What happens when not only you want to solve a problem, but you want to solve it in the best possible way? 

What started as a brainstorming with my friend Abhishek on the simple question: “Why can’t I do this” turned into a small passion project of ours.

A hacky prototype quickly turned into a fully-working version. also joined in to make sure we get a great user experience going.

Today, we are happy to launch the full working version of our Chrome Extension for Gmail - Mailie: https://mailie.app/.

We had a simple ambition. Solve this small, annoying, not-even-monetizable problem as if it as 1 million dollar problem. The cleanest design, the most scalable backend, and a frontend to tie it all together. We are very proud with what we achieved.

What was the problem?

Have you ever felt the need to reference an email thread to summarize a long discussion or complex topic?

Let's be honest. Email is not dead. Most companies still rely on mail for one reason or another. Even when they have Slack or Basecamp implemented. Either companies are not fully on slack, or they need to communicate on complex topics that require the space email provides.

Gmail has worked hard on making it a superb productivity tool with features like snoozing, multiple inboxes or labels, people are increasingly moving back to email to handle business communication.

Why do it now?

There are, however, several features lacking that other products of Google's suite or similar products (such as Notion) offer and are no longer delight features, but actually performance features or must haves. These features are easy link-sharing, or the ability to reference other documents. It's only a matter of time until the big players build these features, so let's put it in the market first. Google has a history of acquiring well-used features and integrating them into their product.

Who is this for?

Employees or freelancers on Gmail that use Google Chrome in conjunction with other tools (Slack, Notion). Anyone who regularly collaborates with others and needs to share and reference back to emails.

What is the long-term vision?

A chrome extension that adds on top of Gmail. It allows the user to create a shareable link to any email thread. The user can share the thread to more people. People who are already on the thread can use the link to directly go into the thread. Users who open the link and are not shared can request to be shared on the thread. People who are shared on the thread can reference the email thread within the body of emails they are writing.

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