Teresa Man and the journey of shaping Superhuman’s precision

Leading up to the debut of Superhuman eight years ago, the world of email was steeped in a duopoly. Tech giants like Microsoft (Outlook) and Google (Gmail) controlled over 80% of the market and subsidized its cost, rendering any innovation and competition moot. As consumers felt the inertia of stuck culture and the lack of options available, Superhuman launched and made its mark. In an industry where longevity is rarer than innovation, Superhuman has broken every rule in the startup playbook to maintain a lasting stranglehold over its audience.

The past eight years have brought Superhuman a wave of accolades and praise at Apple's WWDC and other platforms as VCs and CEOs brag about their achievement of "Inbox Zero." Others find it enough to include "sent via superhuman" in their email signature as a subtle nod to their willingness to pay $30 per month for software that, at its core, is free. Teresa Man, Superhuman's Head of Design, sits in the heart of this static evolution as the personification of the company's journey.

Teresa Man / Office in Flatiron

Superhuman Mobile / Email View on Mobile

Chilli, Teresa’s Beloved Pup

Teresa Man / Against the backdrop of Manhattan

Meet Superhuman’s Head of Design

We're in a sprawling office space in Flatiron, New York. The pulse and hum of the busy streets below give way to a serene space, and the city becomes an abstraction of the dreams it embodies. Teresa, who lives in Williamsburg, commutes here occasionally and uses it as a coworking space. "We have an ambitious year ahead," she says, accompanied by her dog Chili, who matches her radiant energy, childlike curiosity, and scrupulousness.

"My first purchase on the internet was a domain."

At 11 years old, Teresa discovered the internet. "My first purchase on the internet was a domain for my website," she reminisces. "I would play Yahoo Games and explore Yahoo GeoCities. That's how I got into web design and made websites." It quickly dawned on her that website creation was just the tip of the iceberg. The true challenge lay in driving traffic to monetize. "I started coding these Disney personality quizzes in Javascript, using the resultant images as lead gen to my site. The animated images were designed using JASC Paint Shop Pro, which was my foray into design," she explains.

After graduating from the now-closed York-Sheridan Design program (YSDN) in Toronto, Canada, she first channeled her creative energy into tangible print and editorial designs. She spent her time designing magazine spreads, working on photoshoots, and collaborating with copywriters. "Honestly, it was quite exhausting," she says. "The editorial world, to me, was too predetermined with its rigid framework. I was young and hungry, and I thought it offered limited opportunities for growth and creativity. We were constantly working on issues set to be released three months later, in a never-ending cycle."

Missing her early days of blending design and code - Teresa decided to return to the world of software. She joined a digital agency, Konrad, where she spent four years creating digital experiences for Spotify, McDonald's, PayPal, and other companies. "The early years were so fun." Teresa shares, "We had a bunch of people from YSDN so it never felt like work. You spend three extra hours working, but it feels like jamming with your friends, a vibe that's hard to resist for a fresh grad." The consultancy was positioned perfectly for large organizations investing in their desktop and mobile apps. Teresa's team grew rapidly, and she soon moved from Toronto to New York to build a new office and design team.

After a year and some, Teresa felt a pull similar to her early days of internet discovery when she was 11. She craved newness and learning, both in her work and where she called home. "I was contemplating a move out of New York and was introduced to someone who lived in SF, and I noticed 'sent via superhuman' in her email signature," she adds. Intrigued, she looked up "Superhuman". The earliest days of the company boasted a 250,000 person waitlist and a signature that signaled a velvet rope of exclusivity as if to say: 'I'm in the club'. The inability to try the product piqued Teresa's curiosity, pushing her to reach out to the team. Upon meeting the leadership team, Rahul (CEO) and Emuye (then Head of Mobile), she felt intrigued by the company's vision of product development and emphasis on craft.

"The emphasis Superhuman places on the emotional resonance of their product caught my eye. Many companies write about their passion for building quality of experiences on their Careers page but don’t follow through in practice. Seeing a founding team spotlight an often-overlooked trait was a standout moment for me and truly set them apart."

Superhuman Desktop / A high density look at your email, supported by relevant context in your sidebar.

Emails show up in a chat-like interface on mobile.

Superhuman Mobile / Sending an Email

Replying to an email within Superhuman Mobile is as simple as texting a message.

Introducing Superhuman

With "Inbox Zero" as its motto, Superhuman aims to clear every email from your feed. Superhuman is precisely designed to get you through your inbox as quickly as possible. Every decision emphasizes its core opinion: your email should never sit in your inbox. If it requires a response, do it now. If not, hit E to mark it done. If you're undecided, set a reminder and come back to it. It's blazingly fast; everything loads in less than 100ms. It enables a workflow that is hyper-responsive to shortcuts, letting you move at the speed of your thoughts.

Superhuman has structurally remained the same since its launch—and with good reason. It applies a philosophy that products rarely have: an expectation of its user to learn to use the product. Every pixel and function is honed to perfection, showcasing the opulence software can attain and a bar that is set to be respected by the industry.

"Superhuman isn't just an email tool but our testament to perfectionism crafted from the inside out. We are deeply focused on simplicity and have strong principles in what we think should go into the email experience."

Superhuman Desktop becomes a powerful tool when utilized by shortcuts and Superhuman Command (CMD+K)

Superhuman Mobile / Tapping on the sender’s avatar provides their background alongside previous email threads.

Superhuman Desktop / AI writing a response to an email with the relevant tone & voice.

