What is HelloOtter?
HelloOtter is a video conferencing platform built for fun, for everything outside of office and school zooms. Video chat with live otters (yes, live ones, thanks to our partnership with Georgia Aquarium), group backgrounds that take you from an outdoor cafe in Rome to a nightclub in Paris, virtual gifting, and AR: filters are HelloOtter's biggest hit, from beauty filters to filters designed just for kids.
The current industry landscape
There is no other video conferencing application designed specifically for fun. Zoom, Teams, Skype, and Google Meet were built for work, and because of the pandemic, were adopted for work and play. Consumers want and need a new space to have fun virtually. In the real world, there is a separation between work and play, and virtually there isn't. Houseparty is a virtual world that facilitates fun but it only allows up to 8 people in a video chat. HelloOtter enables up to 75 participants to chat as long as they want. It also does not record, store or collect any data, including watching people video chat - HelloOtter didn't build the products into its actual system.
The creation of HelloOtter
Michelle Rosaline is a first generation American and female founder of a video conferencing platform with no tech background. She worked in New York City at The Daily Beast, Digitas, NBC, ABC and AOL, prior to having kids and launching her own executive search firm in 2018, because she was bored at home nursing. When the pandemic hit, preschool, happy hours and work calls all transitioned to Zoom or Google Meet, and Michelle found herself wondering why everyone was trapped in the same box for work and play. So, she built a new one. Michelle saw it as a contributing factor to mental health.
Customer experience
A college student shared that HelloOtter was helping her mental health. This was truly profound. She shared that she was always on zoom for school, and then would go on zoom to speak to her friends across the country and her parents, and it just felt all the same. Like a broken record on repeat, and her depression and suicidal thoughts spiraled out of control. She learned about HelloOtter and started using it to talk with her friends. Besides it being a completely different visual experience, she had fun (much to her surprise) playing with the filters and sending virtual coffee and muffins to her girlfriends. She also told the HelloOtter team that watching the otters eat breakfast and go up and down the slides made her smile. That's enough for Michelle. This is what HelloOtter is all about - helping friends and family connect again, and laugh. It is all about play and bringing it out of everyone. Even grandmothers love this thing because their grandkids want to talk to them so they can send toys back and forth.
HelloOtter has taken it a step further and partnered with a local library with an AZA accredited zoo/aquarium in their area to host free virtual events for kids and parents to learn about animals. The event is free for everyone, and guests are encouraged to donate to their local library and/or zoo.
Check it out: http://hellootter.com/
Follow on social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hello.otter/