> We're just a few hackers trying to fix broken developer tools.This may be part of your problem. The way I see it, IMAP and POP suckage is not a developer problem; it's a user problem. As in, users don't care that IMAP and POP suck; they only care that their email works. Most people's email works.
In other words, you can make developers as happy as clams and it won't matter, because "making developers happy" is not a sustainable business model. (Particularly if the way you are going to make them happy is to open source your toolkit and give it away for free. Not that that isn't a great thing to do: it's just not a sustainable business model.) I think a lot of the skepticism in this thread is because on some level everyone realizes this, even thought it's kind of an unpleasant truth for developers.
A sustainable business model would be: you're going to (a) convince users that, even if their email works now, it will work so much better with your new platform that they'll be amazed; and then (b) get the users to pay for that awesome service. I have seen nothing that indicates you have such a business model. Without it, I have to agree with the skeptics that, from a VC's perspective, you are far more likely to exit as an acquisition than as an IPO. Which means the VCs aren't really investing in your business, they're investing in your talent; that's what they're betting that some large company will be willing to pay for down the road, once you've demonstrated the ability to build something. But once you're acquired, you might end up building something completely different from "a better email".