We spoke to the Gated <\/em>Chief Marketing Officer, Melissa Moody, about why our inboxes are so flooded, why this is bad for us, and how Gated <\/em>offers a unique solution:<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Tell me a bit about what inspired the idea behind Gated? How did it come about and when? <\/strong><\/p>\n A: Our co-founder and CEO, Andy Mowat<\/a>, was working in Silicon Valley and had managed teams that were sending millions of e-mails through automation. But they were also receiving a lot of unsolicited e-mails themselves. Andy wanted to create a solution, and what happened was if people e-mailed him and he didn\u2019t know their e-mail address, they would receive a response saying, \u201cHi, I don\u2019t recognise this address. If you\u2019d like to get a piece of my time and attention, please donate to “The Wounded Warrior Project”<\/a>, which was the first charity he set it up with.\u201d<\/p>\n People started asking him, \u201cHow can I get this? How did this work?\u201d And so, in about 2019, he brought on some engineering help, and they built an MVP, the first initial product. I didn\u2019t join until 2020, and Andy was still in full-time roles working for other companies. It was very entrepreneurial because it was just an idea. But he had more and more people working on it, and about 50 people trying the Beta. People, including investors, were starting to get more interested. And so he decided to turn it into something. It wasn\u2019t until April this year that we released a full public product. Anyone with a Google-based e-mail can use it, and it is essentially the same core product from the early days.<\/p>\n Q: Tell me a bit more about Gated<\/em> and how it works. <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s pretty simple \u2013 you don\u2019t have to download or pay for anything, and it works with any existing Google Inbox. When someone you\u2019ve never exchanged e-mails with tries to reach out, an automatic response essentially says, \u201cHi, I don\u2019t recognise this address. Please donate to my charity of choice if you\u2019d like to reach my inbox.\u201d Everybody can pick the charity they\u2019d like to donate to; we don\u2019t prescribe it. There\u2019s also another option [for senders] that says, \u201cIf you actually know me or I was expecting your message, just click here, and it\u2019ll go into my inbox.\u201d The core product is as painless as that. It just fits right into your workflow.<\/p>\n Q: Interesting. How and why do you think our mailboxes get so full of messages that we don\u2019t care about?<\/strong><\/p>\n Many people I talk to insist that [the state of their inbox] isn\u2019t a problem. It\u2019s just a part of their routine now. People wake up and spend an hour triaging the messages in their inbox. But if that [process] doesn\u2019t make you mad, I don\u2019t know what would. One of my favourite podcasters says her e-mail inbox feels like everybody else<\/em>\u2019s to-do list. And it\u2019s true. Today, anyone can reach you at any time. Of course, this is why e-mail is beautiful \u2013it\u2019s very democratic and open. But now we are seeing [the downsides of this technology]. [Our mailboxes are overflowing like never before], and I see two major factors contributing to this.<\/p>\n The first is automation. In marketing right now, we can send a billion e-mails with just a click of a button. We can scrape e-mail addresses from across the web \u2013 you don\u2019t have to permit us \u2013 and we can take those, and boom: you\u2019re on a list. Then we can start hitting you. These automated e-mails can also be personalised. Over the last five years, this has increased exponentially, and the tech allowing us to do it has just mushroomed.<\/p>\n The second factor is less tool-based, but it\u2019s an interesting business dynamic related to the shift to Product Led Growth we\u2019ve seen. [This is when the primary driver of revenue is the experience of the product, as opposed to Sales Led Growth, where sales teams and customer service primarily lead revenue growth]. Basically, you used to sell one tool to the CEO, and that\u2019s it. He would say yes to the offer and turn the product on for the whole company. So, the CEOs have always been sort of in charge [of how the product is disseminated].<\/p>\n But Zoom, Calendly, Loom and all the big names in Product Led Growth are now selling to every middle to low manager and up to get them to use the product. Ten years ago, these mid-role persons were not a target for sales. But now? Absolutely. Every new tech product on the market wants to sell to that person. And so not only are we getting more [e-mails] through automation but more products are being sold through the Product Led Growth Model. which basically says, \u2018If I can get the day-to-day person to use it, then it will get used by the whole company’. So those are really two massive factors that are turning our inboxes into chaos.<\/p>\n Q: And how does Gated <\/em>solve this problem? Who benefits most from software like Gated<\/em>? <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s really a triple win. Firstly, with Gated <\/em>you see less inbox volume, which many people are motivated by. If you start up with Gated<\/em>, it reduces inbox volume by an average of 46 %.<\/p>\n But another interesting win is that some of our biggest clients are people who are sending\u00a0<\/em>e-mails. Because right now, if you\u2019re sending good, well-intentioned e-mail, it\u2019s just getting lost in the mess. But with Gated<\/em>, there is less in the inbox, and you can actually stand out. You can say, \u201cI\u2019m a real person. I care about your interests. I have something here that is worth your attention.\u201d So, senders love it. There used to be about a one percent reply rate to sender-emails, but with Gated,<\/em> the reply rate can be upwards of 50 %.<\/p>\n And then the third win is for the non-profits. From their perspective, it\u2019s just an extra bonus out of dollars from donations, and they\u2019re also getting brand awareness. Because every time someone e-mails me, and they don\u2019t know me, they\u2019ll see Team Rubicon, my charity of choice, in my e-mail reply. There are really three different ways in which the product is helping.<\/p>\n Q: Interesting, my inbox is a nightmare. I\u2019m constantly running out of space, partly because of hundreds and hundreds of unsolicited marketing e-mails. And I\u2019ll delete them, but then more come in, and it\u2019s a constant tug of war.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A: What\u2019s really interesting is that for us at Gated,<\/em> we know our first initial target market. I\u2019ll tell you three in particular. One is CEOs. They just get too much of everything. So, for them [the problem] is volume. They\u2019re just like, \u201cI don\u2019t have the time.\u201d Secondly, marketers are being sold to because they have budgets to spend so everyone is trying to sell to them. Marketers are interesting because they really care, and a lot of the time, they would actually like to respond to a good cold e-mail. But they\u2019re just getting hammered with junk. You\u2019ll meet a lot of marketers who are like, \u2018Oh, I would love to hear about a new product, but I can\u2019t because I have so much garbage in the inbox.\u2019<\/p>\n But although we\u2019re primarily talking to those groups right now, Gated\u2019s<\/em> vision is very big because\u00a0everybody<\/em>\u00a0needs this. My grandparents and my mom turned it on because it\u2019s our company of course. And my mom said to me, \u201cI had a very relaxing week when I turned it on because I wasn\u2019t hammered with political e-mails.\u201d Suddenly she didn\u2019t have to see all these things coming in all the time.<\/p>\n And just to clarify, we don\u2019t delete any e-mails. They\u2019re literally in a [separate] folder in your inbox.\u00a0Things don\u2019t come into the [primary] inbox if you don\u2019t know the sender, but they go to a folder called \u2018Gated\u2019.<\/em> Some people I know like to check it daily and make sure they don\u2019t miss something. But other people just wait until it\u2019s a thousand and then delete everything.<\/p>\n [You can constantly alter who is allowed in your primary mailbox]. If you don\u2019t want to hear from a particular address anymore, you can choose to remove it from the \u2018allow list\u2019. And from then on, it\u2019ll show up in the Gated<\/em> folder. Or if you come across a newsletter and you really like it, you can add it to the ‘allow list’. And if someone donates to get into your inbox, there will be a little label on the e-mail saying, \u2018Gated\/Donated\u2019. You can also log on to a dashboard [where you can see various statistics], including how much e-mail you received and how much was \u2018gated\u2019.<\/p>\n Q: Let\u2019s talk a bit more about the charity aspect of the product. So, when using Gated,<\/em> unwanted e-mail addresses must donate to a charity of your<\/strong> choice to reach you. How did this component come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n When Andy first created the product, and it was just a tiny little Beta, he initially did test an idea [that we have now abandoned]: \u2018Should someone pay you to reach you?\u2019 There were a couple of findings there and several reasons why we\u2019ve gone with the charity route instead. The first is that a lot of the people who really needed this product, like the CEOs, didn\u2019t need another twenty dollars a month. And it felt a little selfish, you know, to say, \u2018Pay me to get my attention.\u2019 The attraction of getting a couple more dollars was very minimal.<\/p>\n In comparison, when we shifted to the non-profit idea, there was a sense that you\u2019re doing good and it\u2019s benefiting someone. All it\u2019s really doing for the user of Gated<\/em> is that they can see, \u2018Oh, this person values my attention. I don\u2019t need money from them, but I [know they value my time].\u2019 There needs to be a marginal cost. Otherwise, the e-mails keep coming.<\/p>\n Another part of the non-profit component that is important \u2013 we don\u2019t add non-profits and then get people to choose between them. Anyone who uses Gated<\/em> is able [to choose their own non-profit to support]. It must be a verified 501C3, and as long as it can also be verified by our non-profit partner Change<\/em> and they can get it through their system, you can literally request any official non-profit that you are passionate about. It could be the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel Rescue, or it could be a big organisation. So, we really want the non-profit angle to be, \u2018You pick.\u2019 It should be something that matters to you.<\/p>\n We do set up a featured non-profit so that if someone doesn\u2019t have a particular non-profit in mind or maybe they\u2019re just starting off, they can just default to our featured one. In the past, we\u2019ve had charities like the American Red Cross and Feed the Children. Usually, on a quarterly basis, we\u2019ll change the featured non-profit.<\/p>\n When people log onto the dashboard, they can see which non-profit they\u2019re donating to and how much money they\u2019ve raised, and it\u2019s very easy to change your non-profit.<\/p>\n Q: How does Gated<\/em> deal with privacy and control issues when dealing with e-mails? <\/strong><\/p>\n We do not ever read the contents of your e-mail. When things are in your inbox, Google reads your e-mail to serve you ads and who knows what else. We currently only look at the \u2018to\u2019 and \u2018from\u2019 fields of the e-mails that are sent because we need to recognise whether you have sent an e-mail to this person before.<\/p>\n If you have Gated<\/em> and you e-mail me for the first time, it would recognise that you\u2019ve e-mailed me [before], so if I e-mail you back, I will not see a challenge e-mail. You\u2019ve kind of automatically allowed me into your inbox by sending me an e-mail. So on the [backend], if you send an e-mail to someone, then we determine that they should be on your \u2018allow list\u2019. Then you also have the manual ability to add or remove people at any time from what we call the \u2018allow list\u2019. You can also allow full domains. For example, if you want to hear from anyone at Wall Street Journal.com, it\u2019s easy to allow and enable that.<\/p>\n We\u2019re built upon Google right now. We are preparing to go into other e-mail clients, but right now, it will work with anything Google-based. We\u2019re fully passed Google Security Audits. So, people can log in with Google and have all the normal permission controls. By doing that, people kind of have all the rights to their own data. You can cancel anytime, and we don\u2019t store or sell any of your data. I like to emphasise that because many people assume that we do so based on it being free.<\/p>\n Q: Interesting, so how does Gated<\/em> generate income then? <\/strong><\/p>\n We actually monetise the sender payments. When a sender pays to reach a Gated<\/em> user, they are making the donation to charity. So, 70 % of that goes directly to the charity through our partner called \u2018Change\u2019, and then about 15 % goes to fees and 15% go to supporting Gated<\/em>. We make our money through the sender payments, we don\u2019t charge users [or profit off of their data].<\/p>\n Q: <\/strong>What challenges, if any, has Gated<\/em> faced in its development? <\/strong><\/p>\n I think the biggest challenge for us is to do with behaviour. People see\u00a0Gated<\/em>\u00a0and say, \u2018Oh, of course, why would I not<\/em> do this?\u2019. But I think the biggest challenge for us is that for the entire history of e-mail, it has been an open house. People can stroll in and send you anything they want. [With Gated],<\/em> we are asking people to set boundaries, and we help them do that so they can reclaim their attention and not be overwhelmed. And setting boundaries is psychologically an insanely difficult thing for humans to do. Honestly, our biggest challenge is that we are trying to change how people behave.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a slide in one of our presentations which basically says, \u201cOnce upon a time, it was very weird to sleep on a stranger\u2019s couch or to get into a stranger\u2019s car. Or to wear a mask all the time. But these big behavioural changes opened up completely new ways of thinking \u2013 about hospitality, transportation, and health. And [we are putting forth] a similar challenge in that we\u2019re not just asking people to try a product, we\u2019re asking them to change their behaviour a bit. [We\u2019re asking them to say], \u2018No, you can\u2019t just dump things on my front lawn. You can\u2019t just leave things in my inbox. I expect you to show me that you value my attention, and I\u2019m setting up something [which makes this clear].\u2019 And that\u2019s not easy. I see what we\u2019re trying to do as a behavioural change.<\/p>\n Q: I suppose there\u2019s a kind of FOMO involved, like \u2018Did I miss something?\u2019 or \u2018What if one of the e-mails that go into the Gated<\/em> folder is really important.