Will Mayo, founder of SpokenLayer. Being dyslexic led Will to find an alternative to written text and he thought of an audio solution. Listen ad Will talks about how SpokenLayer changes mainstream reading and how it helped him personally.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The E-Myth
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Streak
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Just keep trying and you’ll figure it out”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:13 – Nathan introduces Will to the show
02:05 – How is a podcast different from SpokenLayer
- 02:28 – “Spoken edition is a different interpretation of what audio can be”
- 02:44 – It caters to listeners first then letting them choose the experience
02:53 – Working for about 30 properties
03:13 – SpokenLayer distributes articles for Playboy
04:10 – Different publishers work in different ways
- 04:15 – Some publishers would pay to have a spoken edition
- 04:27 – SpokenLayer help publishers sell advertising and sponsorship
04:50 – “In the long term, the growth of ad revenue will be the largest component of a business but it takes a while”
- 05:05 – They make more revenue from the SaaS side
- 05:15 – The other side of the business works with non-media clients
05:50 – The pay depends on volume of content
07:05 – SpokenLayer started as an iPhone app in 2012
- 07:17 – They didn’t pursue the app idea
07:35 – They did Angel finance and tapped family
- 07:50 – Price rounds and notes
- 08:08 – Raised over a bit of $ 2 million for the past 6 years
08:20 – Expenses for the team and the studio
08:37 – Technology and infrastructure fund the SpokenLayer
08:52 – Handling 40 or 50 clients at the moment
09:16 – Getting customers through inbound
09:25 – They’re getting more requests than they can handle
09:55 – Focused on English and other local languages
10:27 – Focused on clients that has over 10 million audiences
11:25 – Content analyzing
- 11:35 – Not all content is worth voicing
- 12:00 – “There are great content and great stories that people want to consume”
12:06 – Example of phenomenal contents and stories
- 12:19 – “Anything that is written as a first person is a personal story destined to be an editorial or an opinion”
13:05 – There are different types of distribution
- 13:30 – Some people use different platform to consume the audio
13:50 – They’ve been working with Time, Reuters, and ZY to name a few
14:24 – Some of the team members are based in Manhattan
- 14:40 – 10 full time
14:50 – Raised capital
- 15:03 – The core team is interested in raising capital
- 15:20 – Their another product Audio
16:06 – How much do you want to raise?
- 16:25 – “Somewhere between third or half of the round”

17:05 – Connect with Will through his website and Facebook

18:17 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Disabilities can turn your life around—it all depends on your attitude and ingenuity.
Not all content is destined to be vocalized.
Keep trying until you figure it out…whatever that it may be.

Resources Mentioned:

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 quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
SpokenLayer.com -Will’s business website
Facebook – Will’s business Facebook account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 461: $2m Raised, SpokenLayer Turning Blogs Into Audio Content with CEO Will Mayo

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