The idea for Vice came from a problem I personally faced during my 20 years as an enterprise account executive in Silicon Valley. Managing 1,500 deals per year, which resulted in closing 500 transactions, one of the hardest parts of my job was simply keeping everything organized. With an average of 2.8 emails per deal, I was managing approximately 4,200 emails annually that needed to be tracked and organized. My inbox was constantly overwhelmed, making it tough to stay on top of deal-related communications, documents, and tasks. Often, managing all of this was more difficult than closing the deals themselves.

To solve this, I developed a beta version of what would later become Vice, designed around three key parts of organization:

‍Email Mapping: Vice provides a quick and easy way to group emails into the same project folder, making it simple to quickly access all related communications in one place.

‍File Structure Replication: The project organization is mirrored into a file structure, ensuring that any files you want to permanently save from emails are stored in Google Drive within the same hierarchy.

‍Integrated Notes: Notes were aligned with this same file structure, ensuring that no important information was ever misplaced.

This system eliminated what I call "digital manual labor" through automation and orchestration, allowing everything to be organized seamlessly without wasting time on tedious tasks. This tool quickly became the foundation of how my team operated, ensuring no details were missed and allowing us to focus on closing deals rather than managing clutter.

I built Vice to give everyone that same level of control and clarity. This becomes especially critical when working in a team; having the ability for everyone to quickly access important information reduces a lot of the most painful and time-consuming work of staying in sync.

Vice simplifies email management, helping you stay productive, just as it did for me and my team. Now, you can organize your work in a way that makes sense to you, saving time, reducing stress, and staying in control.

Here’s to working smarter, not harder

Patrick Holman