Having worked with local organisations including the AFL and The Australian through to international podcast giants including HowStuffWorks and WYNC Studios, you could be forgiven for thinking Sydney startup Whooshkaa is powered by a team of 50.
As it turns out, the audio on-demand company, which helps creators and brand produce, share, and monetise content, is run by just about a dozen staffers.
Small but mighty, the company has expanded its offering significantly since it first launched in January 2016, with chief technology officer Semin Nurkic talking Startup Daily through Whooshkaa’s growth at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas last week.
“At the core of Whooshkaa is an engine that can deliver dynamic audio content to any channel that can play digital audio. Podcasting was a great early way to commercialise content, by inserting dynamic ads so listeners will get different ads based on location, for example,” he explained.
The company soon then realised that if it could swap out ads, it could swap out segments to deliver more personalised podcasting and allow creators to repurpose content; for example, a segment of a 2016 podcast discussing the US election could be swapped out, updating the podcast and giving it current relevance.
But there’s more to Whooshkaa than just podcasting, Nurkic said.
