#StartupsEverywhere profile: Derek Omori, Director of Operations, Blerp
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
A Platform to Create and Share Audio Clips with Online Users
Blerp, a Salt Lake City-based search platform, was started by three college friends as a side project while attending the University of Utah. Today, the audio sharing service is integrated with a number of large-scale social media and streaming platforms—including iOS, Android, Twitch, and Discord—and provides users with the opportunity to create and share audio clips with their friends and other online users. We recently had the chance to speak with Derek Omori, Blerp’s Co-Founder and Director of Operations, to learn more about the app, the Salt Lake City startup ecosystem, and how the company is working to moderate and share audio content in a fun and family-friendly manner.
Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background?
I’ve worked in marketing and business development much of my career. I previously worked in channel management for companies like Microsoft, IBM and Symantec. I later worked for a travel tech startup Peek.com. It was my first experience in B2C as a marketplace for tours and activities, and I helped grow the depth of inventory work with API partners and market to new customers.
Tell us more about Blerp. What is the work that you’re doing?
Blerp is the search engine for soundbites. We make it easy to discover, create, and share sound bites to your messaging apps, live streams, and voice assistants.
As we were creating a search platform for sound, the first problem we had was managing the supply while simultaneously generating traffic and demand. Initially it was pretty difficult to start building up and curating our database of soundbites. We used a number of creative solutions to make sure that we could find the most relevant and shareable content. We’ve been blessed to have a passionate user base that have created over 70,000 sound bites.
Our vision is to make it easy to quickly find the audio bite you’re looking for and share it. This means having the content you’re looking for or helping you create it and then being plugged into the services you want to share them to. Every Internet platform has its own unique set of difficulties in terms of getting listed and integrated. Twitch is an interesting one, as they have their own extension store that third-party providers like ourselves are able to plug into and share blerps through. However, for new places or more established places like Slack, we had to get whitelisted and now build into their API. They’re multi-level, and we’re really only able to make them through our direct connections and referrals. We look forward for the opportunity to integrate into more livestream platforms like Mixer, Youtube Live, Snapchat and more.
What sets your soundboard app apart from other companies?
Users can create and organize their own content so they can easily and quickly share sound bites. In this way we’re like the Pinterest of sound bites. We’ve created intuitive clipping tools so users can create a sound bite from multiple sources like YouTube, SoundCloud, and Twitch.
A lot of the audio on your platform is user-uploaded. Do you have any content moderation concerns about reviewing what users upload, and are there any approaches you’ve taken that other similar content platforms could use?
Our content and our brand are integral, and we strive to deliver a family-friendly experience to everyone. With everything that we do, we hope to provide an experience that is safe and that allows users to find the blerp they want to enhance a moment.
We have several moderating opportunities, where we rate the clips PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. With our streamer integration, for instance, we have streamers of all different types and demographics that are playing video games and chatting with their viewers, or even eating food. We empower the creators with tools to set their own channel rating for their audience. If they set their channel to PG, their viewers are only able to access or play the PG-rated soundbites. If they are an older audience, then they can set it to PG-13. We see the way we organize and categorize sound bites as a powerful tool for moderation, especially as we look to further our integrations with voice assistants in the future.
From a long-term solution, as we continue to grow the library, we’re working on audio-detection tools that will help us detect who’s saying it, what context they are saying it in, and where the content originated. This should allow us to quickly rate and categorize blerps, and allow us to automatically detect potentially harmful or unfriendly content.
What makes Salt Lake City’s tech startup community unique?
I worked in Silicon Valley for about 4 years, so I think I can compare the two in that respect. In Salt Lake City, from an investment and talent standpoint, we’re probably about behind Silicon Valley.
From an ecosystem standpoint though, everyone you talk to has an entrepreneurial mindset. You can’t tell people about your business without them telling you about theirs, what idea they have been working on, or how they are helping innovate within the company they are working in. Utah is kind of laughed at for being the center place of multi-level marketing schemes and an unlimited supply of summer salesmen, but it derives from a mindset of everyone having a side hustle and something they are working on to better themselves and their families. It’s a part of the culture of Utah that makes it a great place to start a business, and that’s pretty unique.
As a community we’re growing, and it feels like new funds are being opened like the Silicon Slopes Venture fund announced at the tech summit a few weeks ago. However, as a B2C company, it’s been difficult for us to find mentors or investors that have experience and interest in growing a consumer platform. In general, Utah investors made their money on SaaS and real estate, which have pretty straightforward revenue benchmarks. As a result, it’s been a challenge raising money in Utah when there are less dollars to invest in seed companies, and less ability for investors to manage risk when revenue drivers don’t kick in for several years.
What startup-related policy issues do you believe should receive more attention from state and federal policymakers?
I think there should be more incentives for startups to stay and grow in the state. Not just for medium-size startups, but for small teams like us. This could be subsidized office space, tax write-offs, or discounted legal fees. We’d love to stay in Utah and plan to do so but it’s looking more and more likely we’ll need to pitch in Silicon Valley to find a lead investor that knows our space and make the introductions we need for future integrations.
What is your goal for Blerp moving forward?
We’re currently raising our seed round to help us reach our next milestone of one million users, hire two new developers, and build out our next integrations. We’re currently at 140,000 users and growing at 15 percent month-over-month, so we’re excited to take it to the next level.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email edward@engine.is.
