What are the main pain points associated with email, and how is Shortwave addressing those challenges?

There are some obvious ones around the real-time aspect. It takes a long time to send an email. Normal email can take 15-30 seconds for the user to receive it. When you're trying to have a conversation with your teammate during the workday, it's quite annoying to have 15 or 30-second pauses every time you're trying to talk with them. Messaging apps have that real-time communication that email is lacking. 

Another one is presence. In the remote world, we’re seeing that knowing when your teammates are around is increasingly important.

Many messaging apps have little dots and typing indicators that let you know when someone is trying to reach out to you. 

Email never evolved to the point where it has any of these features. That makes it feel more lonely. It also doesn’t allow you to fully express yourself. Things like emoji reactions in messaging apps cut down on the number of messages you need to send and also allow you to express yourself in a way that is different from just using text.