doing the same as, uh, resand and all that, and nobody’s using it. And one of the reasons they don’t choose it is because they’re afraid that, uh, uh, you need to do some very specific magical trick to make it work, like, uh, to make it work.

[00:51:32] And so Gmail received your email? Yeah. Uh, and uh, they ask us how did we, it’s uh, it’s in production with one customer sending a couple of million email per month, and they’re like, oh yeah, but what magical step? Did you follow it to? Plug it in? And they’re like, yeah, we just launched it. And then we send email.

[00:51:46] Oh, really? You need to do more? I’m like, no, just start. So 

[00:51:49] Ken: you open, you wrote an MTA and just opened my cofounder, wrote, sourced it, Michael. Interesting. I’ll have to take a look at that. 

[00:51:56] Nicolas: Yeah, it’s uh, it is, but it’s, it was related to Teddy, the ity that, uh, uh, so one of first thing, uh, we’re thinking a lot about is the email became, it was becoming very concentrated as a network.

[00:52:09] Yeah. And, uh, and it’s actually bad. And that’s one of the reason email is becoming, uh, not as good as it used to be. Uh, so you need to decentralize it and, uh, and there is literally no reason why it’s not, except, uh, like no technical reasons, because technically speaking be before the reason Christian existed and other companie like guess is because of the static IP thing.

[00:52:32] Again, as I mentioned earlier, uh, you needed a static IP to manage reputation. Now the reputation is tied to diamond. So it literally doesn’t matter which IP sending the email, uh, we’re still in between, but it’s not. Uh, but the point is you could, you could, uh, send your email from your, uh, anywhere and it’ll work.

[00:52:52] So that’s, uh, what we’re, uh, that’s, uh, so, so, so we’re trying to really decentralize, uh, uh, and we’re thinking of  how to do that so, uh, so we could have more. Uh, so you don’t need to centralize it again because there is, uh, no reason literally, like, uh, it’s just, uh, uh, I think it’s making the network, uh, the email network, uh, very, uh, vulnerable.

[00:53:16] Uh, it’s also bad because, uh, uh, you really don’t want one company to own, uh, this type of things, and it’s just, um. Uh, and uh, and also it’s kind of aing diversity because you could have, uh, uh, different, I mean, uh, for instance, if you want to send email to Google, uh, you have to do it for people doing cold email.

[00:53:37] Uh, they have, they’re using Google accounts for that. Yeah. So they can hide their thing, but uh, they should be able to do it themselves, uh, without travel. And I can see there is a company called Mail Ports are doing that now. Uh, they’re, uh, they’re just, uh, so they have their own smt, PA at spa, uh, sorry, cold email.

[00:53:54] Uh, but it’s, uh, but it’s, um, it’s kind of a good thing in a sense because now also because are really good and you know, that, so they’re able to catch, uh, all of that. So it’s not, uh, so, so there’s really no reason why it’s centralized and, uh, uh, ossified like that. 

[00:54:12] Ken: Yeah. Yeah. I, I have to say it’s one of the things that’s really kind of sad about the email space is, uh, is that concentration, uh, years ago.

[00:54:21] At the MOG conference, it was a lively place. There were so many different companies, uh, participating many different receivers. There were a lot of different spam filtering providers, but in the last few years, not to disparage the organization at all, it’s a great organization. Uh. The conference itself has become less lively because there’s really only two receivers that matter, uh, Google and Microsoft.

[00:54:46] And so at the conference, uh, a lot of attention is paid on them specifically. Like, here’s what you need to do to deal with Microsoft’s new requirements, or Google’s new requirements. And everybody’s very interested in that. Then the product manager at Google, you know, everybody wants to sit with that guy at lunchtime to, to pick their brains and try to figure out any kind of secret way that they might be able to get past the filters, obviously, uh, to which the answer is always, there’s nothing you can do.

[00:55:11] I don’t even know anything, please just go drink your folks somewhere else. Um, but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s sort of unfortunate to see that centralization of mailboxes and I don’t see any way that that’s really gonna turn around. I. Uh, but maybe, you know, maybe there’s some startup idea that could once again decentralize email.

[00:55:35] Uh, now that, uh, as you, as you mentioned now, that domain reputation is, is far more important than IP reputation. Maybe there’s a way I. I don’t know. So, 

[00:55:44] Nicolas: so that’s one thing we’re working on. Uh, yeah. It starts to have, uh, early stage prototypes. It’s a little bit too early, but we, we see solutions. We, we, we hope to find solutions to that.

[00:55:53] That’s one thing we think, uh, 

[00:55:54] Ken: yeah. 

[00:55:54] Nicolas: What’s important is with the crypto movement, you’ve seen that there is a good market demand for that. Also proton. Mm-Hmm. So there is a market demand for that. Yeah. So now it’s just about, uh, building, uh, the tech, the capacity. 

[00:56:05] Ken: Yeah. Right. I mean, yeah, it’s good to see, uh, it’s good to see Proton doing so well.

[00:56:10] Last time I looked, I, they had like 400 or 500 employees. They’re clearly making a lot of money. Uh, they, they send ever increasing amounts of email. I. Uh, I think that they have their own, uh, they have their own abuse problems because of the way they operate. Because they don’t retain records and everything is encrypted and, you know, they’re operating jurisdiction.

[00:56:30] Jurisdiction means they can’t really cooperate with law enforcement. There’s some definite problems. That’s not true. Uh, that’s not true. They 

[00:56:36] Nicolas: act No, no, that’s not true. They do cooperate. Uh, okay. The law enforcement. Uh, okay, there you go. I’ve seen that in France. Uh, so because, uh. In France, uh, they should, uh, they ask as a Swiss government to give them a record and proton give the record.

[00:56:49] Right. They have the right they It’s mandatory. 

[00:56:51] Ken: Yeah. I mean, maybe proton isn’t as, uh, safe as people think it is to operate a drug cartel from, or whatever. I. Uh, not sure what’s safe to be. [00:57:00] I, I would not tell that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. Well, look, uh, it’s, it’s been, uh, fabulous talking with you, uh, Nicola, but we’re out of time.

[00:57:11] Uh, thank you for your, uh, unique perspective on the dynamics that are shaping the world of email. Uh, and, uh, I look forward to seeing what comes out of Inbox Booster in, in the coming months and years. It certainly seems like you are, you have found a really, uh, a great niche. Uh, and a really key need that so many companies have, uh, you know, getting past that, uh, that mysterious AI spam filter.

[00:57:36] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.