AiC Episode 77

In this episode, Teri welcomes Braden Ream back to the show. Braden is the CEO and Co-Founder of Voiceflow.

Welcome, Braden Ream!

Voiceflow is one of the best platforms when it comes to developing, designing and prototyping Alexa skills and Google actions. He comes back to talk about some tremendously exciting major developments at Voiceflow.

Voiceflow

  • They started the company about a year ago.
  • They were looking for different ideas in the voice space and had one of the original Alexa Dots.
  • They started to experiment by starting with voice shopping, but it didn’t go anywhere.
  • They eventually settled on doing interactive children stories.
  • They looked into different platforms that they could use to create the stories. They settled on StoryLine (which became Invocable) and it was very good. They used Invocable for some time, but they eventually hit a features cap. They tried other platforms, but none of them suited what they wanted to build, so they decided to build their own platform.
  • As they started to build the Storyflow Alexa skill, it became very popular, especially in Canada.
  • In 2018, they had the idea of creating “The YouTube of Voice” where authors would come on to the platform to build their own interactive stories that would be on Storyflow.
  • The authors wanted to to use the platform to build their own Alexa skills, which prompted Braden and his team to shift their focus and they changed the company’s name from Storyflow to Voiceflow.
  • Storyflow is still the number one Alexa skill in Canada.

Voiceflow’s Partnership with Invocable

  • Voiceflow has been focusing on friendly competition because the voice space is not a “winner takes all” kind of environment.
  • Voiceflow partnered with Invocable and started with managing the Invocable platform with plans to integrate more and more with time. Invocable’s features are being integrated into Voiceflow to ensure a better and more advanced Voiceflow for the benefit of users from both platforms.

Voiceflow Grows An Update with Braden Ream

The Voiceflow Community

  • Universally followed voice design best practices haven’t been established yet, so building a community is very important.
  • They value their communities so much because they offer great feedback and support in making their platform better.
  • They plan on integrating and expanding both the Voiceflow and Invocable communities.
  • They have always been talking to their users and building the product, which builds intimacy with the community.
  • The most important thing to them is product and community, rather than just running the company.

Investors

  • They have raised enough money to sustain their team.
  • In their recent round of funding, their pitch was based on the huge future potential of voice as an interface.

Feature Updates

  • They have added many new features since the last time Braden was on the show.
  • Voiceflow is now monetized. They do believe in allowing people to experiment with the platform and so they do have free trials to allow people to experience using Voiceflow.
  • They have been working on laying down a scalable business model that is fair to their users and allows them to remain as a company.
  • They have been developing a collaboration feature that will allow users to share projects and be able to collaborate. This feature is very valuable to professional users because they usually work in teams of 2+ people.
  • Google integration: They figured out a way to do cross-platform development for Alexa and Google simultaneously. When a user is building on Voiceflow, they are actually building for both Alexa and Google at the same time. This has led to a ton of actions being published through Voiceflow. In the future, they will work towards integrating other platforms like Siri and Bixby.
  • They have done a lot of integrations like the ability to connect to third-party services without having to use APIs.
  • They just added GoogleSheets, which means that one can connect to a Google sheet and post data without having to use APIs. This was a great upgrade for non-technical users. It has been widely adopted.
  • They have also added a system for combined blocks which will ensure better design capabilities for users and developers.
  • There are many more new features under the hood!

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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