The idea for bodalgo came to founder and CEO Armin Hierstetter (born 1970) in 2004. Back then, he applied to numerous voice talent agencies in Germany. Not a single one replied (rightfully so) as the qualifications of the aspiring "talent" had been sub-par.
bodalgo's CEO Armin Hierstetter
In the years that followed – Hierstetter meanwhile had proper voice acting coaching and established himself as a voice talent – the idea of developing an online casting site for the German-speaking market never left him. Finally, in September of 2007, the sting sat too deep in the comfort zone, and Hierstetter, who had learned programming as a kid, began developing bodalgo.
What does "bodalgo" mean?
At the beginning of the development, the platform did not have a name. The obvious choices as voices.xxx, voice.xxx, voiceover.xxx had been taken a long time ago. To avoid a (cost-)intensive trademark research, Armin Hierstetter googled words he made up on the fly and was surprised to see that countless results appeared with everything he threw at the search engine. Except for one term: "bodalgo" did not lead to any hits.
Design from the Internet Middle Ages: bodalgo at the start of 2008
Right from its launch on January 8th, 2008, the platform developed rapidly: the German-language focus disappeared that same year, and the business became more and more international. While there were initially just a few dozen German voice actors, bodalgo features 12,173 voice over talents today in more than 80 languages. 62,896 projects have been posted by bodalgo's clients – ranging from small enterprises to stock market index heavyweights.
Today, bodalgo is one of the world's most respected online casting platforms, won the award for best "Voice Job Site Of The Year" at the London One Voice Awards six times in a row since 2018!
To be continued…