How We Built A 7-Figure Email Management App
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
My name is Michael Olsen and I’m a tech entrepreneur based in Denmark – I started Mailbird. I studied computer science and have been working as a software engineer since – even though today, my career has other facets as well.
Twelve years ago I started Mailbird with my Danish business partner, Michael Bodekaer (Yes, there are other Danish names…) Together we envisioned building an email client that closed the gap of modern Outlook alternatives for the Windows market.
Mac users had Sparrow, but there was no equal alternative for Windows. What we had in mind was a simple, clutter-free email hub, where people could manage all their inboxes and reduce some of that email anxiety we all experience.
In time, Mailbird has grown into a multi-million dollar business without any major investment. And it’s evolved to do even more than help people manage their email. Aside from unifying all your inboxes, you can also integrate your favorite apps into Mailbird – such as your social media channels, Google Calendar, Asana, Evernote, and countless others.
What’s different about our approach is that from day one, we became obsessed about our users and how we can make their email experience better. I’m a perfectionist and think about every detail – and as painful as that can be sometimes, prioritizing quality has made a difference. To this day, I believe it shows in the way Mailbird is built, its features, and the overall user experience.
Our customer base consists of two main groups:
- The heavy email users. These are people or teams that need to manage three or more email accounts and that want to be able to easily switch between them or have them all in one inbox. Our Unified Inbox comes in handy here.
- Non-tech savvy users. These people enjoy the simplicity of Mailbird and use it for their personal emails.
As you can see, each group has different needs, yet we manage to serve them both well.
It’s hard work, but it is also my passion, and it gives me great satisfaction to see Mailbird taking the next major steps.
One of them is the launch of Mailbird for Mac in October this year. We’re stoked that Mac users will soon be able to enjoy our product as well. And it looks like our customers are eager to try it, too – we have more than 10,000 people on our waitlist. It feels rewarding to see that level of interest.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
Before launching Mailbird, I’d been in the software industry for years, working at different companies. Despite them not selling an email-related product, I was able to learn so much from each experience. Eventually, that led me to build and later lead Mailbird.
My time at Smartlaunch, an international gaming center software provider, gave me experience as an app developer, and co-founding and being the sole engineer of Room Service, a food delivery company focused on higher-end restaurants, taught me about entrepreneurship and how to build something from nothing.
But the most valuable thing I learned was to just go for it if you believe in your idea. Plus, with Mailbird I was again able to build something from nothing – and I enjoy that.
I’d saved up money from working at RoomService and we were able to get a little seed investment of $150,000 upfront to get Mailbird going. We worked day and night to make it happen. We quickly hired our first two engineers to help us. Both of them, Dimas and Abraham, are still working with us today.
Despite our efforts, I wasn’t exactly sure we were going in the right direction until TechCrunch featured us. The article generated so much traffic that our website ended up crashing. That was the moment we knew we had to continue building our idea.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
We started Mailbird from the ground up. In the beginning, it was just myself and Michael. I worked primarily on all the core elements of the app – the back-end and all the nitty gritty stuff. Michael was focusing more on the design side of things and the front-end.
With Abraham and Dimas on the team, we were able to get a lot more done and improve the platform, the API, and the user experience.
That initial experience looked like this:
For the logo, we ran a design competition and picked the best from 20 submissions. That’s how our Mailbird bird logo was born.
We had to evaluate and make quick decisions about what features to start implementing right away and which ones to postpone. For example, we decided to start by supporting Gmail only because it’s such a huge market. We also focused on IMAP only and not POP3. We added support for that, Exchange, and other email providers later.
There were multiple issues when we worked on integrating the browser inside the Mailbird app. It kept breaking and it kept us busy for quite some time.
Mind you, we were working 100% remotely. That was not as “normal” as it is now and there weren’t as many tools to support this kind of setup then. Skype was our number one real-time communication tool. Abraham and Dimas are based in Indonesia, I’m in Copenhagen. This was a new challenge for me as well since I hadn’t worked remotely before.
Michael would fly back and forth between Bali and Copenhagen. This was important and impacted our team culture greatly. Bali has since become the center of our meetings. Most of the early team members were and are still based in Bali. Our Hacksthons were also always held in Bali. And now, when teams decide to meet, Bali is still their favorite location.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We launched Mailbird with minimal resources. For a long while I didn’t have a salary, and my partner, Michael Bodekaer, was working on another project at the same time. But we hired our now former CEO, Andrea Loubier, and she did a lot of marketing and PR for the launch. We relied a lot on media coverage in that early stage.
