Superhuman proves high onboarding friction can still yield strong word-of-mouth
Anurag Goel · He quit Stripe and hit $10M ARR in 4 years—with $0 marketing spend. | Anurag Goel, Founder of Render · PMF Show · Jun 29, 2026 · at 12:21
Anurag Goel, founder of Render, discusses how Superhuman achieved strong word-of-mouth popularity despite requiring a 30-minute onboarding call before granting access.
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“Yeah, however, there are counterexamples where time to value was actually really high but word of mouth was awesome, and you know, the canonical example here is Superhuman, the mail app, where you actually had to go through an interview before you got access to it, and I don't think you have to do that anymore, and the app has been acquired or merged with Someone else. Anyway, but the point was everyone was raving about superhuman at one point, but then to get in, you had to get on a call with someone and spend 30 minutes to actually get access to superhumans.”
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