I'm a former 57-year-old construction site manager. I built an Email Decision OS because I couldn't afford to miss another deal.
Hey IH,
I'm not a developer. I'm not a founder with a CS degree or a YC background.
I manage construction sites in Korea. Tile floors, concrete, scaffolding. That's my day job.
But before this — I spent 8 years in IT sales. Software distribution. Technical sales. 30 emails a day, back when email was how deals got done.
Miss 3 days? Buried under 100. Important ones gone. Price sheets changed. Deals missed.
That pain never left me.
The long way around
After IT, I drifted for 10 years. Construction work found me in 2012 — started as a day laborer in Jeonju. Learned tile. Moved up. Became a site manager.
No savings. Retirement age creeping up. I needed a side income that didn't require me to be 30.
In 2025, I met AI. Not in a conference room. On a construction site in Yeosu, on my phone, between shifts.
I started learning. Slowly. Then faster.
And I kept coming back to the same problem: email is still broken for busy people.
What I built
Slash it is an Email Decision OS — delivered via Telegram bot.
Every morning, you type /start. The AI pre-reads your Gmail and classifies every email into:
🔴 Handle Now
🟡 Check Today
⚪ FYI
For the urgent ones, it drafts a reply. You tap Approve. Done.
No inbox. No reading. Just judgment.
Where I am now
- ✅ Product live and working
- ✅ Founder 100 spots open ($39/mo locked forever)
- ⏳ Payment processing in review (Paddle)
- ⏳ Looking for 100 genuine founding users
I'm not looking for hype. I'm looking for people who actually drown in email and want out.
If that's you — or if you know someone like that — I'd love your feedback.
🔗 https://ai-basket.vercel.app/slash-en
One last thing
I'm 57. Most people my age are winding down.
I'm just getting started.
One problem I understand deeply. One product that solves it. Built between construction sites and late nights.
If that resonates — come find me.
This story is strong because the product is not coming from theory. It comes from a real missed-deal pain.
The part I’d be careful with is the category wording.
“Email Decision OS” sounds smart, but the buyer may not wake up wanting an OS. They wake up afraid of missing the one email that costs them money, a client, or a deadline.
That is probably the sharper founding-user angle: not inbox productivity, but deal-protection for busy people who cannot afford to read everything.
Happy to put the tighter first-100-user angle in writing if useful. I think Slash it needs a very specific buyer frame before you push too hard for founding users.
This reframe hit hard.
"Deal protection" is exactly what Slash it does —
but I've been calling it wrong.
The person who needs this isn't looking for
an OS or productivity tool.
They're the one who missed a client email
buried under 100 others and lost the deal.
That's the exact pain I built this from.
Would love to hear your tighter first-100-user angle.
What buyer frame would you put around this?
That buyer-frame question is exactly the part I would not answer casually in a comment.
If Slash it gets framed as inbox productivity, you’ll attract people who like cleaner email. If it gets framed around deal protection, the first 100 users should come from a much narrower pain.
Send me your email and I’ll write the tighter first-100-user angle properly instead of crowding the thread.
Appreciate the offer.
I'd rather keep the conversation here in the open —
others on IH might benefit from it too.
What's the tighter frame in your view?
Fair.
The short public answer is: I would not chase “people who want better email.”
That market is too broad.
The real decision is which missed-email pain is expensive enough that someone changes behavior now, not later.
That is the part I’d be careful with before pushing for the first 100 users, because the wrong buyer frame can make Slash it look useful but not urgent.
I can write the proper first-100-user angle if you want it. Publicly, I’d just say: don’t position this as email organization. Position it around preventing expensive misses.
Appreciate the public answer.
You're right.
The target is narrow — owners drowning in email
with no assistant and no margin for missed deals.
That's who I'm building for.
Exactly. That’s the frame I’d stick with.
If the first 100 users are owners where one buried email can cost real money, Slash it has a much clearer reason to exist.
I’d avoid broad inbox/productivity language from here and keep the story tied to preventing expensive misses.