Overview This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Hugh, Co-Founder and CEO of Whispr. Whispr is a platform that is designed to deliver better information to workers and real-time data to managers so you can constantly improve frontline operations through the use of a voice-first experience. Interview To start off the interview, Hugh and I talk about his background and the origin story for Whispr. To better understand the product we then jump into a walkthrough of the user experience for both management and the front line workers. We also discuss use cases, multi-modal experiences, COVID-19 and COVID-Clean, analytics, differentiation and more. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode of Voicing Startups! Follow Check below for the best places to follow Whispr and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Whispr: Website: Whispr.ai Linkedin: @Whispr Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Voicing Startups

Whispr with Hugh - Ep. 32

Overview This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Jay, Founder and CEO of Roby. Roby is not just another ticketing software. Roby is able to automate your repetitive tasks such as employees’ questions, meeting scheduling, building services and facility requests through conversational AI. This allows you to focus on what really matters - creating an amazing working environment! Interview To start off the interview, Jay talks about his background and how he came up with the idea for Roby. We then spend a little time around the customer and then jump right into conversation around the product. We dig through multiple different use cases and discuss the benefits that Roby provides for both employers and employees. We also talk about the business model amidst COVID-19, Roby’s differentiation, voice experience customization  and what we can expect to see from the product in the coming years. I hope you enjoy this weeks episode of Voicing Startups! Follow Check below for the best places to follow Roby and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Roby: Website: tellroby.com Linkedin: @Roby Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Roby with Jay - Ep. 31

Overview This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Pat, Founder and CEO of Espressive. Espressive redefines how employees get help by delivering exceptional employee experiences. This is accomplished through Barista, Espressive’s Virtual Support Agent (VSA), which brings the ease of consumer virtual assistants, like Alexa or Google Home, into the workplace. Recently, Espressive announced a $30M Series B investment round led by Insight Partners. Interview To start out the interview, we look at Pat’s background and ultimately how he came up with the idea for Espressive and the Barista VSA. Pat then goes on to describe what exactly a VSA is. Following this we start looking at Espressive’s Barista VSA and the problems they are trying to solve for their customers. To better understand these problems, Pat walks me through some different use cases across multiple industries including IT, HR, and Sales. As I mentioned, Espressive just closed a $30M Series B from Insight Partners, so we spent the rest of the interview discussing the plans with the raise amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Voicing Startups! Follow Check below for the best places to follow Espressive and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Espressive: Website: Espressive.com Linkedin: Espressive Twitter: Espressive_AI Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Espressive with Pat - Ep. 30

Overview This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with James, Co-Founder of HereAfter. HereAfter has pioneered a new way to save and share your loved ones most important stories and memories. Once stories are collected in an interview, the responses are available via an interactive voice experience through the use of the HereAfter AI platform. Interview To start out the interview, we talk about James' background. Before starting HereAfter, he wrote the popular book around voice computing called Talk To Me. We then dig into what exactly HereAfter is and the origin for why James started this in the first place. To better understand the experience, James then walks me through all the different features of the product today. We then spend some time looking ahead and the possibilities for where an experience like this can go. To wrap up the show James gives his outlook on why he is excited about the years ahead for the world of audio and voice tech. I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Voicing Startups! Follow Check below for the best places to follow HereAfter and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow HereAfter: Website: HereAfter.ai Twitter: @JameVlahos Book: Talk to Me Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

HereAfter with James - Ep. 29

Overview This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Sahil, Co-Founder & Product Lead at Soundskrit. Soundskrit is developing bio inspired directional MEMS microphones with a goal of improving audio capture in consumer devices. With a single microphone, they can separate sounds coming from multiple directions without compromising size or quality. Soundskrit is positioned to greatly improve speech recognition and sound localization, enabling a new suite of features for consumer electronics. Interview We start off the interview with getting an idea of Sahil’s background and the general concept of Soundskrit. We then jump right into a conversation about the product. To understand what they are building at Soundskrit, we look at underlying problems with existing microphones, their unique feature set, and some use cases in the real world. We wrap up the interview by looking at the years ahead. We discuss what we can expect to see with the Soundskrit product as well as exciting things about the audio, voice and conversational tech space. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode of Voicing Startups! Follow Check below for the best places to follow Soundskrit and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Soundskrit: Website: Soundskrit.ca Youtube: Soundskrit Linkedin: Soundskrit Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Soundskrit with Sahil - Ep. 28

