We all hate different things about Zoom meetings. But meeting that last way longer than they need to are probably at or near the top of everyone’s you-know-what list.

So South African entrepreneur Vinny Lingham (one of the judges on South Africa’s version of Shark Tank) has launched a company to solve that issue. Waitroom is a meeting platform with a hard time limit aimed at making conversations more efficient and relevant.

It’s definitely a little bit Zoom/Teams. But it also has elements of Cameo, TikTok, and Instagram. Toss in a little MasterClass (the logos are also similar). And even, dare we say it, Clubhouse.

Waitroom isn’t really about routine meetings at your company (though we imagine it will be). It’s really about fostering 1:1 conversations between business and personal development influencers and their followers. And doing so in a time-efficient manner.

Celebrity Sheen

Really, Waitlist positions itself as a platform for celebrity entrepreneurs, creators, and influencers. Just look at the list of those who’ve held Waitroom meetings thus far. It includes names like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, fashion designer Tan France, Drybar founder Alli Webb, TV personality Amanda Kloots, and so on. No doubt there will be lesser names participating as well.

These celebrity and quasi-celebrity types will no doubt help get this platform much-needed attention in its early days.

Here is what the company’s website says about Waitroom’s fundamental premise.

“We designed Waitroom to foster short, authentic conversations between well-known individuals and their followers. We wanted to give communities personal access to their favorite celebrities, thought leaders, creators, makers, and experts, live on video. To keep things time-efficient, open, and fair—and to avoid conversation hogs—Waitroom utilises a countdown timer and a queueing system.”

Waitroom has just raised a $3 million seed round to get off the ground.

While its team and investors have South African roots and connections, the business itself is based in San Diego, California, where Lingham is based. And to add to the celebrity-ish sheen, one of the initial investors is none other than Hollywood super-agent Ari Emmanuel. AKA Ari from Entourage.

Other seed investors include David Sacks of Craft Ventures, Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate, and David Frankel of Founders Collective.

In addition to his role as a South African Shark, Lingham has been a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.

For example, he’s co-founder and executive chairman of blockchain-based identity verification company Civic Technologies. In fact, many of the comments to his Tweet announcing Waitroom involved questions about his ongoing commitment to Civic. Lingham is also a co-founder of the website builder Yola.

A Response to Zoom Fatique

In an interview with South Africa tech publication TechCentral, Lingham said the product was inspired by his own frustration with Zoom during the pandemic.

“I got Zoom fatigue during Covid,” he told TechCentral. “Some meetings needed only five minutes and would take 30 minutes of my time. I thought, ‘Why not build a service where people can line up, and when their time’s up, the next person comes in?’ Most meetings don’t have to be 30 minutes long.”

We imagine if Waitroom ultimately succeeds it will be more as an everyday alternative to Zoom than as a platform for meetings with business celebrities. The steak will eventually have to take over from the sizzle.

Fixing Meetings with Technology

There are clear pain points with meetings. They go on too long. There isn’t much structure for follow-up. Some people check out, while others dominate. Many of these issues are cultural. But a growing number of startups believe these cultural problems can be solved with technology.

Last year, for example, we wrote about Fellow, a Canadian startup that raised $24 million to offer a set of SaaS tools to make meetings more productive. And to hold participants more accountable for what is supposed to come out of those meetings. Fellow does this by packaging up features like agenda templates, action item identification, note-taking software, and additional analytics. 

And then there is Placed founder David Shim’s startup Read. Shim raised $10 million last year to create software that informs users with real-time intelligence to make virtual meetings more effective. And maybe less annoying.

One of Read’s main features, for example, is a real-time graph that maps who is speaking most. This can help determine visually if one or more individuals are dominating a given meeting. This will inform participants (or leadership) about ways to engender more diverse participation so ideas aren’t coming from a single source.