The previous founding father of a To Do lists app which bought for as a lot as $200 million, comes again, 9 years later, with yet one more app to do the identical factor. Actually? It’s a narrative that will be exhausting to make up, but it surely’s taking place.
I assume you’ll be able to’t maintain a great founder down. After promoting his first startup – ‘To Do’ lists app Wunderlist – to Microsoft in 2015, Christian Reber (pictured) might have kicked again along with his Angel investing (he’s an investor in Notion for example). As an alternative, he launched a brand new firm, Pitch, for which he’s now needed to discover a new CEO. However way back he additionally determined his ‘To Do App’ itch nonetheless wanted scratching.
This week he lastly introduced Superlist out of Beta. It’s a smartphone and desktop app that takes the slick interface method of the outdated Wunderlist and brings it into the twenty first century.
Now, earlier than we get into why the heck Reber determined to leap again right into a startup, let’s cover-off the fundamentals of the app.
Superlist is a well-rounded To Do checklist app (it ought to be, it spent an entire 12 months being beta examined) which, unusually, lets you break up off private to-do lists and share them with relations, mates, and even co-workers (that latter level is essential to what comes subsequent). These To-dos or duties may also be enhanced way more deeply than different apps of this kind: with lengthy notes, photos, you title it, giving it much more firepower than related platforms.
There may be additionally a reasonably fundamental “AI” operate that may flip unstructured emails or Slack messages into duties and their contents with different productiveness instruments like Gmail, Slack, Github, and Google Calendar. The minimalistic consumer interface is straightforward to make use of, however the primary level to recollect is that Superlist is designed for groups. You can also make an inventory for a undertaking, share it with a workforce, after which pack it stuffed with notes, recordsdata, duties, photos and so forth. The Professional account is $8 per thirty days per consumer, however a free account will truly be sufficient for most individuals.
So sure, it’s designed to be private, but it surely has an interface that makes it simple to modify between private and work areas. Reber says he discovered when surveying Beta customers, that almost all of them didn’t wish to use their firm instruments “as a consequence of privateness issues or usability points”. As an alternative, they’re extra probably, he says, to carry their private process checklist into the work setting, and begin utilizing it there. In different phrases, Superlist has a ‘malicious program’ technique the place it can use individuals’s private process lists — which additionally embody work lists — to reverse into the enterprise.
As for the corporate, it has a extremely skilled founding workforce in Reber and Niklas Jansen (founding father of Blinkist). Up to now, the corporate has raised €13.5m in funding from Cherry Ventures and EQT.
Superlist app
What is essential to all that is that Reber is satisfied there’s a house between planning apps and to-list apps that Superlist will fill. And you may guess he’s pissed-off that Microsoft turned his child right into a moderately boring model of his authentic imaginative and prescient, and then shut it down. Sarcastically, Superlist has no integration with Microsoft 365. Maybe they must purchase Superlist once more?
That is an edited dialog with Reber on what he plans to do:
Reber: “The complete story is that in 2015, we bought, and I personally as a founder and the pinnacle of product, I felt I hadn’t truly completed the job. What we needed to perform was a greater to-do app that works for particular person customers, and that scales into groups, mainly. We’d needed to construct a product for individuals to handle their private in addition to their skilled initiatives. As a result of on the market you’ve got instruments like Issues or Reminders . These are properly crafted instruments to organise your private life, however you’ll be able to by no means carry them into the enterprise world as a result of they’re not likely meant for sharing and collaboration.”
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: What about all of the planning instruments on the market?
Reber: “Within the enterprise world, you’ve got instruments like Asana, Monday.com, Basecamp, and different items of software program which can be optimized for undertaking managers. However we did a variety of analysis that confirmed us 75% of customers don’t use these instruments. They get purchased for the corporate however individuals don’t actually take pleasure in utilizing them. After we bought to Microsoft, Microsoft determined to remodel the product into the Microsoft stack, however actually, the product wasn’t for me. I used it. I respect the work, however I didn’t actually take pleasure in it.”
TechCrunch: There have been different observe and task-making instruments although. What did you see that was improper?
