wayno

We have a real desire to make a dent in the universe around the way email works, so the plan is not for this to be a fly-by-night initiative or to sell out.

There is plenty wrong with email and a lot of opportunity to change it with a completely new email app. However we decided to integrate with Gmail as a matter of practicality, having realised that for the most part people don't want to change to a new email client if they don't have to.

Re the architecture - Sortd is built as a Chrome Extension so it runs on the client, and in all honesty we don't want masses of email data going through our servers, it's just an unnecessary overhead. That said, there is a need for some server side stuff because we need to keep all the data in sync for things like a mobile experience. But we don't store any email - just references to emails so that if you click on an email on one of your priority lists we can tell Gmail to open it.

Integrating with Gmail is risky because they can change things underneath you, so we have built it in a way that it runs in an almost independent workspace. There are one or two Gmail buttons that we place inside Gmail itself, but the real meat runs in an iFrame.

Hope that answers your questions. I'm happy to elaborate if anything is not clear?

I'm Wayne, one of the co-founders of Sortd. We are aiming to create a new email paradigm with Sortd. Happy to answer any questions...

Thanks for the response.

I think the challenge is more the traffic than the tool itself. I'm aware of all of those tools, but how do you get sample traffic (from an appropriate audience)?

I was hoping fore some sort of market research 'community' that allows you to specify your target audience, submit your designs or copy options, and they magically come back with the results to tell you what works best.

What are you currently using for your work email and why do you prefer Gmail?

We moved our company email from Outlook to Gmail roughly 2 years ago and personally I struggled at the time. Since then I have become a fan of Gmail, but it took a lot of adjusting. I have tried to convert a few Outlook and Apple Mail users but I find that most people really struggle with the move.

The most painful thing by far is the threaded view (more specifically that they put the newest message at the bottom of the thread). To someone who isn't super committed to the change it seems ludicrous - your Inbox runs top down from newest to oldest but when you open a thread it works in the exact opposite way.

Now that I think about it I don't know what the person who made that decision was smoking at the time - it's a sure way to turn people away from your product. I can only assume they did it that way to make it feel more like IM, but if they want to acquire more business users they should at least make it an option to put the most recent message at the top, like every other mail client does.

Ok, it wasn't a loaded question (promise), but seeing that you feel that way about Gmail you may be interested in a new email product we've been building over the last year called Sortd.

It tries to create a radically enhanced email experience (Email 2.0 if you will) without the necessity to switch to a new email client. We call it a Smart Skin for Gmail because it transforms the Gmail Inbox into something much more - allowing you to place emails on a set of priority lists along side your tasks, with drag and drop sorting, due dates etc.

If you are interested, you are welcome to skip the Private Beta queue by going to http://get.sortd.com - I created an invite code for you (use HN27182818284).

Do you think there's something in this?

Q: If I were to ask one of your colleagues to describe you, what do you think they would say? - This is another way of asking about character, strengths and weaknesses, but you get a much more honest answer when you ask it this way. You also get insight into a person's self image.

Q: If you were interviewing a candidate for this position, what criteria would you use to evaluate them? - We are trying to get insight into their values (eg. for a programming position we want to hear things like Commenting, Reuse, Readability, Test coverage). And if we hear those things we know we aren't going to have to battle to instil those values.

Q: What appeals to you about this job? - You see whether they have bothered to research the position (if they haven't it says a lot about work ethic). You also get a sense for whether they are excited about the prospect of working at your company - for a startup it's very important that they are excited about what you are doing.

Q: What concerns you about the prospect of working here? - If they say "nothing concerns me" you know they either generally don't think things through enough, or are possibly putting a positive spin on everything just to land the position (in which case you need to wonder about how honestly they answered your other questions). We prefer hiring people who aren't ready to dive in without thinking. This kind of question also gives you an idea of whether they are willing to communicate with you openly and honestly.

Two answers, here's the first (it doesn't answer the question directly but I think it's so NB that it's worth mentioning nonetheless).

In 13 or so years of doing this I have found that that there's not a single interview question that can replace the value of chatting to references.

I tried for years to perfect our interview process with clever questions, and time and time again, if we had issues after hiring someone it's because we chose to turn a blind eye to something that came out in a call with a previous employer or colleague. I have had countless conversations with my partners that went something like "that's exactly what so and so said before we hired this guy". As if it were a surprise. Trust what the people who have worked with this person before say - there's no better way to assess fit.

So we changed our interview process, and now in interviews I focus much more on establishing cultural fit. How we do that is also very simple - we just talk to the person (kicking off the conversation with a question like "I've read your resume but please tell me your story briefly in your words" - and let the conversation flow naturally from there, asking follow-up questions out of genuine interest, making sure we are contributing to the conversation). It makes it comfortable for everyone and allows us to establish a rapport. Then, if I feel this is someone I would like to spend more time with I know they are a good cultural fit.

Skill is assessed in addition to this, but that's job dependent (short note on that - we ask people to do a practical in the final round because when it comes to skill you can't take their word for it).

More direct answer to follow...