#StartupsEverywhere profile: Jason Toevs, Founder and CTO, Quicc
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.
Making Video Captions Work for Content Creators
Wichita—the birthplace of Pizza Hut and White Castle—has long been a hub of entrepreneurial activity in central Kansas. One of the exciting tech startups that calls the Emerald City home is Quicc, a video transcription tool that lets video creators easily caption their content. We recently spoke with Jason Toevs—Quicc’s founder and CTO—to learn more about the platform’s video captioning tool, Wichita’s startup community, and how the company is working to protect user data across the world.
Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background?
I grew up in a farming community in Kansas, with family ties to the state and to Australia. I initially wanted to be a teacher but later pursued a degree in mathematics, before starting my startup career.
Tell us more about Quicc. What is the work that you’re doing, and how does your video transcription tool work?
Quicc is a startup that morphed from what was formerly Alyss Analytics. Our platform is based around the core belief that everyone has a story to tell and that it deserves to be heard. We believe that creators naturally are discovering who they are and are creating powerful products, stories, brands, companies, etc. In a world where the audio is off by default, if these stories aren't HEARD (with captions), then ultimately these creators will disappear.
Facebook conducted a study where they found that roughly 83 percent of all of their videos were viewed without audio. But I view this statistic a bit differently, since only 17 percent of videos are viewed with audio. This signals the importance of closed captioning services and the value that it can create.
A local election used Quicc to provide closed captioning for political ads. When we contacted the local politician who used Quicc for this purpose, we learned that our service boosted engagement within that local election and increased markedly the number of people voting for that particular candidate, which was much higher than information had previously suggested.
Can you tell us about some of the ways in which you’re using your automatic captioning technology to help hearing-impaired communities in Kansas?
A lot of videos that are posted may or may not have closed captioning due to the ‘high level of friction’ created by current technological capabilities—such as platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn—locating an SubRip Subtitle (SRT) file which recalls closed captioning for the video at hand. The problem is that these files are not always present, and closed captioning may either not be available or is poorly executed.
Quicc presents the opportunity to change that. Through our technology, Quicc burns captions directly into each video as a permanent feature that is always available. Essentially, the closed captioning and the video become one. This allows people producing and editing videos for upload—as well as those viewing them—to easily pause the video and access the information available in the closed captioning. This capability has addressed an underlying issue that is important to us—access for a greater number of people.
Quicc is especially attentive to the value of our services to the deaf and hard of hearing, providing them an opportunity to participate to a greater extent in society and in the wider economy. Quicc has a multitude of uses across many industries.
The use of video platforms is exploding as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and a growing reliance on online conferencing tools. What kind of growth have you seen recently?
Quicc has seen a marked increase in video uploads to our platform recently. Within the last month, we’ve seen an increase of roughly 7,000 percent. Concerns about the coronavirus and quarantine procedures have highlighted the notion that human connection is a core desire in our society. People are continuously looking for new ways to connect online.
One of the challenges we face is that in the face of a growing need for online platforms for video content, how do we stand out? One of the ways is through continuing innovation, like the new “Quicc Search” feature that will launch in the next 3-4 months. This will allow our users to search within a video using a phrase to find a specific point in the video that corresponds to it.
The high growth is pushing us to ensure that we have the structural support in place to meet the increased demand. Part of that growth has been due in part to increased usage of services by larger tech companies such as Adobe and Blizzard, causing Quicc to reexamine and expand our pricing model options for large quantities of video time by particular clients.
What makes Wichita’s startup and tech community so unique?
Historically, we here in Wichita have been entrepreneurs. It has been a town off the beaten path, one with a rich history of creating opportunities. Big companies have come out of this area, including Koch Industries, Textron, the aerospace industry, and technology companies. The Douglas Design District in the downtown area has been a hub of innovation recently, with a great deal of resources helping to make it a vibrant environment for entrepreneurs. While there is a great deal of money coming into the area, it is still in its early days, but it is still up-and-coming.
Are there any startup-related policy issues that you believe should receive more attention from state and federal lawmakers?
One area that has been extremely impactful to Quicc and to other local startups here in Kansas has been tax credits aimed at increasing investment in startups. The Kansas tax credit, which is 50 percent, has helped tremendously. It encourages early investors and first-time investors to look towards startups, and also mitigates their tax burden.
I know your operations are based in Wichita and in London. Have you had any issues navigating differing U.S. and EU laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation or the California Consumer Privacy Act?
Quicc has set up a small London office and is already a global company, doing business in more than 88 countries. However, learning the ropes with respect to international markets is challenging. Dealing with things like value-added taxes, complying with the various laws of other countries, and so on.
This experience has instilled in us the need to responsibility protect data and best practices. Complying with data privacy is a challenge, so for some of our business—such as payment processing—we use another company. This helps us mitigate some of the duties placed on companies doing business in places under the GDPR, and also now in the U.S. with CCPA. We are very aware of data security and privacy issues, but we realize that—as far as startups and our financial resources are concerned—it is virtually impossible to be fully compliant worldwide. We choose to focus on the core intent and protect our users data so they retain control and transparency.
What is your goal for Quicc moving forward?
Our chief metric for success is the amount of time that we can save individuals and companies with our platform’s services. We have saved over 1,500,000 minutes for content creators using our platform for their video upload needs.
Our goal is to eventually save over 1,000,000,000 minutes of time for our users so they can devote that time to being more productive. It’s important for content creators to save as much time as they can, because it has a big impact on their daily lives and their work/life balance. Additionally, it is important because time saved on content creation frees up time to spur greater creativity for other projects.
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.
