Wayne Silbermann. He has founded a number of startups from South Africa including one of the first world’s music discovery services which was originally founded by Mark Shuttleworth. His most recent venture, Sortd, is a new email platform that’s on a path to fundamentally changing the way people communicate and manage work. Sortd has ranked as the number 1 app for Gmail on Product Hunt.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowy
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Wayne would tell himself that there’s plenty of opportunities out there and you can pick and choose what you’re passionate about

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Wayne to the show
• 02:20 – Sortd transforms the Gmail interface into a more organized system to manage lists—similar to Trello for Gmail
• • 02:50 – Wayne discovered that many people use the Gmail Inbox as a to-do list
  • 03:29 – Sortd allows you to drag-and-drop your emails to your to-do lists
• 03:50 – Sortd is currently free
• • 04:00 – Wayne shares how they are going to monetize Sortd according to agencies that use it
• 05:00 – Wayne has a number of ventures which are his sources of income
• 05:30 – The number of free users
• • 05:45 – The behavior of active users
• 06:40 – Total capital which is self-funded
• • 06:50 – The money goes to development
• 07:29 – Sortd works under Gmail and there’s no need to add another app
• 08:05 – Why would people use Sortd?
• • 09:00 – Sortd allows you to “communicate using email as a medium in the context of your priorities”
  • 09:33 – It is like you’re running two applications under 1 tab
• 10:11 – Sortd was in the chrome store since 2014
• 10:45 – Sortd has 3 full-time developers
• 11:16 – The revenue of the other business
• 11:40 – The funding environment in South Africa
• 12:48 – Wayne is looking to raise around a million dollars for Sortd
• 14:20 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

• Having a number of ventures can help you create a product that is dedicated to helping people.
• Email is one of the most used applications—that’s why startups are finding ways to make life easier for email users.
• There are tons of opportunities out there—pick and choose what you’re passionate about.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives