It’s harder to get into Y Combinator than it is to enrol at Stanford or Harvard. Further to that, only 10% of startups survive and only 5% of startups truly scale having graduated from the Y Combinator accelerator in Silicon Valley. Most startups fail or become zombie businesses because they don’t find product market fit. Product market fit is where you solved a massive problem, sometimes deemed “The Hair on Fire Problem”.

You’ll know when your startup has found product market fit because there will be queues for your product round the block, a flood of orders will cause your bank balance to grow significantly. At Y Combinator startups are encouraged to get a user growth of 5% per week. Growth of 1% and 2% per week is acceptable but 5% is the goal.

The mentors and partners at Y Commentator encourage startups to build final viable products (MVPs). It’s less about the technology and more about the problem you are trying to solve for customers. Only when you have found product market fit should you start scaling the technology. The problem lots of startups make is they start building the technology too soon and end up having to iterate their software through pivots. There is nothing wrong with pivots but building the technology too soon may lead to a startup running out of cash. If investors have given you some seed funding and you run out of cash, why should they fund you again?

A winning team and a massive market with a significant problem are what you are looking for. Once you have found these you then need to continuously speak to users to get to the product market fit. You can be speaking to users face to face but with global user bases, this won’t always be possible.

Sound Branch now offer developers and software houses the ability to embed in their apps and web based applications an audio record to get the customer’s voice. You will have seen mobile apps and websites’ pop ups which ask you to rate the site and post a review. These reviews are done with text so including the voice gives start ups a new dimension. The voice gives you emotion, sentiment and intent and therefore a richer data set of user feedback to work with.

In conclusion, the more feedback you get and the richer that feedback the more likely your startup is going to become the next unicorn. If you want to reach an IPO and shoot for the stars after you have established a winning team and a large enough market, all that matters is the voice of the customer. Voice feedback allows you to co-create with your customers. It doesn’t mean you’ll be the next unicorn, it just significantly increases your chances. Good luck in trying to find product market fit, you will need patience and perspective.

You can try Sound Branch out for free. Create your own account below:

https://www.soundbranch.com

The more effort you put into publishing the better the results. Now one way to do this is through good preparation and thinking about what you’re going to say. Other ways of improving what you publish are to sub-edit and rewrite.

But if we ignore the content for one moment and we think about new technologies such as live transcription, this allows curators to output richer experiences in less time.

What if every text message you sent had audio. How about every email being emotional with sound? What would it be like if you can listen to people on Twitter instead of simply reading out posts?

Podtexting uses the latest live transcription artificial intelligence for bloggers, journalists and editors to speak their thoughts and have this automatically turned into text on the fly.

So instead of a post being merely text or just the audio, your audience can receive both. Now given the fact that we only remember 10% of what we read and we retain 50% of what we hear and see, this will lead to more memorable experiences.

You might say why bother with this approach, is it not confusing? The reality is lots of people around the world struggle to read and quite simply people have a preferred method of contact.

Some people prefer to scan read and others prefer to listen. Quite often how they consume content depends on circumstances and environment. For example, if they’re on a quiet train coach they might prefer to read whilst driving the car listening is best. In other settings, people will want to do both.

This is not just about your readership and your listeners, there are wider connotations to this dual play multichannel approach. Often when we say multichannel we mean we send an email and then perhaps a podcast link at different points in time. With podtexting simultaneously the audio and text are posted leading to more consumer choice or double threaded experiences.

On an e-commerce shopping site for example if a user both listens and reads they are more likely to memorise information and will be more likely to convert. This has massive connotations to the way we build websites and we think about how people consume content. Imagine browsing a website on your smart TV with your voice and reading the text whilst listening.

And finally there is a twist. Not only can you post content with both audio and text at the same time you can also match the content with a sentiment. Using artificial intelligence, emojis can be added to your posts based on emotion. Now an unhappy face automatically posted to content on an e-commerce site might actually not help your conversion rate. But think about product reviews, not only seeing the text from the consumers with a voice and there are emoji based on their satisfaction.

The more data we have about peoples’ thoughts, intents and emotions will lead to smarter decisions for broadcasters and consumers. Independent of the type of content and the use cases, a new approach to content syndication which includes Just in time podtexting is a game changer. For the entertainment industry and for online, as a whole.

Below is a podtext posted on Twitter as a Twitter card:

And Mrs May is not going down without a fight and will give everything that she’s got https://t.co/fK8Ir8jhpK

— Newsanywhere (@newsanywhere) December 12, 2018

You can learn more about podtexting at SoundBranch.com. Sign up for your free account.

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.

Some people struggle with reading and writing. Other people simply want to save time with frictionless ways of recording and documenting information.

Here we take a look at some of the best voice notes apps on the market.

Sound Branch (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web, Alexa, Google Assistant)

Sound Branch is a multi-modal voice notes platform available on the web, on mobile apps and via Alexa and Google Assistant. All voice notes are transcribed to text allowing powerful voice search.

Record your voice on the web and mobile to create flash briefings. For example, you can say Alexa ask Sound Branch to play my Inbox. Or you can say OK Google play my timeline.

One cool feature in Sound Branch is sentiment analysis which allows for the detection of emotions in conversations. You can then filter by the emojis which are happy, sad or indifferent.

As the best voice notes app, Sound Branch is focussed on short form voice bites of duration of 10 to 20 seconds. It forces people to think more before they speak. Short form messages allow powerful voice search. You can, therefore, search people’s thoughts rather than simply search web pages.

Otter.ai (Android, iOS)

Backed by the initial investor in Google, Professor Chilton, a Canadian who now works at Stamford University. Otter can detect different peoples’ voices for transcriptions and is great for recording meetings. Transcribed minutes can be complemented with Live Photos.

Apple Voice Memo on iOS

Without transcriptions the preinstalled Voice Mel app allows you to record audio. Once you have the audio, this can then be shared on iCloud, Dropbox, email etc

Google Docs

You can also do speech to text in google. If you are writing, this can be a quicker way of getting your thoughts down. You can still correct with your keyboard but for 1st draft collections, this is really fast. Obviously, you need to ensure you have a microphone on your computers.

Now that you’ve found the best voice notes app for your team, it’s time to get the most out of it. Here are some resources to help:

• Check out soundbran.ch for Sound Branch key features
• Visit this video channel to see demos of the product and hear from customers how Sound Branch helps them build winning teams
• Follow Sound Branch on Twitter (@soundbranch)
• Sign up to create an account at SoundBranch.com

If you have any questions about the best voice notes apps or need more information to help you choose the most suitable app for your needs please feel free to contact us.

Have you ever been at a party talking to someone only for your mind to wander and observe a conversation happening elsewhere? Now you’re probably thinking this is quite rude because if you’re already in a conversation you should pay attention giving the person eye contact and listening intently.

If the conversation is funny, engaging and entertaining then of course we’re engaged and our mind doesn’t wander to other parts of a room. But even if our own conversation is very interesting we might want to explore other conversations yet with time constraints; this is not possible. Whilst business networking, for example, you have to choose who to talk to and who to avoid. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but quite often we like people like ourselves and so gravitate towards those chameleons. Nonetheless, I think everybody with a curious mind wants to play back and eavesdrop into other conversations.

After all, the other conversations in a networking event might be more relevant and more interesting than the conversations you chose? The British are very polite and we will often listen to somebody labouring a point rather than abruptly saying I’ve just got to go.

Whilst in the real world dropping in on other conversations is nigh on impossible unless you are flighty and enjoy interrupting people mid sentence! For most of this, this is not the case and it is humanly impossible to listen to every word that every person says.

In a digital world the rules of the game change. Conversational branching in different groups by different people can be followed. These conversations can be listened to and played back and indeed can be switched off at an instance.

Let’s take an example of a group of friends discussing where to go on holiday in Tenerife. Some of the people in the group may have never visited Tenerife in their lifetime. Others may have been to Tenerife with good and bad experiences which would be eagerly listened to by the wider group. What if a couple having a conversation about a particular hotel, a taxi firm with reliable transportation from the airport or indeed a tour company offering day trips. Now think about the ability to play these conversations and to branch through until your interest wanes. You can then either simply stop the conversation and do something else or perhaps you click a link to a shopping cart, an order form or simply request a call back?

Now it could be better than a simple call back! What if that person in Tenerife joins the conversation?  Perhaps Manuel would talk about day trips to the north of the Island and up the volcano? Maybe it would be Enrique talking about child safety seats for transportation from the airport?  Finally, it could be the general manager at the 5-star hotel Louis who talks about the latest water park facilities?

What does this all mean? In a digital world you can listen to other people’s conversations and people from afar can join in. Whilst the content may be initiated by friendship groups that discuss things such as Tenerife commercial vendors, with the correct permissions, they could drop into those conversations and participate themselves to add further value.

This is conversational commerce and with the rise of VoiceFirst technology gives you an insight as to how buying decisions and customer journeys might change. Instead of reading blocks of an emotional text reviewing the latest hotel or restaurant, deep communication with voice notes from both trusted friends and perhaps their trusted advisers might change the outcome of buying decisions. After all, there is a certain level of comfort in listening to somebody’s voice when making a large purchase decision. Holidays usually cost several thousand pounds and so the opinions of your close friends and other trusted advisors should lead to a better outcome overall.

So yes you’re probably right, it’s rude to leave your current conversation abruptly in the real world and join another conversation. However, in the digital world you can listen to many conversations as you like with a greater breadth of knowledge and understanding in the process.

If you would like to learn more about conversational commerce and how you can listen through branching conversations simply visit soundbranch.com

Sound Branch a platform which re-imagines voicemail launches. Sound Branch can be accessed on any platform and any device including the web, mobile apps and smart speakers. Powerful voice search of voice messages is available.

Sean Gilligan founder of Sound Branch stated “Alongside short form voice messages which are transcribed into text sentiment analysis allows you to view the emotions of conversations which is a real game changer. Too often in the workplace people are glued to their email inboxes and send countless text messages. What Sound Branch offers is a richer form of communication and brings voicemail into the 21st-century.”

Having attended the Voice Summit in Newark New Jersey, ConverCon at Microsoft HQ in Dublin and having hosted a voice conference in London Sean feels that there is nothing like Sound Branch in the marketplace that offers a multimodal conversational experience.

Sean Gilligan went on to say “Our vision for Sound Branch is to allow every business to have its very own branded voice site and voice notes apps. This will allow brands and businesses to have deeper conversations with their customers, partners and employees. Companies need to wake up to the benefits of VoiceFirst technology which is frictionless and the fact that 50% of all internet search will be via the voice by 2020.”

The productivity gains using voice are obvious with all of us being able to speak four times faster than we can type. For business people on the go travelling all day voice messaging with hands-free access can remove dead time spent in cars to productive hours. Generally what happens when people use Sound Branch is conversations happen that wouldn’t otherwise occur. Voice messaging enables the transfer of knowledge between employees but also for smarter decision-making through conversational analytics.

Conversational data can be overlaid with CRM and financial data allowing executives to make better informed decisions. For example, when the board is reviewing the management accounts commentary can be given with voice messages.

Sean Gilligan explained where he thinks the market is going: “I think people are getting sick of email and text messages which don’t convey emotion therefore I think there will be a resurgence of voicemail in this new digital age. Once people realise that voicemail and voice messaging is simpler, quicker and faster they will start to switch. Already in China and places like Argentina voice messaging is very popular and I think this will come to the UK in the not so distant future.“

To learn more about Sound Branch simply visit soundbranch.com on the web. You can also visit the Apple App Store and Google play to download the Sound Branch mobile apps. Finally, Sound Branch is available via Alexa and Google assistant.

Sound Branch is part of Ventures Anywhere which is Sean Gilligan’s start-up vehicle exploring new innovations and new technologies. Sean Gilligan is an international tech entrepreneur based in Leeds in the UK with business interests in the United States of America and in Poland.

Web link:

www.soundbranch.com

We have all been there in meetings where one person dominates the conversations. Now it is fit and proper that someone should chair a meeting and ask the difficult questions. Indeed it’s important to have debates in meetings otherwise perhaps we are not trying hard enough. There are however sometimes more junior members of staff or staff who prefer to just listen when they have a part to play.

You see the problem is how do you break the habit of a lifetime. We are all programmed differently and some people like myself like to talk. In fact I would say I talk as I think. This can often mean other people don’t get a word in. There is a saying that too many cooks spoil the broth but in a democratic society listening to everyone’s voice counts. This diversity and inclusion leads to new thinking, better ideas and ensures that all angles are covered.

How do you break this habit and tame the charismatic leaders who perhaps need to talk less and listen more? One thing you can do is change the environment and this is where technology comes in. Online meetings scheduled in diaries with links to live video are common place in the business world. Some online meeting software allows controls on who can speak and who can just listen. What they don’t control is the duration that everyone speaks. Online meeting software also doesn’t deal with interruptions when people are cut off mid sentence.

What I want to talk about is a different approach to conducting a meeting. This is a halfway house between the prevalent email chains and the face to face meetings which sometimes overrun, never start on time and often lack meeting minutes. The idea is just in time meetings using voice messaging.

Voicemail use to be popular back in the day and I can foresee a resurgence of the use of voicemail. The distinct advantages are that you get a person’s emotions transmitted and you don’t have to schedule a meeting.

Now the important board meetings and certain types of conversations have to and must always be held face to face. There is however a longtail of meetings where the first question “Do we really need a meeting?” needs to be addressed. In these instances where a meeting is not necessary yet, real discussions and opinions need to be gathered. Voice messaging can win the day.

Starting with the exit in mind we want productive, high quality conversations that make a difference. Voice messaging allows everyone to be listened to and to have their voice heard.

Sound Branch is making its way onto more voice-enabled devices. After its success with Amazon Alexa, they released a Google Assistant Action today.

The app will keep adding new commands to both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant to enhance communication for its users.

Here’s how to use Sound Branch with your Google Assistant:

Step 1

Just type Sound Branch on the Google Assistant app.

You will be asked to link your Sound Branch account to Google. Tap ‘Yes’ and it’ll prompt you to type your Sound Branch login details.

Your Sound Branch account is now linked to Google!

Step 2

Now, you can use the four main Sound Branch commands to listen to your voice messages and voice notes.

Just say OK Google,

• Ask Sound Branch to play inbox, or
• Ask Sound Branch to play timeline, or
• Ask Sound Branch to search “X”, or
• Talk to Sound Branch

Step 3

Google Assistant will reply and ask you which clips you’d like it to play for you.

If you have any questions on how to use Sound Branch with your Google Assistant please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@soundbran.ch

Town Hall speeches and emails to staff are common places for the CEO of an organisation. Some bosses actually create videos and share them with staff, but how about your own company’s flash briefing played via Alexa on the Amazon Echo or via Google Home?

In order to publish audio, you need a voice content management system before you can start to deliver broadcast messages. The science of creating a podcast is quite technical and therefore provides a barrier to entry.

Now playing audio from simply the CEO is one thing but playing audio from employees, management and customers is something else. What if you played the customer testimonials of that month on your company’s flash briefing? Perhaps it’s a manager been giving special praise for work. Yes, the CEO can broadcast the latest strategic updates against the plan but getting this stories from other parts of the business told makes a truly engaging internal company podcast.

Audio brings the message to life and easily beats email. What I’m not saying is to replace the bulk email messages sent top to bottom within an organisation. Nor am I saying that printed letters or handwritten messages don’t work. What is true is that the voice conveys emotion and the tone of the message helps for better understanding.

One reason why podcasting can be complicated is the need to edit the audio which is a technical task. If you remove the need to edit audio just in time podcasting becomes possible and therefore time to delivery is decreased and non-technical people can get involved. This is where Sound Branch comes in as a voice content management system that allows you to deliver compelling audio experiences to your employees and other stakeholders.

On Sound Branch, all voice notes are recorded in 10 to 20 seconds. This, therefore, means the margin of error of getting the audio wrong or simple mistakes can be eliminated.  Instead of editing audio you simply re-record the snippet in question until you get it right. The small snippets of audio piece together which means that you think about what you say a little bit more and therefore the quality of the audio goes up.

So in reality what does this mean?  It means that the CEO of a global organisation can enter the office at 7 a.m., think of an important message that he’s got to get out to the entire business, record this on his smartphone device or through his desktop PC on a web browser and instantaneously can be played via Alexa on the Amazon Echo or via Google Home devices and other smart speakers.

