Why I am a fan of these 5 Voice First Companies

I have immense respect for startups -- those that make it big, those that struggle and barely stay alive and push on to survive, and those that fail and move on to the next challenge. I respect their courage (Aristotle said that courage is the most important virtue because "it allows us to act on our values rather than our impulses"), their work ethic, their capacity and impulse to dream, their fierce sense of independence, their attraction to truth, and their intemperate disgust with hackneyed, careless, self-serving, brainless, boring falsehood. When I meet someone who has launched a startup or who works at a startup, I straighten up with respect and listen to what they have to say. Is there anything more exhilarating than engaging a dreamer who is pushing to make their dream come true, is full of earnest hope, or is struggling mightily against dark desperation? No, there isn't -- because such a person is fully alive, and what is more humbling than bumping against life fully incarnate?

So: any and all startups out there, in #voicefirst and beyond, have my deepest respect and admiration.

But given my immediate current interests and my thoughts and ideas about where the biggest bang for the buck lives now for #voicefirst, I find these five specific startups in #voicefirst especially exciting.

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• What they do: Sonic Branding creation and production.
• Why I like them: They have been doing this for a while and so they understand voice and audio deeply (which not a lot of people can claim that they do just yet) and deliver clear real value. If your company needs to establish an audio brand (your own music, audio chimes, and much more), Audiobrain are your people. I also love the earnest evangelism from their Founder and CEO, Audrey Arbeeny.
• Founded by: Audrey Arbeeny.

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• What they do: Mainly, audio content search. They enable you to find snippets of audio in the exploding sea of audio out there. Here is what they say about themselves on their website: "Audioburst listens, distills, segments, and indexes millions of minutes of content from talk radio and podcasts every day."
• Why I like them: They have a clear mission: enable users to find what they are looking for in audio. Their mission is exciting and meaningful and it will only increase in importance and meaning with time.
• Founded by: Amir Hirsh.

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• What they do: They provide tools to help companies and organizations rapidly design and prototype conversational interactions.
• Why I like them: They are a heads-down company, doing what they want to do very well. They understand their role and mission in the value chain and are sticking to doing it right. They are also evangelizing something near and dear to my heart: how people outside of the usual disciplines can help take this emerging interface (conversational voice) to the next level. Check out this webinar as an example.
• Founded by: Obaid Ahmed.

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• What they do: They work with media companies and advertisers to help them create and deliver audio content.
• Why I like them: They have a clear and very focused mission and the value is clear -- enable media companies and beyond to audio enable their content. They have already engaged with massive brands and have proven that they can deliver true value.
• Founded by: Will Mayo.

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• What they do: They help content providers deliver audio content. As they put it in on their website, "Trinity enables publishers & content providers to join the audio revolution by turning readers into listeners."
• Why I like them: Again, I love the focus in the mission. I also love their evangelism, led by their CEO, Ron Jaworski.
• Founded by: Ron Jaworski.