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Yes, exactly. I think knowing you can still access the e-mails in the Gated<\/em> folder helps with that.<\/p>\n We also have customised challenge e-mails. We have some very high-profile people who cannot miss e-mails using Gated,<\/em> and they\u2019ve built great custom e-mails [which ensures they don\u2019t miss out on important contacts]. They [also] have a cadence for looking at the Gated<\/em> folder.<\/p>\n [Interestingly], they\u2019re actually able to do business better because they\u2019re not seeing everything. They can see opportunities which were getting missed [because of e-mails being lost in the overloaded inbox].<\/p>\n But FOMO and the behavioural change [involved in] blocking your e-mail is a big challenge. And a lot of that falls on me as the marketing officer. The product itself could easily [be used in ways that reduce FOMO], but you\u2019ve got to get people thinking a little bit differently.<\/p>\n Q: So why are these behaviour changes important? Why does it matter?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This world is getting noisier and noisier from a digital perspective. And I see a world where people who do great things have to be focused. They can\u2019t be distracted all the time. So, we\u2019re really trying to build this world where you can protect your own attention, and you don\u2019t have to be a victim of this digital noise. It\u2019s not an easy thing to do, but I truly believe that if we don\u2019t start building technology for that now, then 5 or 10 years out, I don\u2019t think our human brains [will be able to] handle it.<\/p>\n Q: Yesterday I was reading an article about fragmented attention. It argued that because of social media, e-mail, and the digital age, we are constantly distracted and we\u2019re losing our ability to do deep work.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A: That is precisely why we\u2019re doing what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n Q: What sets you aside from other e-mail management options? <\/strong><\/p>\n I believe it was in 2008 that Bill Gates said, \u2018Someone will solve the problem of spam with a monetary solution\u201d. [And that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing, though] I don\u2019t use that term lightly, we could use the term \u2018unsolicited e-mail\u2019 in general.<\/p>\n A lot of the companies out there are doing great things. But [the model is still set up so that] everybody can still send you the stuff they want to send you, the [companies] just help you sort it faster or [introduce] new keystrokes that help you move through it quicker.<\/p>\n [We go further than that]. We believe that by placing a marginal monetary incentive through the non-profit charity donation, you shift the incentives of e-mail completely. No one [has done this] to date. People in the past have been unsuccessful either because they locked down user inboxes or they sold the data like crazy to the sender side. We\u2019ve found that this marginal cost strikes a perfect balance. Senders are happy [because] they can get through [and<\/em> stand out], and users are happy because they\u2019re not being hammered by junk.<\/p>\n Q: What changes do you think we\u2019ll see in the future of e-mail, and how do you think it can be improved?<\/strong><\/p>\n I honestly think e-mail has kind of been a lagger in terms of being able to set your own intention and [create boundaries with the outside world]. If you\u2019re watching Hulu, you can pay to remove ads. If you\u2019re using your phone, you can turn it off. There are little things built into technology that allow us to say, \u2018I have control of my own intention.\u2019 But with e-mail, we don\u2019t have that yet.<\/p>\n So Gated<\/em> believes we need to be the ones who add that into e-mail, and I do think it will extend into other realms as well. I think people are going to realise that we need to have more technological tools to control our own attention, [so that we are not] just victims of whatever\u2019s coming in.<\/p>\n There is so much out there about the \u2018attention economy’, but it\u2019s all about [how to steal] people\u2019s attention. And I would like us to be one of the first companies that says, \u2018No, we\u2019re going to start building things to protect <\/em>your attention.\u2019<\/p>\n Q: What are Gated\u2019s<\/em> short-term and long-term plans for the future? <\/strong><\/p>\n In the short term, the goal is to get as many people as possible to use it and try it. Our users are deeply passionate, and people are really excited about it. Gated.com\/love<\/em><\/a> is just a barrage of the internet talking about Gated,<\/em> [completely unprompted] and without us in the middle. They\u2019re not sought-out testimonials, it\u2019s just people talking about it. So [we want to keep the momentum going]. And because it\u2019s free, there\u2019s a very low barrier to trying it and testing it out.<\/p>\n![\"Gated](\"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/gated-homepage-1024x448.jpg\")
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