Earn

Pay-per-reply email: charge $10 to guarantee a busy person answers you

Shaan describes Balaji Srinivasan's Earn (sold to Coinbase): a paid-email model where a sender pays, say $10, and the recipient guarantees a reply, keeping $9 while the service takes $1. It didn't work, but Shaan thinks the aligned-incentive premise still makes sense.

“Right, so this is different where this says I will get 5— I will get— if it's $10, I get $9, the service gets $1, and the person gets a guaranteed reply. And I think that's pretty cool for, you know, high-profile people or important people, you know, recruiters who want to reach people. It's pay-per-reply.”

Steal thisLet busy people set a price that guarantees a reply, paying out most of the fee to the recipient to align incentives.