Now if your organisation does not have smart speakers at the workplace all the content is available via the web or mobile apps. All employees and staff need to do is to download the Sound Branch app from the Apple App Store or Google Play or simply visit soundbranch.com. Better still, all the audio is transcribed and therefore is searchable with elastic search.  On Google, you search people’s web pages and on Sound Branch you search people’s thoughts. Searching people’s thoughts and the ability to recall important messages about your business and play them back is a different way to communicate internally.

Instead of the old agenda for a board meeting where there is an A4 print out of the meeting agenda, perhaps, the chairman will simply play the voice notes. Listening to these voice notes is a lot more compelling for the board than simply reading from an A4 piece of paper.  Understanding the numbers in the business is important when reviewing the financial performance and sales figures within an organisation. This can be enhanced by commentary and overlaying the voice notes with the financial data can vastly improve decision making.

In the consumer world, podcasting is rapidly growing as on-demand entertainment and education becomes mainstream. The opportunity is for internal podcasting to enhance internal communications within large organisations.  In many big businesses, managers read out the latest figures and KPI’s to their departments and their teams. Sometimes, Chinese whispers ensue and the message is not clear. Internal podcasting can give clarity of message, authenticity and breathe life into messages which are sometimes misconstrued or misunderstood. Making it easy for anyone and everyone to contribute to your companies flash briefing offers a new refreshing way to communicate.

We have just launched Sound Branch as an Alexa skill. This means you can now access Sound Branch on your Amazon Dot and Amazon Echo devices. You can enable the Sound Branch skill by loading your Alexa App, going to the skills section and searching for Sound Branch. You must then enable the skill and sign in to Sound Branch using your credentials on the Alexa App. Once your have done this you have linked Alexa and Sound Branch and you are ready to play all your voice notes on Sound Branch.

You can now ask Alexa:

“Alexa ask Sound Branch to play my inbox.”

This plays all your messages both public, in groups and in private chat. The most recent messages are played first.

“Alexa ask Sound Branch to play my timeline.”

This plays all the public messages of people you follow on Sound Branch.

“Alexa ask Sound Branch search New York.”

This plays all voice notes which have the words New York in them.

Please note if you don’t have a smartspeaker such as the Echo or Dot you can download the Alexa App on your mobile phone. Once you have the Alexa App, your phone acts just as a smartspeaker would and you can ask all of the above questions getting an identical audio experience.

How easy do you find it to recall a conversation? Personally, I can remember quite clearly what I said over a two week period but overtime as human beings we forget. This is the forgetting curve.

In any job within a business having the correct information to hand in a timely fashion can help improve business decision making and competency on the job. This is why I am excited by the recent launch of the Sound Branch Skill for Amazon Alexa and the Google Action for Google Home devices.

How often have you asked Alexa a question to hear the reply “Sorry I don’t know that.” Therein lies the opportunity. Sound Branch allows you to search voice notes with your voice. A combination of elastic search and short form – 10 to 20 second voice data means you can instantly recall and playback important conversations from the past.

For example, you might want to search a private conversation between yourself and a colleague. Or perhaps you have a group discussion in your team and you want to remember who said what. This is all possible because audio clips are short in length and all the audio is transcribed to text with 96% accuracy. This level of accuracy is equal to that of human beings, which means voice search is now a reality.

Now imagine something as boring as the car manual and trying to figure out how to change the oil. Instead of linking to the page in the printed manual, how about voice searching with the Alexa Skill?

Classically in business, they talk about the 30, 60, 90 day plan. What if you could recall all your conversations and play them back from 30, 60 and 90 days. Would this make you more effective in your job? Would this mean you would be less susceptible to forgetting stuff? The ultra organised will say of course not. However listening not only to your own voice but that of other people’s and playing this back several times leads to greater understanding. You might have written something down but got the meaning wrong and therefore misinterpreted the information. The ability to instantly play back and repeat a conversation gives clarity, accountability and greater ownership. Overall it means the task in hand is more likely to get completed whilst keeping all parties happy along the way.

Does voice search mean miscommunication will be eliminated? Not at all but it does give us a greater chance of understanding each other and getting along better. All of this leads to a conducive workforce, a happy workforce and a more productive team. As we all know happy and productive teams tend to win more often!

So a final thought, instead of the printed meeting agenda, you could play back your teams conversations. Your meeting would run smoother as people would not have to think about what they had said, they could simply listen. By reducing the load on your brains, you can utilize them on the more important issues of what next and what is the decision.