We love podcasts. And a lot of other people agree.

Correspondingly, the interest from advertisers has also grown

There is some fantastic content being produced by creators and thinkers.

You can listen to podcasts for entertainment and education.

They’re a great way to take a break from staring at the screen.

Take a walk by yourself

Listen to podcasts on your commute

And yeah, sometimes even in the background while at work — for some people having a human voice in the background helps us concentrate.

Podcasts have become a constant companion in our lives through smartphones.

In spite of all this, there is very little difference between the modern day podcast industry and radio from the 70’s.

As a Consumer

There are so many podcast apps, and yet all of them fail in one way or the other. If the UX/UI for one thing is good in another app, it fails in other ways. A podcast app is still limited to being just an audio player.

I have very little control over organizing and bookmarking the content that I do like and would like to listen to.

There are very limited options to share my listening preferences and opinions about the podcast I’m listening to

I can’t pay for premium content directly. I have to go through other donation services and set up the RSS feed accordingly

The marketing is not tailored to me. I either pay for ad free content or sit through ads being narrated by creators (which are not bad, but there must be a better way)

As a Podcast Creator

I don’t have a direct connection to my audience — engaging with them, learning about what was liked and why and which part.

I can recommend products to consumers but have to stop there

I have to stick to creating static audio files and basic narrative styles

Its really hard to get in front of the right audience without huge marketing costs

Its really hard to make money sustainably and try to create novel content

As an Advertiser

I still have to trust the CPM

Was my ad really heard?

For all of these — we’ve created Aika.

One step at a time, with your support, we intend to solve all of these problems. Our first feature in this journey is

Clipping

We want to help listeners organize their learnings and observations.

Think Evernote or Medium, but for podcasts.

This also allows listeners to share their thoughts along with only a specific part of the podcasts.

We love 3 hour long episodes, but many don’t and that’s ok.

Here’s a sneak peek of the feature

Note — this feature is entirely free. We won’t be making any money from podcasts without explicit content and partnering with podcast creators. That is our core mission.

If you’re a podcast creator, we’d love to hear from you!

Tweet to us @aika_app or write to us directly — support@tinkrinc.co

Are you a huge podcast fan? We’d love to build the product together with you!

Do you love podcasts? What do you think of the idea? Would you like to help us beta test the product? Please sign up at getaika.co — let’s build the best podcast app possible together!

Stay tuned for more updates!