On this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I'm joined by Claudiu Cogalniceanu, the solo founder behind Sentrya, a revolutionary new approach to email protection.

What makes Claudiu's story so remarkable isn't just the tech, though that's impressive, but the journey. He built the first version of Sentrya in under a month while working as an Uber driver, launched it on Product Hunt, and grew to over 450 users in 25+ countries using organic Reddit marketing alone.

Sentrya flips the traditional spam filter model: instead of trying to detect spam, it creates a clean list of approved senders and deletes everything else by default. This privacy-first approach has blocked over 200,000 scam emails so far, and it's just the beginning.

We break down the conversation into three core parts:

1. The Business & Business Model: How Sentrya works, its current traction, and Claudiu's vision to compete with Gmail and Outlook by building a fully encrypted email service.
2. Challenges of Scaling Up: From bootstrapping to a viral setback when an influencer falsely accused the platform of being a scam, Claudiu shares how he overcame it.
3. Quickfire Questions: Insight into Claudiu's mindset, strategies, and how his psychology background shapes his approach to building a tech startup.

💡 The one key thing: You don't need massive funding to build something impactful, clarity of purpose and strategic simplicity can take you far.

🚀 Quick heads-up: We're looking for a handful of founders to test our new AI-powered Smart90 Lite app. It's built to help you stay accountable and actually deliver on your goals, in just a few minutes a day. It's free while we're in testing, and your feedback will directly shape the final version. You can get access by emailing [email protected].

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For now, continue listening for the full discussion with Claudiu.

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.

If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here:

https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin

You can get in touch with Kevin & Granger here:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!

Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.

More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

Claudiu can be found here

https://sentrya.net/

Resources:

Alex Hormuz on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@AlexHormozi