{"id":37560,"date":"2023-10-20T14:50:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/this-aussie-startup-wants-to-stop-drivers-looking-at-their-phone-while-theyre-behind-the-wheel-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:50:51","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:50:51","slug":"this-aussie-startup-wants-to-stop-drivers-looking-at-their-phone-while-theyre-behind-the-wheel-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/this-aussie-startup-wants-to-stop-drivers-looking-at-their-phone-while-theyre-behind-the-wheel-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"This Aussie startup wants to stop drivers looking at their phone while they\u2019re behind the wheel – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Australian voice recognition startup is looking to reduce driver distractions and make it safer for people to receive calls and texts while behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

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Otto, which recently graduated from the National Roads and Motorists\u2019 Association\u2019s first accelerator program, allows users to take calls or reply to text messages without touching their phone.<\/p>\n

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As part of the initiative the startup snapped up $30,000 in funding in exchange for a 10% stake in the company.<\/p>\n

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Founder Alex Kain told StartupSmart <\/i>the idea for the software initially came from being \u201cbrought up on shows like Kn<\/em>ight Rider<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe investigated the distracted driver scene and understood that even though 98% of people agree texting while driving is dangerous, 74% of people continue to do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat created the idea that there\u2019s a gap in the market. While there\u2019s Siri and Google Maps, they are lacking in some areas to be a completely intuitive solution for when you\u2019re behind the wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kain says after entering the accelerator program he decided to scale back Otto\u2019s features and just focus on messaging and calls in order to \u201cfill the gaps\u201d in other voice recognition features.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you ask Siri to read out your text messages, unless one has just come in it says there are no new messages,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo it won\u2019t go back and read your old messages. And with Google when you verbally dictate a text message it won\u2019t verbally confirm what it\u2019s going to send before it sends it. That\u2019s fine when you\u2019re looking at your phone, but not when you\u2019re doing 100 kilometres on a freeway.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While the NRMA accelerator program has officially come to an end, Kain says it is just the beginning of the startup\u2019s next stage of growth. The focus now will be on getting the product to market and scaling quickly.<\/p>\n

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When asked whether the accelerator program was useful, Kain says it was very helpful in validating the product and figuring out a market fit \u2013 something that early-stage startups often need a lot of help with.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat it did was exactly as the name says \u2013 it accelerated our entry into the market,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut it is has also enabled us to get the basics right, so really validating our product and all the assumptions we had. It also enabled us to find specific niches\u2026 we\u2019ve been able to target some enterprise customers and other niches such as motorcyclists.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? <\/i>Let us know<\/i><\/a>. Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Australian voice recognition startup is looking to reduce driver distractions and make it safer for people to receive calls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}