The Exchanges

Q And you're, you said you're looking to raise for that business. What's the funding, what's the funding environment look like in South Africa?

A So it's, it's quite early on. I mean, I think you find that a lot of, uh, a lot of players in the, the venture space in South Africa are looking for post-revenue opportunities, you know, typically series A. Uh, so the seed funding environment is, is quite, uh, it's quite early on. Um, I think you do find, uh, these sort of low profile angel investors who will back an idea that they, that they're passionate about or that they, you know, they believe in. Um, but I think it's early days, but you know, that said, Um, it's definitely getting more vibrant. Um, I think you're finding a lot more interest in, uh, in amazing tech that's coming out of, uh, South Africa, um, and things like, typically like the payment space, you know, banking's quite advanced in this country. Uh, so some of the stuff that does really well is, In the mobile space, in the payment space. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's sort of getting, uh, getting more interesting. I mean, that said for us, it's an international venture, so, uh, and we're not in a major rush to find, uh, funding. Uh, in the meantime, you know, we'd rather have the right investors on board, and we'll continue to just self-fund it from the other business until that point.

AI assessment note: “a lot of players in the, the venture space in South Africa are looking for post-revenue”

Q Oh, wow. Uh, and where's most of that money gone? Development or, or user acquisition or what?

A Yeah, so actually, actually development more than anything. Um, all of our traffic has been organic, and all of our, uh, acquisition has come from user referral, things like Product Hunt, Lifehacker, um, we've had a little bit of exposure, um, but we're not, to be honest, we're not quite in, in growth mode yet. Um, I think, you know, we're still trying to crack the, the core need, um, and make this product really, really, really sticky for, for a lot of users. One of the major challenges that we've had, um, and I think, It's due to the fact that it's, uh, it's something that's really, really important for us to, you know, to, in terms of the USP, and that is that this product works inside Gmail. Um, you know, nobody wants another app. I think, you know, some of the, uh, just some of the trends in the industry, you know, you'll find there's a lot of hot new apps out all the time, but, um, people are very comfortable, and for the, for the most part, Gmail, as an example, works, right? I mean, we'll get to Outlook eventually as well, But, uh, just, you know, using Gmail as an example, it works for 90% of the things that you want to do, but it's that remaining 10%, um, that's actually really, really important, um, where a product like Gmail is sort of lacking because it's an email tool. It's not an organizer. Um, so, uh.

AI assessment note: “actually, actually development more than anything. Um, all of our traffic has been organic”

Q So, so, how, why would a user kind of choose to install something like this over these other kind of Chrome extensions, which allow you to, you know, add a task to Trello directly from email or add something to Slack directly from Gmail?

A Yeah. So I think that comes back to the exact same point that, um, these are two different worlds, right? And I mean, people spend most of their time in their email environment communicating because email as a medium is so, uh, centric and so, so crucial to the way that people work today. Um, uh, we're actually, uh, just, you mentioned Slack. We're actually building a Slack product as well, because we found that a lot of internal communication within organizations is shifting that way. Um, but just coming back to email, uh, um, uh, You know, to get to your point, um, if you add a task from your email into Trello, you now really context switching all the time between two different applications. So what we specifically wanted to do is we wanted to bring the Trello type of experience into the communication tool that you use every day and where you spend your time communicating. So really what it allows you to do is to communicate using email as a medium in the context of your priorities. Um, Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty much the, the big idea. So we found that it's, it's been quite challenging actually to get this thing working inside the Gmail environment itself.

AI assessment note: “if you add a task from your email into Trello, you now really context switching”

Q And what's your, what's your price point? How do you make money?

A So at the moment Sorted's free. Um, what we want to do to monetize it eventually is, uh, we're going to roll out different power packs for specific industries. So you think, for example, about the recruitment industry, um, small business, you know, we often think of it this way, you know, small business just doesn't have time for big software. So if you're in a, an entrepreneurial role, for example, um, and you need to get your hands dirty and actually hire somebody, it, it can be an actual, an absolute nightmare. Um, I don't know if you've ever been through that, uh, sort of experience yourself, but Um, people don't really want to go and, uh, uh, learn a whole new software tool, um, and, you know, uh, bring, bring a big piece of software on for the business. Everybody kind of defaults back to email. Um, so what we've basically done is we've made it easy.

AI assessment note: “So at the moment Sorted's free. Um, what we want to do to monetize”

Q I'm just, I'm messing with you, Wayne. I'm messing with you. All right. Tell, tell my audience, tell my audience what does Sorted do and what's your revenue model? How do you make money?

A So, uh, just to give you some, uh, some context, uh, Sorted basically, it's actually a really simple idea. Um, it transforms the Gmail interface into more of an organization system with, uh, managed lists. Um, so you can think of it a little bit like, uh, Trello for Gmail. Um, And, uh, just very simplistically, you know, it's just, uh, it's another way to organize email, um, in a much more intuitive way. So, uh, one of the things that we discovered very early on, um, in this journey is that so many people use their email inbox as a to-do list. But, you know, as you know, it's not really, uh, designed for that, and it actually pretty much sucks, uh, when it comes to trying to get yourself organized, um, you know, in that fashion. So, so what we basically did was embrace that idea, um, and we, uh, just, you know, effectively gave people what they, uh, they're intuitively looking for, you know. So, um, things like, uh, emailing yourself when you want to remember to do something. Um, fundamentally the email model's a little bit flawed because, Um, when emails come in the top of your, your inbox, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're your top priority. So, so what Sorted does is it allows you to, you know, do things like drag and drop your email onto to-do lists, rename the subject, add reminders, um, uh, merge different email threads into, you know, into one, uh, group. Um, so g…

AI assessment note: “Sorted basically, it's actually a really simple idea. Um, it transforms the Gmail interface”

Q Okay, and how do you measure kind of an active user? Is it, you know, they, they sort at least one email per week or what?

A Um, sure. I mean, there's, there's various things that you can, ah, you can do with a Sorted app, and obviously we've got different levels of engagement for, for different users. Some people are not, um, even such frequent Gmail users, and because we've built such a generic tool, ah, we have everything from students and housewives to, you know, entrepreneurs and, and, and business owners. Um, so you, you know, you'll typically find that your more active Gmail user will be using Sorted on a more regular basis, Um, and like, you know, generally speaking, I think the need really appears where in particular roles where you've got a lot to juggle, right? I mean, there's a lot to keep track of, but things that don't require management, um, like in a personal capacity, for example, um, you're not going to find much, uh, much use for a product like this, but yeah.

AI assessment note: “we've got different levels of engagement for, for different users.”