JoelMarsh's comments

That's fair, and I am glad we're on the same page about privacy. It's important to us, but also hard as hell to communicate that we're not trying to steal or read your stuff. :)

As far as the product... the efficiency is due in part to the behavioral algorithm and in part to the information architecture of the app itself.

The archive and inbox are literally structured in a way that makes it easier and faster to get to everything, find old attachments, search for content, and so on. A deeper explanation of that part is gonna get long without some visuals, so if I may, let's leave it there and we'll post more info when we can (remember that we're only proving our concept with this site).

The behavioral algorithm basically treats everything you do in email as information about what and who is important, and we use that to make sure that important stuff rises to the top, conversations are threaded in a useful way, and so on. As far as I know, there isn't another app that does it like that.

For now (until we get a little further and create some more explanatory materials) hopefully that satisfies your question.

Thanks. :)

drunkenfly beat me to it. Thanks. :) As far as I know we revoke our own access when the test is complete (although that doesn't come with an automatic notification. When you get the email with your results, you're welcome to check, and if it isn't revoked, please let me know: foundersATgetremark.com.

The next sentence is: "...it will be a downloadable email app for desktop and mobile."

Well, we're not a Thunderbird plugin, but you're getting warm. :)

In the footer of the site (the FAQ type text) we explain a bit, but all we do is count things from your inbox. The actual content of messages or attachments is never downloaded (just the headers and such), and we only have read-only access for a short period of time.

Nothing is re-organized or moved or labeled or anything like that.

WOW, the response is huge right now! We appreciate your patience if the test takes a while (your results will be emailed to you, so you don't have to wait).

Thanks for doing the test! And for explaining a bit about how you use email, that's helpful.

We won't do any of those things, actually. Our inbox/app is structured much differently and your own natural behavior informs the algorithm (no manual teaching/rules required).

Everything is controllable if you want to control it, but it's the other side that's interesting: if you want to be lazy and let things pile up, Remark will do the housekeeping and make sure you don't miss anything.

Your labels will be safe, and we will never delete anything automatically.

I am one of the founders of Remark and would love your feedback! I would really love to hear your result and a description of how you handle email!

It is tempting, with articles about company models, to go away with a "this is how to be successful" mentality, but I think that is wrong.

The design of a company appeals to a certain kind of people, regardless of the model. Do you put a premium on autonomy? Work at Valve! Like structured environments? Try Microsoft. Prefer strong leadership? What about Apple?

Or whatever.

Success is not the take-away. Employee-model fit is.

From the article: "A few months ago we tested a new design for our map UI. The new UI converted a bit worse. But we preferred it, so we kept it anyway."

They A/B tested and then went with the LOSING version, because it felt better in their gut.

Go for something radically different if you want, no problems there, but don't test if you're going to choose your favorite even when it loses. That's just dumb.

A/B testing does not tell you what to do. It measures what you have done. HUGE difference, but a difference that very few people actually seem to understand.

The last paragraph of this article made me shake my head though. If you do A/B tests and then use the losing version anyway - because it feels better in your gut - you're an idiot.

Choose a different path if you want, but if done properly, your A/B results are fact (among the options you tested).

Typically - and I am purposely avoiding too fine a point on this - the copyright remains with the creator until payment occurs. Otherwise no transfer of rights has occurred.

This is great! Therefore, I have requests! :)

1) Sort the co-investor list by clicking the title of each column. Specifically, I would like to see the list in % order.

2) It would be fantastic to filter search results by location, or VCs that match certain criteria.

3) It would also be amazing to get the full list of VCs, ordered by the categories in the results. For example, show me the whole list, in order of who has done the most seed rounds.

4) And finally... a bigger request... if you could include exit deals, that would allow you to calculate their success rate and ROI, which would be REALLY interesting. But I realize that's harder than my other three thoughts. :)

Well done!

Hate being a buzzkill, but that is precisely what couchsurfers was before AirBnB.

I love that competition idea.

For non-drawing features I definitely agree. Linking would save lots of work.

As a 10-year UXer, I totally agree! I was nodding and saying "exactly" out loud throughout the whole article.

People that WANT shadows and details and pre-made stuff like that are the people who want to design the UI in stead of the functional specification. The more experienced you get, the less you want them.

Here is an exhaustive list of every feature I need to make wireframes that you would call beautiful:

- shapes: rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, triangle, line, arrow

- rectangle with an X in it, representing images

- text in a couple different sizes and two weights (bold & regular)

- a few colors (maybe 5). Shades of gray, red, green, & blue.

That's it. Anything else and you're slowing me down. Seriously.

"Mobile first" is a design strategy, which ensures that you identify the primary content/features when making responsive designs.

It has nothing to do with which device is more important or more common.

If an upvote is a save, that's a good idea (it's a good feedback loop) but that definitely should be communicated somewhere when you register. If nobody knows that it sort of kills the thought behind it.

What has the response been like over the past day or two in terms of downloads and traffic, etc.?