We think you’ll really, really like Shift.
But, that’s kind of like your mom telling you that you’re special. You are, but it doesn’t have quite the same je-ne-sais-quoi coming from us.
So, let’s talk about how Shift came to be, and then maybe you’ll get on board.
We are a product company, which means we build a lot of things, and market a lot of things. Between all of our products, and Redbrick, I for one have six different Gmail addresses across work and personal accounts. That’s six different Mail, Calendar & Drive accounts to keep track of! Yowza.
I’ll be completely honest with you; I was one of those crazy tab ladies. I had about a zillion open at any given time, just to keep track of my inboxes.
When we started building Shift, I got really excited. Our Director of Product was even more excited (cc Michael). He’s like a Doctor for software pain points; he just wants to find the cure.
With only a small sample population of our friends and family, I knew Shift would fill a serious void, but we also knew it would be shrewd to launch Shift Preview to test our theory.
Back in September, we did just that. We gave Shift Preview to a small group of early adopters (fondly referred to as our Founding Members). These were mainly designers, developers and productivity fanatics.
They helped us immensely. They told us all the things they liked, but most importantly, what they didn’t. They pointed out bugs, things that looked ugly, and things that just plain old didn’t make sense.
Here’s some nice stuff they said about us:
“Adopting Shift has been really easy for me because it feels very similar to the way I use Slack; I can belong to multiple teams in Slack and seamlessly dip in and out of those teams as I need to throughout my day.” – Sarah Doody, User Experience Design & Product Strategy
“Shift has made my entire company function more smoothly. We use G-Suite for email, cloud storage, calendars and document creation. Switching between our accounts used to be a huge pain. Now it’s a breeze, and we are saving loads of time!” – Dave Boni, BOLDmeta Media
“I love the clean experience that Shift offers – and how it leverages Gmail. I much prefer this experience to many of the dedicated desktop clients.” – Tobiasz Dankiewicz, reebee Inc.
We were blushing for a week straight. Then, we realized there was also a lot of constructive criticism that we could put to work.
The beauty of Shift Preview is that it allowed us to take that feedback, and build on it.
Today, we are offering a Shift we are very proud of. It’s not perfect, and there is much more to come – very soon – but, we’re pretty darn proud of how far it has come, and we hope you like it too!
Alright – skedaddle – we’ve all got Shift to do!
PS: special recognition goes out to all the crazy tab men, women and children out there. There is no need to be ashamed, and above all, there is hope.
Ten articles before and after
Why I Switched to Shift (after 6 years of Apple Mail)
Share Shift with Friends, and Get Rewarded!
Shift Privacy: How Does OAuth Work?
How (Not) To Write An Email Greeting
The Latest and Greatest Shift: V1.1 Is Here!
Got Squad Goals? Try Shift for Teams!