Your Voice, Our Drive: Presenting Tuta users from around the world.
Why Robert – the founder of the EU-only startup hank – joined Tuta ten years ago and never looked back.
Choosing privacy before it was a trend
Robert, born in Berlin, has been living in Spain for some time now, and in 2024 took on the challenge to launch a startup called hank. The idea: a reverse marketplace for car parts, a concept that does not yet exist in Europe. Currently, the project is still in the “Friends, Fools & Family” phase, with a small team centered around him and his wife, who, among other things, handles the Spanish market.
From the very beginning, Robert, a developer with a passion for privacy and data protection, had a clear goal: to build an EU-only tech stack that was as sovereign as possible. His passion for digital independence even made it into the news, for instance on Heise.
Whenever possible, I deliberately chose European solutions, and that worked surprisingly well. I’d say 99 percent of the time.”
That’s why the startup’s business email also runs on Tuta Mail, but the switch away from Gmail happened long before deGoogling became a trend. His Tuta journey began around 2016. Back then, data privacy wasn’t a hot topic yet and most people didn’t care what happened to their data in the cloud.
Back then, the phrase that most people know by heart today was still relatively new: If something is free, you’re the product. That got me thinking.”
Robert therefore made a conscious decision to leave Gmail. He tested and compared various providers, including Proton and Posteo. Ultimately, he decided for Tuta:
The free version was perfect for trying it out first. I didn’t want to start an experiment where I had to pay right away and Tutanota – as it was called back then – looked promising. I soon upgraded and added my own domain to have all functionalities.”
What began as a test became a permanent solution. Today, Robert uses Tuta privately with his own domain, a catch-all address, and aliases with plus addresses; a setup that enables him to email anyone securely and privately, giving him the option to hide his main identity email address whenever he chooses via alias-email-addresses.
A conscious decision
For Robert, one key difference from large platforms is clear: “You don’t stumble upon Tuta by accident. You make a conscious decision to use it.”
Robert explains that back then, when email got mainstream in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many people ended up with their first email address more or less by chance, for example, through Web.de in Germany or, later, through Gmail because of its huge free storage. This was normal for most online users as many did not care about details like being tracked or served with ads, but simply wanted a free email service with free storage. But Robert’s choice was a conscious one. Even as early as in 2016, he understood that the data-driven ecosystem of Google and its monopoly couldn’t be for the people’s good so he made the switch to Tuta, Ecosia, and other European alternatives – and never looked back.
But, of course, switching to an email provider no one else had heard about also comes with obstacles. At first, the people around him reacted mainly with pragmatism: The most common question was how to spell the email address – which got easier when he started using his own domain. Robert said, he never went around trying to convince others to switch to Tuta as well, but over the years, he noticed that awareness has changed:
Today, even non-techies understand that big platforms analyze emails, personalize ads, and create profiles. That’s no longer a secret.”
Ten years of product development: Robert’s take
Robert is one of our earliest users, and it’s great to see that he’s still happy with Tuta Mail and its functionalities. For nearly a decade, Robert has witnessed the development of Tuta firsthand, so let’s hear his thoughts!
The biggest improvement, in Robert’s view happened in terms of usability and offline features.
But also a time with severe DDoS attacks remains particularly vivid in his memory:
When you’re standing at the airport and urgently need an email, but nothing is available offline, that’s when you realize how important offline access is.”
Today, this works much better – for one because we at Tuta have invested a lot into anti-DDoS protection since then so that similar attacks are no longer successful, and also because offline availability is now possible with any paid Tuta plan. This is just one example of how user feedback has led to concrete improvements. You will notice many more if you follow our yearly users survey and the ongoing development steps taken afterwards.
For Robert, the speed of development has also increased. His favorite releases in the last few years were offline access to emails (obviously!), improvements to contacts, and the release of a calendar app. He also enjoys the improved conversation view and that the apps have become more stable over time. But he also appreciates that development is continuous without radical changes.
The brand has hardly changed, but important usability aspects, under the hood so to say, have gotten significantly better.”
Most used features
As a developer and builder of the hank service, Robert prefers to have very efficient core features, without overloading the app. He relies on Tuta for standard email communication, uses inbox rules (a lot) for fast organization, and of course, he uses Tuta with his own domain with a catch-all address and makes use of the unlimited number of aliases for his own domain.
Robert says: “Email is a tool for me. What matters most is that it works reliably, not that it has shiny features.”
Tuta in everyday startup life
Robert now also uses Tuta for business with his startup. The team is still small, but he’s already gained some experience, particularly with onboarding other people to Tuta. And, yes, the strict security measures of Tuta can be a hurdle – but nothing one can’t overcome!
My wife lost her password. I panicked for a moment because I knew the Tuta team can’t reset passwords, but fortunately as the admin of our business account I myself was able to reset her password easily. That was a huge relief. And that’s also how it should be: In Tuta, security isn’t optional, it’s built-in, but usability is still great.”
Nevertheless, security features can also cause confusion. For example: Confidential email replies initially confused Robert’s wife, who comes from the Outlook world. “I had to explain to her: This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature”, says Robert and smiles, “but obviously one that can be turned off if the content of the email is not confidential.”
A conscious digital path
In addition to email, Robert switched to other services back then, for example his go-to search engine became Ecosia in replacement of Google Search. He still uses some Google tools for practical reasons, mainly because of the necessity to share personal calendars with friends and family who have not yet made the switch to Tuta. So he was very happy to learn that the development team improving Tuta Calendar has sharing to externals high up on the roadmap.
After nearly ten years, Robert’s attitude toward tech and privacy remains clear:
Tuta isn’t a product you stumble upon. You make a conscious decision to use it, and that’s exactly what I like about it.”
For him, it’s less about a single feature and more about principle: Control over your own communication, a European product, and a team that is passionate about privacy and is visibly improving the platform. In short, a quality product that offers top-notch security and digital sovereignty – not sovereign washing.
While Robert is now busy building his own startup, we’re happy that Tuta is part of his sovereign tech stack!
