German Startup Bodalgo talks up their Voice Over Marketplace

by Startacus Admin

Bodalgo is a two-sided marketplace startup from Germany. Their marketplace aims to connect clients to the perfect voice over talent and for voice talents to find the perfect jobs. We spoke to Founder Armin Hierstetter to find out more about Bodalgo, how they aim to beat their competitor, scale globally, and his impression of the UK Tech Startup scene post BREXIT...

Hi there Armin / Bodalgo, tell us more about Bodalgo - give us your pitch!

bodalgo is a fast, easy and free way to find the perfect voice for your commercials, tutorials, product clips etc. Post your project for free and receive relevant auditions in minutes - at no cost at all. bodalgo is super easy and fun to use. Over 5.500 professionally trained voice over talents make sure that your project will just sound perfect.

Talk us through some of the key features and benefits for both the clients looking for voice over talent and the talent itself? 

Because most of the talents have their own studio, there is no need to book an external one. A huge cost saving! Also: Many times, clients receive auditions with their script recorded. This makes it wonderfully easy to identify the perfect voice. With bodalgoCall, they can even listen to and direct the recording live in their browser – no extra hardware or software needed. 

How does the business model work - do you charge the clients a percentage of the connection fee?

No, the clients don’t pay anything. Ever. The business model: In order to be able to audition for projects posted, voice talents need to be a premium member. The membership fee is €24.90 per month and allows unlimited auditions. There are no further commissions or fees, only the membership fee.

You are based in Germany - currently how much of your audience and client base comes from outside of Germany itself?

60 per cent of bodalgo's clients come from outside of Germany already. A pretty healthy start.

How will you look to scale this into a Global platform of choice for the Voice Overs and Voice Talent industry and how will you beat the competition! 

bodalgo has always tried to grow "biological" by adding relevant features and enhancing existing ones. Also, bodalgo is the only platform in the market that offers multiple UI languages. bodalgo can be used in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. No other voice over platform is that versatile. 

There's been lots of talk in the UK over the last 6 months about the impact that the UK referendum 'BREXIT' vote may have on the UK Startup scene. Being based in Germany, what is your impression of the UK Tech Startup scene and how might BREXIT impact on your own ability to deal with UK clients and freelancers?

I have never been a fan of all those "A BREXIT will be the end of UK". I have always thought this was pure scaremongering. The road might be bumpy at first, yes, but I do not see any major issues. At the end of the process I would not be surprised if many UK citizens that have not voted for the BREXIT, look at the result and think: "Not too shabby."

Do you have any wise tips for fellow entrepreneurs, who are also looking to build and grow a two-sided marketplace Startup?

Watch out where to spend your marketing budget. bodalgo NEVER has and NEVER will market to voice talents. That might come as a surprise as it's the talents that bodalgo's business model relies on. BUT: The key driver of the marketplace are the clients posting jobs.

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• #german
• #germany
• #german startup
• #brexit
• #b
• #voice overs
• #voice talent
• #two-sided market place

Published on: 18th January 2017