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When MailDeck co-founders Stephen Weigel and Jack Freeman met in college, iPhone app development was still considered the Wild West. When they entered the workforce, they looked at their respective email communications and thought – “Let’s have a stab at making email better.”

 

“We wanted to know, how do we make email a little more user friendly and inviting and organized?’” Weigel said. “At Jack’s job, there was a lot of email communication with attachments and files and different threads with customers and all that just makes email a little more confusing. That was the problem we were out to solve.”

 

 

The duo launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, which was unsuccessful, but with the fresh feeling of disappointment, several investors reached out who’d seen their campaign. They knew it was an idea worth supporting.

 

They released the iPad version of the MailDeck app in Dec. 2013, received exchange support in March 2014, and in August of last year, they launched their iPhone app. With their sights set on covering the whole Apple ecosystem, their momentum is just beginning.

 

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MailDeck faces stiff competition in the email app market. “We are a lot smaller than any other emails apps in the App Store,” Weigel explained. “Competing with the big players in the market has been a big challenge.”

 

They’re the smallest company by almost $3 million in terms of funding, but since they launched last year, they’ve received more than 40,000 downloads. Of their 216 reviews, they’re currently holding steady with a 4-star rating, and have been featured twice by Apple in the App Store.

 

 

In the next few weeks, MailDeck will be releasing v3.0 of the iOS app, which has a whole host of new features including a new interface design, gestures, an in-app browser and a “focused inbox” similar to Gmail’s Inbox, that allows automatic filtering of emails into customizable folders.

 

They’re hoping to grow their team following the release, adding developers and honing their sights on a Mac app, and eventually becoming the go-to mail program for all platforms, including Android.