Cédric Waldburger started his first company when he was 14 and has been involved with startups ever since. He now invests in early-stage companies across Europe and the US through his venture capital fund, Tomahawk.VC.
He's previously co-founded dfinity.org, glimpsecorp.com and sendtask.io among other companies.
We spoke with Cédric about how using Missive helps him delegate email to find the best investment opportunities.
So Cédric, what challenges led you to look for a solution like Missive?
I started working with an assistant five years ago - primarily because handling my email became frustrating due to the large number of emails coming in every single day. We tried a lot of tools and processes, none of which were particularly elegant or efficient, before finally discovering Missive.
We either had to forward a lot of emails to one another, or a big portion of emails fell through the cracks because it wasn't clear who would take the next step.
One thing that Missive does much better than other solutions is providing a highly-customizable way to work collaboratively around emails.
We all have different workflows, but as a VC, it's vital to be able to look at a high number of deals within very little time, and Missive helps us with this.
…we were very positively surprised about how responsive the Missive team is and how helpful they were in getting us onboarded.
What was most important to you when evaluating your options?
The most important things for us were:
Is it a reliable solution, not just a hack? Can we use this day in, day out (we spend so much time in email) and fully trust this solution?
Missive has been around for over 5 years and we are proud to say that we have a very solid and long runway.
Does it offer a way to automate or support our processes?
Missive offers Rules. These provide a way to automate your workflows to save time on repetitive tasks.
Is it a solution that we can scale as our team grows?
Missive was designed with scalability in mind. It works great for small, medium and large teams.
How do you currently use Missive?
We have two distinct use cases.
The first is email delegation. I share both my personal and professional email with my executive assistant. He writes drafts, schedules meetings, and calls - so that I only have to double-check and press send.
This allows me to send 5x more emails than I would otherwise be able to.
The second is the flow of our deals. Here, Claude, my partner at Tomahawk.VC and I use Missive to discuss deals, map out the next steps, and keep each other updated on communication with founders and teams.
How is Missive helping find the best investment opportunities among thousands of emails?
It helps in 3 ways
- Through delegation and collaboration in emails. It also allows us to chat inside an email thread. We can finally discuss things right where we get information from: our inbox.
- Shared inboxes help us stay up-to-date on our deal flow and the most recent news with a team or startup.
- Live collaborative drafts are powerful because it allows us to fine-tune our messaging before sending an email.
We can finally discuss things right where we get information from: our inbox
A nice feeling you get with Missive is that you can really make it your own. Of course, you share some inboxes and rules. But so much config is left up to you as an individual user: theme, snooze, labels, send later, send and archive, swipe actions, shortcuts, etc.
What are the 3 key Missive features Cédric relies on the most?
Rules: They allow you to create highly customizable automated workflows to stop repetitive tasks.
Internal chat: @mention a coworker, and you’ll be able to communicate using the chat box at the bottom of the conversation area. These comments are internal to your Missive organization and will not be seen by any of the email recipients.
Labels: Unlike regular labels in normal email clients, you can set Missive shared labels on conversations with no email (internal chat-only conversations) and manage auto-access to conversations by applying organization labels.