Superhuman mobile / Pulling down reveals an elastic menu with Refresh, Search and Settings being accessible through horizontal movement.

Achieving Inbox Zero in Superhuman rewards you with a new screensaver everyday.

Remind Me outlines quick options for an email reminder.

The precision of Superhuman

Superhuman's success validates the "impeccable level of quality" that Teresa emphasizes. At launch, they set a new benchmark for startup quality, inspiring a generation of founders to aim higher. A movement to build software driven by craftsmanship.

Superhuman's desktop app is where it becomes obvious why it's users form a symbiotic relationship with the product. It doesn't flood users with excessive onboarding, verbose marketing messages, or pop-ups. Instead, it brings what the users care most about to the forefront: their emails. It intentionally breaks design conventions - smaller type in return for higher density, removal of buttons to push its shortcut-driven approach.

Superhuman commits to a learning curve and an expectation of mastery. Leverage its CMD+K feature, Superhuman Command, to access powerful features like snippets (templated responses), triage actions, and their recent Al features like summarization, auto-correction, and email generation.

Once the desktop app had validated Superhuman’s thesis, the team had to refocus their attention to a different realm. When she joined in 2019, Teresa first brought her design initiative and prowess to Superhuman's mobile experience. The app married form and function, minimalism and speed. It immediately makes you wonder: why don't more mobile products leverage shortcuts?

Beyond the usual swipes, it offers unique features like a downward swipe to search. Want CMD+K on mobile? A simple down pull gets you there. When you open an email, there's a reply bar similar to chat apps. You can type responses fast, swipe left to reply to a specific thread, and use handy shortcut buttons you can customize.

It's still rare to find a product this precise in the market. While new tools boast about decorative animations and new weekly features within their product, Superhuman has structurally remained the same since its launch - and with good reason. It respects the user. Like a Santoku knife, it requires practice to tame. Master it, and you'll cut through with veracity.

“We finesse the experience to an impeccable quality of visual detail and interaction. You leave our product feeling calm and productive, a feeling hardly associated with email, without knowing exactly how to articulate why. That is the magic of Superhuman.”

Superhuman Desktop / Viewing an email.

Superhuman Mobile / Viewing an Email

Scaling luxury to the masses

Despite its early days of focused product philosophy, Superhuman isn’t designed to stay small and meet the niche needs of a few. Its mission is to help all knowledge workers reach their full potential.

"We've been focused on growing our customers through a focus on teams and moving quickly as a company," Teresa says. When it comes to onboarding customers, there was a time when getting started on Superhuman consisted of booking a one-on-one call with a customer specialist who detailed the product's features and tailored the setup experience to your unique needs. “While that first interaction feels like a high-touch concierge experience, we’ve listened to our customers and learnt from them the time commitment it takes, and have since scaled our onboarding operation to now be self-serve and coupled with live training and 1:1 coaching. From a design perspective, we had to rethink a lot about what it means to learn about your product from customers who may be lower-intent or have less knowledge of Superhuman in general.”

Superhuman's journey toward the next milestone involves extending their precision from their exceptional product to both their marketing and enterprise strategies. Superhuman like Linear and Notion, is part of an elite class of productivity software that need to continuously pursue excellence. These brands got started with a niche audience but are now beloved by many. Linear for example stands out in their unwavering commitment to consistency, which permeates not only their product but also their marketing efforts. Their landing pages, in particular, have become a source of envy for competitors who can't resist borrowing ideas shamelessly. While Superhuman's past success was driven primarily by organic growth through their outstanding product, the time has come for them to elevate their excellence across multiple facets of their operation.

Teresa Man / Making her way through Manhattan

The Future

It’s a hazy, red summer day in New York. As we sit upon a rooftop facing the Empire State Building, the smoke of the Canadian wildfires places an obscuring blanket that fully envelopes the city, cloaking it in a surreal smog. The smoke lingers on the tongue, and the city blazes red. Every inhale brings the taste of distant forests, and the city feels as if it's caught in a suspended moment of twilight. In this quiet contemplation, Teresa's voice breaks the silence.

“For the past two years, for my birthday, I’ve ridden a century–a hundred-mile bike ride,” Teresa recalls, when asked of her summer plans, “I don’t know if I’m in that shape this year.” Her eyes bear the gravity of unspoken tales of trials and triumphs. As she peers at the city's flaming horizon, it clearly reflects the reignited energy within the company where she’s spent almost half a decade.

The work cut out for Superhuman isn't about new features. Teresa and others need to focus on company goals in addition to product ideas. It's about a set of initiatives that perhaps live orthogonal to their current ability: brand building, pricing and packaging, referral programs, and strengthening its community. At the end of the day, Superhuman builds for its customers. To Teresa, this can only be achieved by building and scaling a resilient team.

"I know what a thriving team looks like and it really makes a big difference – way more than the actual work you’re doing."

Teresa Man / Portrait

The success of any company lies in its leadership and team. The success of Superhuman has allowed Teresa to lean into her strengths of empathy and trust towards growing the product and design team, a small and mighty team of six.

Now, they charter onto their greatest challenge, a marketing voyage that stands in stark contrast to the intimate nature of their core identity. “We’re ambitious about our future,” Teresa says, “and when you work on it with people who deeply care about who we’re building it for and the craft behind it all, you make something really special.”

The next phase of Superhuman’s journey is about reaching the broader market. To achieve a level of influence beyond the startup founders and venture capitalists, it must make the exceptional accessible to everyone.