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

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