Time, Money, and Email
Update: I shut down Composed in 2016. It was a fun experiment.
Email is likely the most successful mass-communication scheme created, but has resulted in a spam problem. I’m not referring to the viagra emails that get filtered into your spam folder. I’m referring to a less obvious form of spam: cold-callers. These are people who get your email address (likely through a personal website or blog), and would like some of your time and attention. These emails aren’t always easy to just delete, and the emails aren’t always polite. Given the fundamental architecture of email, this is hard to prevent. It’s very difficult to restrict who can contact you until they’ve already entered your inbox.
I spent the formative part of my professional career at Xobni, thinking about email and searching for clever ways to improve the email experience. One spam-reducing idea I’ve seen suggested a few times uses BitCoin to charge fractions of a penny for every email sent, which would be prohibitively expensive for spammers, but cheap enough for the average person. This idea was the seed that germinated into a solution I’ve been working on to try and tackle the cold-calling problem in email.
Over the past 6 months, I’ve been working on Composed, a site that charges cold-callers a fee to send you email. It is a tollbooth for your inbox. Who are these people who want to contact you? They could be recruiters, reporters, people seeking positions in your company, people who want to pitch you on a product, etc. They are people you don’t know that would like some of your time.
The site works like this: once you create an account, you’ll have a new email address you can give out that will look similar to yourname@getcomposed.com. When someone emails you at that address, the sender will be prompted to put a small amount of money into an account (the amount is dictated entirely by you). After the funds are deposited, the email will be forwarded to your real email address. The funds are yours to keep (minus a service fee) of course.
For people who want to contact you with inquires, questions, and requests, Composed provides a paid way to connect with you. As a receiver of these emails, you will likely take their message more seriously, knowing both that someone paid good money in order to contact you, and that your time is being compensated.
I know what you’re thinking: what about my wife and kids? Are they going to have to pay to email me? No, of course not. They already have your real email address. The email address you get from Composed is the one you provide to the external world. It’s the address you put on your personal website, blog, or LinkedIn profile. It’s the address people should use if they don’t know you personally.
This is about more than making money, or reducing email sent to your inbox. It’s about saving you time. Every email from a stranger that doesn’t land in your inbox is another minute saved, and if people you don’t know want access to your time and attention, they should compensate you for it. The real email address of a person is a valuable asset, and Composed provides a formal way to connect you with the outside world while still protecting that asset.
Interested in seeing the product in action? Just send an email to demo@getcomposed.com. I’ll happily refund any money sent my way through that account.
If I’ve piqued your interest, sign up here. Otherwise, you can email me: ryan@getcomposed.com.
