Tobias Knobl: Mailbutler Is Not Just Another Email Extension

Mailbutler is a German SaaS (software as a service) company founded in 2015.

It offers a robust suite of email productivity tools to Apple Mail, Gmail, and Microsoft Outlook users. Mailbutler is geared toward freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses – our main goal is to help them take control of their inboxes and focus on their growth.

We pride ourselves on being 100% transparent and giving our customers the chance to take part in Mailbutler’s development by sharing their unique insights. Seeing through the client’s eyes is one of our core values, after all.

Tell us about yourself?

This is a very interesting story. It all began in January 2015. At the time, I was the Head of the Innovation Entrepreneurship Center of the RWTH Aachen University.

One day, a remarkable young Ph.D. student visited the center to seek expert advice on a business idea of his.

He was contemplating turning his hobby of creating Apple Mail plugins into a full-time job. I immediately recognized his potential and offered him a partnership as I’d always believed that email is here to stay and people would need smarter inboxes than the ones popular email clients provide.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

That’s a great question! I would definitely tell myself to delegate more and trust the process.

All of Mailbutler’s biggest successes so far have resulted from exceptional teamwork and communication.

That’s why we encourage each and every one of our team members to think and act like an owner when doing their job. Plus, it makes my workdays so much easier.

What problem does your business solve?

Mailbutler is not just another email extension. At its core, Mailbutler is a digital email assistant that helps users manage their daily email communication better and, as a result, spend less time in their inboxes.

Some of our top inbox-enhancing and time-saving features include Email Tracking, Smart Send Later, Message Templates, Notes, Tasks, and Contacts. Essentially, Mailbutler eliminates the need to use multiple third-party apps to stay on top of your mailbox.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The growing need for smarter inboxes is the main inspiration behind Mailbutler. As I mentioned above, the primary idea was Fabian’s – during his studies, he was using Apple Mail for his day-to-day email communication needs.

After realizing that his email service provider was missing several extremely helpful features, he decided to take matters into his own hands and develop some himself in the form of plugins.

What started as a student’s hobby turned into a more ambitious undertaking. Today, Mailbutler powers the inboxes of over 100,000 professionals from all over the world.

What is your magic sauce?

Our magic sauce consists of three key ingredients:

1) Focused (team)work

2) Continuous improvement by challenging the status quo

3) Collaboration with our user base

We’re aware that our customers’ email needs are constantly changing, which is why we offer them the opportunity to request features and share their concerns. Very few of our competitors are open to collaboration with their users.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We’re constantly reviewing, testing, and improving our product. Our plan for the next 5 years is to bring our automation tools to a whole new level.

With these changes, we want to help our customers free up large chunks of their time, declutter their inboxes (and workdays), and get more done. Exciting times are ahead, so stay tuned!

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, we founded Mailbutler in 2015. Back then, we had trouble switching from one-time payments to renewable subscriptions as buying monthly/yearly software plans wasn’t common.

Luckily, we were able to overcome this challenge by providing our users with dedicated customer support.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

Improving our users’ experience with our product and their inboxes in general is our top priority.

That’s exactly why we’re open to the possibility to sync Mailbutler with reliable third-party productivity and project management tools as well as collaborate with reputable productivity and communication coaches.

We’ve done it many times before. If you’re interested in this kind of relationship with Mailbutler, please feel free to email us at [email protected].