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