Why Share Email?
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In a world where connection and authenticity are what matters, your blog is your most important asset.
At least that was the theory.
The reality is kind of a mess. We all feel like we should be blogging more. The problem is that the return on investment just isn't there.
Is spending ten or twelve hours just for a chance at a few thousand page views from some subreddit really the best use of your time? Especially since as often as not these posts don't even go anywhere, and the days of people subscribing to your RSS feed are long over.
And blogging is hard.
You're starting from a blank page, not just the first time but every time. And to have even a chance at going viral, you need to be intimately familiar with all the best practices and quirks unique to blogging. If your job is social media, how do you even begin to bring your coworkers up to speed? Is it even possible?
That's why I personally don't blog as much as I feel like I should, and why you probably don't either. It's not that we don't see the benefits, but rather that the costs are enormous.
Which is exactly why we decided to build...

FWD:Everyone is a platform for sharing great email conversations on the web.
Why?
If you weren't willing to do the work of blogging, then of course you wouldn't deserve the benefits. But even though you're probably not updating your blog every day, you may already be spending a lot of time doing email.
Many of these conversations are inherently private. But many others could not only be public, but would be super interesting and useful to others. In other words, for many folks:
You're already doing the work, you're just getting cheated out of the followers.
That's why we've created a tool to unlock the knowledge frozen in your inbox. Our platform makes it easy to take the conversations you're already having and repurpose them to mentor others, spread your ideas, and build a following.
At a technical level, FWD:Everyone makes it easy to upload conversations from any Gmail or Google Apps email account. We provide the tools to redact sensitive information, request permission from message contributors, and anonymize individuals.
Your followers can subscribe on our platform to read each new conversation you upload. You can also embed messages and conversations directly into Medium, Reddit, and your own website.
You can even embed an email within another email:
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From:
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To:
Alex Krupp
Date:
Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 4:08 PM

So what's this for?

Why would I want to do this??

Alex Krupp
alex3917
From:
Alex Krupp
To:
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Date:
Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 4:45 PM

Hmm so it's really meant to be like Facebook or Twitter, an abstract medium that can be used for anything.

But here are a couple examples of why this is cool:

Social Media Strategists

Think your coworkers or clients should blog more? Finding it difficult getting them to actually do so?

Try just sending your coworkers an email with a couple of questions and letting the respond.

You can publish that. Just get their permission, redact sensitive info, and make it live. Your company blog just got way more interesting, and no one hates you for 'making' them write something.

Customer Service

Answering a customer's question that maybe could be public? Add our button to your email:

"Should this conversation be added to our public knowledge base? Yes | No."

Make your users happy by letting them know that yeah, this should have been in the instructions.

With almost zero work, we can reduce your future customer support costs while also improving your SEO and driving customers to your website.

Startups

  • If you get hired at Google you're probably not spending much time hanging out with Larry and Sergey, so imagine how beneficial it would be for the company culture if you could actually see how they interact with each other, their leadership team, the general public, etc. Use your email to spread the company culture and set a good example for everyone else.
  • Slack, Stripe, Google, and Bridgewater have built billion-dollar businesses around internal transparency. Get the same benefits via FWD:Everyone Organizations.
  • Share great threads branded under your organization. Use great email conversations from within your company to build awareness of your business and drive traffic to your website.

Academics, Industry Leaders, and other Experts

Share your knowledge with the general public, without having to answer the same questions every week. Use your email to mentor folks in a more scaleable way.

E.g. folks often email me to ask questions about my training guide for lightweight rowing. The vast majority of the time those are questions that can be shared publicly, sometimes with a few light redactions.

Bloggers, YouTubers, Journalists, etc.

If you're a journalist then it takes a long time to produce well-researched investigative journalism. This is an easy way to keep your readers engaged in between your larger projects.

FWD:Everyone can be used to publish conversations with your sources, letters from your readers, conversations between subject experts, etc.

What's the benefit for readers?

In short, email as a medium is inherently more personal than blogging or Twitter. No one wants to read another boring life advice post from some industry leader. But conversations between that person and their employees, their investors, other industry leaders, etc? That's new and interesting!
Even in situations where you know that other folks will ultimately be reading, you still need to talk as if you're talking with just one other person, because you are. And because of this dynamic, there is a ton of tacit knowledge waiting to be unlocked.
For example, there are tons of venture capitalists who have written blog post about how VCs refer deals to each other. The world doesn't need any more of these! But actually getting a firsthand look at what this horse trading looks like is completely new and crazy interesting, conveys an entirely different set of knowledge.
We want to use this platform to showcase how people positively collaborate with one another. We're creating an entirely new way to provide insight into people and their relationships, and we'd like to get you involved.
Next week we'll send you a tutorial on how to publish your first email.
Until then, your homework is to find your oldest email conversation about Bitcoin, which you can do by pasting the following into the Gmail search box: bitcoin older_than:4y
Here is mine:
I didn't buy because I thought it was way overvalued at $5. Oops. Hopefully you've got some good stories as well.
Sincerely,
Alex Krupp
Alex Sheehan
P.S. Check out our new video tutorials for a quick guide on getting started!
Any questions?
Reply to this email, or check out our FAQ.
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