Things worked in our favor. Coincidentally, Google acquired Sparrow shortly before we launched Mailbird. Since Sparrow was a bit of an inspiration to us, big publications like PCWorld, TechCrunch, and Lifehacker were interested in writing about Mailbird. They branded us as “the Sparrow-like email client for Windows,” and that got people’s attention.
We started Mailbird using $150,000 as seed funding. About three years later, we raised another $150,000. But for the launch, we did everything on a very low to zero budget. Social media, interviews, PR, blog posts, our website – all of that was done in-house. It took a long time to gain traction, but we were proud of what we’d created.
Looking back, it’s all about building relationships. Relationships with the editor of a reputable publication or your followers on social media, or with your app partner.
Shortly after the launch, we welcomed our first free users. However, our first paying customer came about a month after the launch. We were thrilled! To this day I remember that customer’s name.
The first version of our website was actually a sign-up page. After the launch, we created the first version of our website – and that is when all the testing began.
We tested different approaches in our copy and various designs and user experiences to see what would convert best. Our growth hacker back then implemented a welcome banner. That immediately increased revenue by like 300%. Twelve years later, that welcome banner is still active on our site as it’s performing so well.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
To attract and retain customers, we knew it was critical to rank well in search engines and increase our traffic. Here are a few steps we took that impacted positively on our traffic:
Step 1: Getting the word out. When we launched, we made sure relevant media was aware of it and our story. PR was paramount.
Step 2: Finding high-intent keywords we could bet on. We did it with SEO to attract people who wanted an alternative to their email client. Also, we built comparison articles highlighting Mailbird’s benefits compared to other options they were running away from.
Step 3: Gathering genuine user reviews. Reviews were key to our success. So we always encourage user reviews. It helps us find out what people think about the Mailbird product – and that third-party validation is helping other prospects learn more about us.
Our current marketing breakdown looks something like this:
10% PR efforts. We hired a great PR specialist to help us with it.
30% Paid search. This is quite limited due to the nature of paid search. The CPC on each keyword and our unit economics define how much we can afford for each keyword, and in our marketing, the target CPC is quite small. Some of our bigger indirect competitors are driving the cost up, making it less attractive for us to invest in them.
60% SEO. SEO is the biggest one because it’s the one that best fits our unit economics. We are solid with all sorts of technical and programmatic SEO. This approach drives tens of thousands of people to our website every month.
What we’ve learned through the years is that most of what you try will fail. Don’t worry about failing; worry about not trying enough. Once you find something that works, double down on it. Try every variant possible. Try every angle to improve and duplicate. It’s hard enough to find something that works, so make sure you get the most out of it.
Set a goal for when you want to launch your business – and then just launch it. But make sure you collect feedback and data that will help you decide your next steps and validate that you’re going in the right direction.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
As a mostly self-funded company (besides the small seed investment), Mailbird had to become profitable quickly for us to keep the company running and growing. So we managed our cash effectively to maximize growth while not putting the entire organization at risk.
We’re holding on to that mindset. Our goal is to break even every year and to invest everything that goes above the breakeven point. Since 2015, revenue has increased 35x, and we’re seeing almost 50% Growth YoY.
The main challenge that we face is that our positioning is very B2C-oriented, with only a small B2B percentage. With our pricing model, the revenue per customer is limited. Our average customer lifetime value is about $120.
As a remote software company, we decided from the beginning to use only online distribution channels and are heavily relying on SEO, word of mouth, and some paid ads.
Through SEO we are driving more than 150,000 visitors a month to our website from Google alone. This is about 75% of our total traffic, and it’s driving over 20,000 installs per month.
Since the beginning, Mailbird has been available exclusively for Windows users. We wanted to make sure the app was close to perfect before moving to the next market. That time has come, so this October, Mailbird for Mac is launching.
With that, we’re going to explore and re-test acquisition channels. For example, we have higher goals for our social media performance and we’re excited to test new strategies once Mailbird for Mac is live.
We also have some new products in the pipes, so stay tuned!