This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Will, Founder and CSO at SpokenLayer. SpokenLayer is the leader in short-form audio production, distribution, and monetization for both media and brands. One thing I love that makes them unique is their distribution. They distribute everywhere people are listening including Spotify, iTunes, Alexa, Google Assistant and more! Will has a clear passion for short form audio and it shows in our conversation. To start off our interview Will gives us his background as well as the origin story of how he ultimately started SpokenLayer. Following the intro we jump right into talking about the actual product. We discuss many different use cases as well topics around audio content. Some of the topics we touch on include short form vs long form audio, distribution, monetization, and audio content amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To wrap up the interview we discuss future scenarios for both SpokenLayer as well as the audio and voice space. I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Voicing Startups! Check below for the best places to follow SpokenLayer and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow SpokenLayer: Website: SpokenLayer.com Twitter: @SpokenLayer Email: info@spokenlayer.com Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

SpokenLayer with Will - Ep. 27

This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Roy, Founder and CEO of Hi Auto. Hi Auto develops software that enables speech enhancement and speaker separation that focuses solely on the person speaking while eliminating challenging background noises. This is done through the use of a camera, which tracks lip movements and a single microphone. While Hi Auto works well with many audio only inputs, the combination of audio and video is where they really shine. To start off this episode we discuss Roy’s background, the origin story of Hi Auto and what exactly Hi Auto is doing today. To transition into our product discussion, Roy touches on the key value proposition of Hi Auto around Speech Enhancement and Speaker Separation. We then discuss how Hi Auto actually works through the use of video and audio. Following the mechanics, we discuss the popular use cases that Roy is seeing with the business today and how he sees the business as unique in the long term. To wrap up our discussion, we talk about where the product will go over the next few years and why Roy is bullish on the audio and voice space. I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Voicing Startups! Check below for the best places to follow Hi Auto and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode, please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Hi Auto: Website: Hi.Auto Linkedin: @Hi Auto Email Roy: Roy@Hi.Auto Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Hi Auto with Roy - Ep. 26

This week on the Voicing Startups podcast I am talking with Otto, Co-Founder and CEO of Speechly. Speechly is helping developers build next generation voice user interfaces. What makes them unique from offerings by incumbents like Google or Amazon is their Speech-to-intent spoken language understanding API. This API allows developers to build real-time, multi-modal interfaces for complex natural language enabled tasks for both consumer and enterprise applications alike. To start off this episode, we talk about Otto's extensive background in both software and business. We then dig into how himself and some university friends came up with the idea for Speechly and how they ultimately started the business. This leads into us discussing the actual business model and target market for Speechly. The core piece of our interview focuses on the Speechly product itself. We discuss what makes this product unique, primarily how things like real-time speech-to-intent understanding and multi-modal are so important with voice user interfaces. To wrap up the show we look into the years ahead for both the Speechly product and the world of voice. I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Voicing Startups! Check below for the best places to follow Speechly and the Voicing Startups Podcast! If you liked this episode, please Subscribe, Review, and Share it with someone! Follow Speechly: Website: Speechly.com Github: github.com/speechly Twitter: @SpeechlyAPI Linkedin: @Speechly Follow Voicing Startups & Collin: Website: VoicingStartups.com Twitter: @CollinBorns LinkedIn: @Collin Borns Have your own startup in voice? Pitch: VoicePunch.VC

Speechly with Otto - Ep. 25

The Voicing Startups Podcast exists to bring awareness to different companies and creators that are shaking up, redefining and reinventing industries through audio, voice or other conversational technology. The world of voice and conversational tech is still in its early days in terms of mass market adoption. My hope is that through conversations with creators and entrepreneurs who are paving the way for where the industry will ultimately go we can help bring more awareness to voice as a whole for general culture, other entrepreneurs, and investors alike.

hubhopper

Voicing Startups

hubhopper