

Show HN: Your Email Assistant in the Cloud - waldr
http://tray.io

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waldr
Hey, I'd love to hear your feedback on our startup (launching outta LDN), Tray
is a cloud service focusing on email, it allows you to define rules on your
inbox and intelligently handle incoming messages (think an advanced iffft
specifically for email).

Please drop a comment below or email me: rich@tray.io, I'd love to hear of any
specific functionality you'd like to see in the product, or generally any
thoughts on our approach.

nb we are taking a lean approach to help validate the idea so your feedback is
crucial!

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ZanderEarth32
Nice idea, but the first thing that comes to my mind is there is nothing on
the landing page that puts my privacy concerns to rest. I see that you mention
you won't do anything shady with my data, but that is only mentioned once I
click through a few pages. Maybe a small link on the homepage detailing your
privacy terms and use of my data. Remember, email is one of the most privately
guarded possessions one can have on the internet. It isn't something I will
give random services access to without some serious vetting prior.

~~~
waldr
This is very true, thanks for reminding us... Privacy is obviously a huge
issue, if we are going to be accessing your emails, so you're right we do need
to make it a bit more obvious that the service is completely secure.

We would never store any of your emails on our servers, we would only store
your oauth token/secret (with Gmail) or your login details (if using another
provider).. The rules engine would be a black box where the email simply goes
in one side and actions are triggered out the other side so to speak...

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sjs382
I think it's pretty cool, but this is less of a product than a feature, and
it's not something I'd be willing to spend money for.

Based on the three use cases you describe on the website (I dont know... there
may be more?), if this product took off, Google could kill it by adding time-
based filters and availability-based filters (which could possibly tie in with
a user's GTalk's status).

~~~
waldr
thanks for the feedback! we won't be just limited to gmail (but yes google
could roll out these specific features). The idea is that it works as a
platform for you to setup your own channels based on your email habits, you
can use the web hooks to tie into services you already use and help automate
your existing processes.

The features we've adding on the landing page are examples of how it can be
used, rather than specifics.

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brackin
I love the idea but I think it could go even further in terms of rules. If it
could do a bit more I'd pay.

I'd love for it to put attachments into Dropbox (maybe sort by sender or file
type).

If the message is under a certain amount of characters then text it to me by
Twilio and I'll reply.

If I don't read a message from my boss after a certain amount of time call me.

~~~
waldr
Bingo! You've made my day.. this is exactly as the service is intended. In
fact our first ever rule was the exact text message scenario you've described.

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seriouslyrad
I think this looks great, especially if you build the product as more of a
platform rather than simple rules/filtering.

Such as deep integration with other services, which you hint at with the use
of 'pocket'.

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g-garron
Hi, looks nice, I do not know if I would use it. But I'm sure someone would. I
would like to know more about password protection. I mean how do you secure my
password?

~~~
waldr
Password protection is a good issue. Obviously its not as simple as a native
web application where we can just hash the users password so never actually
store it in plain text.

For Gmail users we can use XOauth, which helps, but for other services we will
have to store login details somewhere. We are currently working on a way of
encrypting the passwords that are stored in case of security breaches, but its
definitely not an easy task at the moment (our private alpha is just using
Gmail users).

Edited: wrong response :)

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citricsquid
I love the idea but why have you posted here? There's nothing _to_ show
besides a (very pretty) landing page... :(

~~~
waldr
Fantastic! We are following some of the lean principles in order to help
validate our idea before we head too far down the development path (great post
here - [http://theagileplanner.com/blog/building-agile-
planner/buffe...](http://theagileplanner.com/blog/building-agile-
planner/buffer-lessons-learned)). The feedback we've had has been great so
far, but we really want to find out if there is any specific functionality
that is best focused on.

Getting feedback from HN is vital in helping us shape the beta.

~~~
1123581321
"Lean" is being used to justify increasing amounts of inanity. Please consider
how you might be using up public goodwill to look at new startups by wasting
people's time with nothing.

~~~
adotify
"The internet" is being used to justify everyone getting everything they want
for free.. Please consider how you might be using up entrepreneurial goodwill
to make your life easier in many different ways without ever giving back and
wasting the entrepreneurs time for no return.

Lean principles are there to make sense of an idea before too much time is
actually wasted developing it. I would say that getting a hundred people to
spend 60 seconds reading a landing page and then signaling their intent with a
quick click is much less wasteful than months of development on an idea that
may not have any real market. Going onto the street with a clipboard and
survey doesn't really cut it todays world...

I was quite happy to help, as i was with the buffer lean landing page before..
i would hope that if i wanted to do the same type of thing to validate an
idea, that i could count on the tech community to help...

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verganileonardo
Can I use tray.io to send email messages into a CRM? :O

~~~
citricsquid
You'd probably want to use a service like Postmark[1] or Mailgun[2] or
Mailnuggets[3] for that as they already exist and are built for that sort of
thing. They can handle attachments and the like too. They're simple enough to
use depending on what you want to do, although if you just want to use "if
email is to support@domain.com forward to crm@otherdomain.com" you could use
gmail filters on their own.

[1] <http://postmarkapp.com/inbound> [2] <http://mailgun.com> [3]
<http://mailnuggets.com>

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singer
Your website does not display properly in IE 9.

~~~
waldr
thanks for the heads up!

