Page 46 - Forbes - USA (March 2020)

CONTRARIAN TECHNOLOGY

By Alex Konrad Photograph by Eric Millette

Long Live Email

44

N The inbox had been left for dead. Now it’s being resurrected by the two founders of Front,
O
I a startup with big-name backers and a mission to make old-fashioned email cutting-edge again.
V A T

O
N
N
I

M ing to a stream of price quotes for cargo ships’ Survivors

Cofounders Mathilde
availability around the world.
To her surprise, it was the broker, Simpson
Perrin faced personal
hardships even as
Spence Young, that promptly began pitching her.
they reinvented
The company had surveyed its employees and Collin (left) and Laurent
corporate inboxes. He
discovered their communications tools, more received, and beat, a
cancer diagnosis; she
suited to the telegraphs of an earlier century, suffered a breakdown
caused in part by the
Mathilde Collin fidgeted needed an overhaul. They wanted Front’s help. ensuing stress.
with her backpack as she walked into a build- Turns out a lot of older businesses that rely
ing overlooking the Tower of London, worried heavily on email are eager for Front’s help. “Hav-
that she’d seem “too San Francisco” to the ex- ing a new tool would change their life,” says Col-
ecutives running a shipping broker that had re- lin, 30. Better to fix what you have. Younger tech
cently celebrated its 134th birthday. Collin, the firms like Shopify and private payments lead-
CEO of startup Front, was there to pitch software er Stripe have also signed on, paying between
that turned a standard email inbox into a shared $9 and $79 per user each month (more money
workspace—perfect for a logistics team respond- gets you more shared inboxes and features). Al-

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