Jess Williams is co-founder of Opearlo, a company that started out building Alexa skills for Unilever and other brands, but switched to building games and productivity skills for consumers in 2017. She goes into the story behind switching to become a product company focused around a single skill called LifeBot, designed to be your personal voice assistant concierge with many features, and then changing again to building multiple single-feature skills. Two years since founding Opearlo, the latest approach is working. The company's Alexa skills are getting strong consumer usage, the founders like the focus on a product business and they are even generating revenue. During our conversation Jess goes into detail on strategies for Alexa skill discovery. She discusses how the company launched the "Guess My Name," skill and the impact different approaches have on driving new consumer usage and capturing Amazon's attention. Yes, she reveals some numbers. This is a can't-miss episode from someone who started in the space in 2015 when Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) was first released and is open to sharing what she and her co-founder learned along the way. Enjoy.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related