Special: Superhuman Part II - Designing Software to Feel like a Game (with Rahul Vohra)

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2020

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Superstar past guest and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vorha joins us for a deep dive on how Superhuman applies concepts from game design to building productivity software. We're not talking points and badges — we mean hardcore, Unreal Engine-style technical innovations and Fortnite-level understanding of fun and mastery. It's a topic where Rahul has serious cred: before Superhuman and Rapportive, he worked as a game designer on RuneScape, the pioneering browser-based MMORPG. This is a topic every founder, engineer, product and even sales person should listen to. Tune in!

You can listen to Part I of our Superhuman story with Rahul here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/superhuman

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Playbook Themes from this Episode available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-superhuman-part-ii-designing-software-to-feel-like-a-game-with-rahul-vohra )

Transcript

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0:00.0	That gives you a lot of cred when you like building software like games. It's like yeah yeah okay
0:05.3	sure everyone thinks they know about games technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.
0:26.0	I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle.
0:33.0	And I'm David Rosenthal and I am an angel investor and independent advisor to startups based in San Francisco.
0:39.0	And we are your hosts.
0:41.0	Today we have Superstar Repeat Guest,
0:44.8	Raul Vora.
0:46.4	Welcome, Raul.
0:47.6	Awesome.
0:48.6	Thank you for having me back.
0:49.5	Raul had probably, I don't know if it's exactly the most listened to episode of all time but it was a certainly a standout
0:56.9	episode when we released it David when was that last
1:00.4	There was a June last June yeah 20 June, yeah.
1:03.8	2019.
1:04.8	I think it was the finale of season five.
1:07.4	Wow, another lifetime ago.
1:10.1	Truly.
1:11.1	Well, the last time Rahul was on our show, many of you knew him for being the founder of the innovative fast email client, Superhuman.
1:18.0	His frameworks for finding product market fit and how they did it at Superhuman have since become quite famous.
1:25.5	This year many of you may have heard Rahul speaking on Patrick's show or the A16Z summit
1:31.2	and elsewhere about a new concept how they think at
1:34.7	superhuman about designing software like it is a game. Today in true acquired fashion
	...

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