Special: Superhuman Part II - Designing Software to Feel like a Game (with Rahul Vohra)
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.7 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
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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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