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Some of the challenges we faced were definitely out of our control. And we are still facing them today. For example, Google’s core updates usually hit us in some way, especially because we rely on SEO. Similarly, if any of the tools or integrations get updated and they don’t match what we need to provide a good customer experience, we quickly need to find an alternative that our users will appreciate.
Then, there were decisions we made that in the long run, turned out better than we’d anticipated, like:
- Our N-dimensional SEO projects
- Bringing back the free version of Mailbird after we removed it for a while
- Implementing our welcome banner
- Launching Mailbird 3.0, our latest version
We also got hit by a strike of luck a few times. We did the right thing at the right time, and the external circumstances made it more impactful than we’d anticipated.
For example, when we launched Mailbird 1.0, Google had just acquired Sparrow, a modern email client for Mac OS. It was also the inspiration for Mailbrd. The headlines of Sparrow being acquired was what made the launch of Mailbird very interesting to big publications. We made it in the news on TechCrunch, Lifehacker, and PCWorld as the “Sparrow like-email client for Windows”.
Overall, we have had many moments that turned into great learnings. Looking back, I realize that the most important thing is to quickly pick yourself up again and continue.
Don’t try to jump on every opportunity. Sometimes a missed opportunity is a good thing. We need to evaluate what opportunities we need to skip so we can take the more impactful ones.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Since we are a remote-first company, we rely heavily on the tools we use to communicate, manage tasks, and store files.
Some of our favorite tools are:
- Slack - For communication, it’s the very best. Its search feature works so well and you quickly jump between conversations. Everyone on the team can customize their notifications and mute channels that would otherwise distract them.
- ClickUp - Our go-to tool for task management. It can be overwhelming in the beginning. Our Operations Manager prepared an onboarding guide for it, to ensure every new team member knows how to use it. The winning benefit of Clickup over the other task management tool we used in the past, is that every team member can use it the way they work most efficiently. For example, if you’re working on the same project, you’ll have people who work better with a list view of their tasks. Others need the Kanban board or a timeline. With Clickup, everyone can use it the way they want without having to change anything for the rest of the team.
- Google Workspace: We use Google for file storage as well as Google Meets for all of our team meetings. The meeting recordings are automatically attached to the Google calendar entry, so it is super easy to find in case you need to find the call.
- Figma- Our designers’ go-to tool. The design request comes in through Clickup and then the discussions and feedback about the designs are simply added to Figma.
- HiBob is our HR management tool. All performance reviews, time off requests, onboarding, and personal performance goals are handled there. It’s streamlined HR operations for us.
- Mailbird - Last but not least, of course, we use Mailbird for our email management needs.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I’m a YouTube fan and got there to learn about specific AI topics. If I’m interested in anything product-related, I read about it online, or, in most cases, I learn by doing – and so does the product development team. We test it out and iterate based on how it goes.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Don’t overthink it.
It’s one of the most valuable pieces of advice and it’s also the most difficult to implement. Set a goal for when you want to launch your business – and then just launch it. But make sure you collect feedback and data that will help you decide your next steps and validate that you’re going in the right direction.
Don’t get discouraged by competitors.
If there’s competition, that just means there’s a market for your product or service.
Try not to jump on every train.
It’s OK to miss some opportunities. Evaluate and select what makes sense for your business. For example, you don’t need to be on every social media channel. You also don’t need to have an email newsletter or run webinars right now. All these things help, but you can also do them later. For now, choose one or two things that make the most sense and that you can commit to. Then do those things well.
Grow at a healthy pace.
Ask yourself if your infrastructure is ready to support your business at the next level. A bigger business usually means more people, more processes, more responsibilities, more alignment. Pace yourself.
Align with your business partner on everything before you start. Ask and answer the big and difficult questions – including finances, business plans, and the idea of selling the business someday. It’s much easier to agree on these topics without (heated) emotions.
Don’t worry about making mistakes. Create a culture where it’s OK to make mistakes because they’ll help you grow. Be open to admitting your mistakes, identify the learning, and move on from there.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We will soon be opening the following vacancies:
- CPTO (Chief Product and Technology Officer): We’re looking for someone who can help us build more products moving forward and boost our conversion and retention metrics. Great design quality matters a lot to us. At the same time, we want to continue putting efforts into improving our existing products (Mailbird for Windows and the new Mailbird for Mac).
- C# Developers: We’re always on the hunt for great developers who can share our vision and support us in further improving our products and building new ones.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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