I actually consider it’s a multibillion-dollar enterprise alternative… Each individual on the earth is working with lists
Reber: “Evernote was this particular person first productiveness app to take notes and write down duties and put in enterprise playing cards. After which Notion (I used to be a seed investor) took this to a wholly new degree the place you’ve got workspaces. You’ll be able to add workforce members you’ll be able to collaborate on actually easy doc varieties. I completely love the corporate and it grew right into a $10 billion juggernaut within the productiveness house. And I’m an influence consumer of Notion. I exploit it in each single undertaking I’m in. However for me, it all the time felt like, if somebody constructed the successor of Evernote, why is nobody constructing the successor of Wunderlist, like a team-first app? A collaborative To-Do app that bridges this hole between private life and enterprise life?”
“And I actually actually consider it’s a multibillion-dollar enterprise alternative. I consider it’s a huge market. Each individual in on the earth is working with lists, organising their lives personally and professionally. I attempted as an angel investor to seek out the corporate that excited me however then COVID occurred.”
TechCrunch: Why did it take you three years to construct Superlist?
Reber: “There have been hassles like truly determining what the fuck is Superlist and the way can we clear up this downside? And the way can we make the product really feel good, distinctive and never identical to a like an affordable Wunderlist copy. So there was a variety of considering and a variety of iterations and somewhat little bit of founder conflict.”
TechCrunch: Did you see the chance in the truth that we’ve had an explosion of instruments for collaborative working, like Slack, Groups, Notion and so forth?
Reber: “Apple Reminders is a really private product. Asana is a really business-oriented product. I don’t personally know why each single firm on this house is both engaged on the buyer house or the enterprise house. However nobody is tackling the true downside. What we observed is that individuals need flexibility. In addition they wish to add lengthy paragraphs to a fast sidenote, or they wish to add extra headlines or add photos into the lists, attachments, PDFs, numbered lists, and so forth. What we did improper within the software program world was, for example, Evernote was all about notes. And that’s nonetheless the issue. Lists are a lot extra.”
TechCrunch: What will be the AI facet?
Reber: “We’re taking part in round with a variety of AI options in the intervening time, like ‘create me a due diligence checklist for a brand new firm.’ Possibly you would ask Superlist to create a brief abstract out of one thing.”
TechCrunch: How do you see this turning into greater than merely a shopper app and one thing that integrates with different enterprise platforms?
Reber: “You may be part of a number of groups. You truly begin utilizing this product by your self, after which afterward, you carry your personal software program right into a enterprise. And then you definately simply begin organizing your lists at work as properly. And then you definately invite your colleagues to develop the groups that you simply create. That’s the concept now we have right here and that’s, I feel, a pleasant a part of the entire expertise is which you can simply change off these groups after which your work lists disappear. And in the event you’re in your work, you’ll be able to disable your private checklist. You don’t have this ladder of switching between a tonne of various workspaces.”
TechCrunch: It jogs my memory a little bit of the Dropbox technique the place individuals would use it of their private lives, as a result of it was a lot simpler than attempting to make use of an inside intranet or one thing.
Reber: “Proper. That’s what we failed at with Wunderlist. We had 10s of tens of millions of customers. All we completed was constructing a pleasant interface to handle procuring lists. However we had a few customers utilizing it at Fortune 500 firms, and none of them paid. None of them actually invited their groups as a result of it was too messy. It simply didn’t work. And I feel that’s the problem that we’re attempting to attempt to give attention to. How will you bridge this. How will you manage your life and work, however not be distracted by both.”
TechCrunch: Do you see this being picked up on exit by Notion or Slack or Salesforce or any person else?
Reber: “Look it all the time sounds tacky, however I don’t wish to begin an organization to promote it. I didn’t need it with Wunderlist and I hope we will keep away from it with Superlist. I realized the exhausting approach that everytime you write a line of code, it may be overwritten the following day, the following month, or the following 12 months, so nothing lasts ceaselessly. I additionally need to take my co-founder’s vote into the equation, like in the event that they wish to have a chance the place they flip their shares into actual cash and so forth. There are all the time ways in which we will discover to unravel this. However I don’t wish to promote this. I actually consider that Superlist generally is a Decacorn, if we simply give attention to executing it very, very fastidiously, we don’t get right into a characteristic conflict with rivals, and simply actually give attention to our mission.”
