In this episode, Roger talks with Nick Schwab. Nick is very well known for his Sleep Sounds voice experiences and is the founder and CEO of Sleep Jar/Invoked Apps.

We talk about Nick's early adventures with voice and how a noisy upstairs neighbor lead him to create sleep sounds for his personal use. He then released it to the skills store and then magic happened as it became and is today, one of the most successful voice experiences on Bixby, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Nick discusses how he comes up with new sounds and the critical importance of listening to customers and how one turns a complaint into a loyal customer.

Nick shares some of the tech considerations behind streaming petabytes of data monthly. Various audio formats are cached differently on different platforms and there is a science to optimizing this.

We have a broad discussion about success and challenges in voice. We discuss how critical marketing is and how the large voice platforms could open up marketing opportunities for 3rd party developers.

Nick gives his thoughts on the state of the voice industry, advancements that should happen in the short term, and shares his longer-term vision for where voice is going.

Links from the show:
Nick Schwab - Twitter: @nickschwab
Nick Schwab - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickschwab/
Nick Schwab - nick@invokedapps.com
Sleep Jar - https://sleepjar.com/

All Bixby Developers Chat Episodes available at:
bixbydev.buzzsprout.com/

Guests: Nick Schwab
Carl is the creator of the Sleep Sounds voice experiences and the founder and CEO of Sleep Jar

Host:
Roger Kibbe (@rogerkibbe) is a senior developer evangelist for Viv Labs/Samsung

More about Bixby
Samsung Bixby is a next-generation, AI platform that enables developers to build rich voice and conversational AI experiences for the Bixby Marketplace, and Bixby devices including phones, watches, televisions, smart appliances, and more.
Bixby Developers Homepage - https://bixbydevelopers.com/
Bixby Developers Github - https://github.com/bixbydevelopers
Bixby Developers YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/bixbydevelopers
Bixby Developers Twitter - twitter.com/BixbyDevelopers
Bixby Developers Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/BixbyDevelopers/
Bixby Developer News/Blogs - https://bixby.developer.samsung.com/

Support the show (https://www.bixbydevelopers.com)

We catch up with 4 Amazon Alexa Champions to discuss the then, now and future of the Alexa skills ecosystem and the voice first community.

Presented by Readspeaker

Readspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.

Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.

They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.

If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.

In this episode

The Alexa Champions program is an honorary award given by Amazon in recognition of great service to the Alexa platform and ecosystem.

All four of today's guests are Alexa Champions, and they take us for a walk down memory lane and discuss:

• what the community and the voice first ecosystem was like when they first started
• what made them start building Alexa skills
• the signs that signalled things were going well
• the current state of the voice first community
• what they wish for in future

Steve Arkonovich and Eric Olsen were two of the very first Alexa Champions. Nick Schwab followed in the next batch, then Tim Kahle.

Steve was building skills before the Alexa Skills Kit even existed! Over time, he's built up a rack of skills published under his company, Philosophical Creations. His skill, Big Sky, is one of the most used skills on the platforms and is to this day a sterling example of a great voice first and multi modal experience.

Some of Eric Olsen's first skills were Complibot and Insultibot, skills that generate random compliments and insults for users every day. Eric is the founder of 3PO Labs has always been a keen member of the voice community and is one of the most active members in the Alexa Slack channel, offering help, advice and guidance for budding skill developers.

Nick Schwab is the founder of Invoked apps and runs some of the most used skills on the Alexa platform. His suite of sleep sounds bring in around 300,000 users per day, a side hustle that famously earned him enough money to buy a Tesla.

Tim Kahle is the co-founder of 169 Labs, based out of Germany and the organiser of the All About Voice conference. Tim and co-founder, Dominik Meißner, won an Alexa hackathon in Germany in 2016, released a series of skills and founded one of the leading voice agencies in Germany off the back of it. The All About Voice conference in Munich is the leading voice first event in Europe.

Links

Steve on Twitter and LinkedIn

Eric on Twitter and LinkedIn

Nick on Twitter and LinkedIn

Tim on Twitter and LinkedIn

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Nick Schwab founded Invoked apps after building his first three Alexa skills in 2016. Within six months he had more sounds and was streaming 1 TB of data per day. Fifteen months later he has 41 sound skills plus a couple of games on both Alexa and Google Assistant that collectively generate 18 TB of streaming data each day. Invoked Apps also has the distinction of publishing the Alexa skill with the most user reviews, Ambient Sounds: Thunderstorm Sounds. That skill has over 13,700 user reviews at an average rating of 4.9 stars. 

In the interview, Nick discusses the product strategy behind single invocation skills and aggregation skills and how he has had to take a different approach on Google Assistant. He also discusses his experience in 2017 with Alexa skill cross promotion and advertising and the current Amazon developer rewards program. There is a lot to learn about the state of Alexa skills today and how the system works differently on Amazon and Google. You will definitely learn a lot. 

The first in a new series called 'Unscripted' where we have off-the-cuff, unscripted conversations with voice first leaders and practitioners to get acquainted, hear their story and find out how they do what they do.

In this first episode, we speak to Alexa Skill developing veteran, Nick Schwab, founder of Invoked Apps, about:

• User adoption of his Ambient Sound skills (his daily usage is huge!)
• In skill purchasing and his conversation rates (surprising!)
• Developer rewards and how it all works
• How much it costs to host a successful skill
• Why now is the time for Europe to invest heavily
• The discoverability crisis and what's changed

Follow Nick Schwab on Twitter

Check out Invoked Apps

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Just as independent developers helped drive smartphone usage with apps for iOS and Android, they are also key to keeping consumers engaged on smart speakers and other voice platforms. Nick Schwab is one of the earliest developers on both the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant platforms. His top three skills on Amazon have over 1,000 reviews when most applications struggle to receive five. And, he is sending out over 7TB of streaming data daily to his large user base. Learn more about how developers are viewing the voice platforms and the future of voice applications from a creator's perspective.