As a busy mother of three, wife and pet owner, woman entrepreneur Ria Greiff knows what it’s like to be constantly on the go. The last thing she needs is an inbox exploding with emails to slow down her pace. Realizing this was an issue for many women and people in general, the Psychology professor and her software developer husband teamed to create the mobile app MailTamer.
Ria shared more details on her innovating app and some of the things she learned about business and herself along the way in our Q&A 4Her interview. Read on for the full interview!
What is the unique problem or situation your product or service solves?
There are 900 million iPhone users in the world. What we have found with most of the individuals we talk to and most of them [being] busy women is that they have an inbox that is out of control. Women we have talked to have thousands upon thousands of rogue emails in each of their inboxes. We created an app for those on the constant go in six languages to help tame their inbox.
MailTamer provides a quick and easy way to manage your inbox. This app organizes emails in sender-based view, contact view and the traditional date view, and coming soon, recipient view, to begin to trim the fat of the outbox. With a single swipe and tap, all email from a particular sender can be deleted, copied or moved to an existing or new folder. MailTamer can even select all messages from multiple senders at once to perform these actions. You can even drill-down to see detail on a sender’s messages even in their original HTML format. From there you can perform actions on all or some of those messages as well as easily create folders to organize your messages. It takes just minutes to take an inbox from wild proportions down to a tamed, and easily manageable state. We have seen inboxes go from upwards of 10,000 to a couple of hundred within 30 minutes!
MailTamer offers you:
- Sender-based, contact-based, date-based view of your mailbox
- Ability to search senders and folders
- Create folders as you search
- Add up to 10 mail accounts
- See a summary of all messages from a sender, and view individual messages
- Web preview of HTML messages
What in hindsight would you say you underestimated about this particular industry or running your own business and why?
I never knew that it would consume so much of my time. You truly have to be willing to sideline all other projects until you see one come to fruition. Multi-tasking in this sense is not an option. The other thing that as an industry overall, I was shocked at how male dominated it is. Very very few women are in the upper echelons of the Tech Industry and I don’t think they get as much attention or respect.
LISTEN: Hear Ria talk about MailTamer on MyCity4Her Radio
What is the best business related advice you have ever been given?
Take the long-term view. Many people become discouraged and lose steam and focus because they don’t see results. If you have done your research, and you know you have a good product, you have to knock on every door, call up every connection you have, pursue the wildest sounding ideas and go for it until you achieve your results. Quitting simply isn’t an option.
What were the hardest barriers in getting your idea off the ground?
I think the lack of resources specifically for women and the support system.
What do you enjoy best about being an entrepreneur?
As a mom, I get to still do the business of raising my children and I work around those commitments. Also, you can be a part of the creative process and in a sense, your business is your other baby and you take pride in watching that grow based on your nurturing of the product. I also feel good about being able to be in control of what I am giving to the world.
Do you feel becoming an entrepreneur has helped you grow as a person? If so – how?
Absolutely! I took on this challenge without an inkling of what was involved. I never once gave up. Every closed door was just a reason to try harder. And as those doors opened, a deep sense of pride and accomplishment develops. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone and doing well creates a tremendous amount of positive self-worth.
Where can people learn more about your company?
Our website http://mailtamerapp.com. From there you can link up to our blog and to the App Store to check out more about our product. We also have a Facebook page of course. What is most exciting to us at the moment is our Fundable.com fundraising campaign. Fundable is a Crowdfunding site for startups which is a great way for businesses to generate funding to help them grow. We chose Fundable because we thought this would be a nice way to let our fans contribute to the continued success and improvement of MailTamer.
Here’s a little bit about how Fundable works: Basically, it’s very similar to Kickstarter, but happens to be more focused on small businesses. Like Kickstarter, funding only happens if our funding goals are met.
Currently we’re running a number of pledge levels which will help the MailTamer team as well as offering our backers some value-added bonuses as well.
Take a look at our funding campaign and pledge.
https://www.fundable.com/mailtamer#profile
If you had to share one final thought with our audience of thousands of women in business – what would it be?
Remember the flight attendant on the plane who warns you that oxygen masks will come down if there is an emergency? They specifically tell you to put your mask on first before you put the mask on your child/others. The reason for this is that you cannot take care of others if you are choking, getting ready to pass out and weak. You must learn to take care of yourself if you are going to take care of your business, your relationship, your family. If you don’t then you won’t be doing the best job that you can and eventually something will give. This involves eating right, working out regularly and having me time. So elementary yet so important and oftentimes overlooked. That is why we created MailTamer. As a Psychology Professor and the clinical director of a consulting Firm, I knew that the Zen of a Zero Inbox was more of a time saver but a way to unclutter the mind and make way for more important things. I hope you find your zen too.