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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? \u2013 The E-Myth
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Elon Musk

• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Streak
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 Yes
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cJust keep trying and you\u2019ll figure it out\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:13 \u2013 Nathan introduces Will to the show
• 02:05 \u2013 How is a podcast different from SpokenLayer
• • 02:28 \u2013 \u201cSpoken edition is a different interpretation of what audio can be\u201d
  • 02:44 \u2013 It caters to listeners first then letting them choose the experience
• 02:53 \u2013 Working for about 30 properties
• 03:13 \u2013 SpokenLayer distributes articles for Playboy
• 04:10 \u2013 Different publishers work in different ways
• • 04:15 \u2013 Some publishers would pay to have a spoken edition
  • 04:27 \u2013 SpokenLayer help publishers sell advertising and sponsorship
• 04:50 \u2013 \u201cIn the long term, the growth of ad revenue will be the largest component of a business but it takes a while\u201d
• • 05:05 \u2013 They make more revenue from the SaaS side
  • 05:15 \u2013 The other side of the business works with non-media clients
• 05:50 \u2013 The pay depends on volume of content
• 07:05 \u2013 SpokenLayer started as an iPhone app in 2012
• • 07:17 \u2013 They didn\u2019t pursue the app idea
• 07:35 \u2013 They did Angel finance and tapped family
• • 07:50 \u2013 Price rounds and notes
  • 08:08 \u2013 Raised over a bit of $ 2 million for the past 6 years
• 08:20 \u2013 Expenses for the team and the studio
• 08:37 \u2013 Technology and infrastructure fund the SpokenLayer
• 08:52 \u2013 Handling 40 or 50 clients at the moment
• 09:16 \u2013 Getting customers through inbound
• 09:25 \u2013 They\u2019re getting more requests than they can handle
• 09:55 \u2013 Focused on English and other local languages
• 10:27 \u2013 Focused on clients that has over 10 million audiences
• 11:25 \u2013 Content analyzing
• • 11:35 \u2013 Not all content is worth voicing
  • 12:00 \u2013 \u201cThere are great content and great stories that people want to consume\u201d
• 12:06 \u2013 Example of phenomenal contents and stories
• • 12:19 \u2013 \u201cAnything that is written as a first person is a personal story destined to be an editorial or an opinion\u201d
• 13:05 \u2013 There are different types of distribution
• • 13:30 \u2013 Some people use different platform to consume the audio
• 13:50 \u2013 They\u2019ve been working with Time, Reuters,\xa0 and ZY to name a few
• 14:24 \u2013 Some of the team members are based in Manhattan
• • 14:40 \u2013 10 full time
• 14:50 \u2013 Raised capital
• • 15:03 \u2013 The core team is interested in raising capital
  • 15:20 \u2013 Their another product Audio
• 16:06 \u2013 How much do you want to raise?
• • 16:25 \u2013 \u201cSomewhere between third or half of the round\u201d

• 17:05 \u2013 Connect with Will through his website and Facebook

• 18:17 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• Disabilities can turn your life around\u2014it all depends on your attitude and ingenuity.
• Not all content is destined to be vocalized.
• Keep trying until you figure it out\u2026whatever that it may be.

Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal\xa0 for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal\xa0 developers.
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages\xa0 \u2013 The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistant.to \u2013 The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
• SpokenLayer.com\xa0 -Will\u2019s business website
• Facebook \u2013 Will\u2019s business Facebook account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives