Kara Carlson tech writer on Aftershokz headphone co relocating to Austin

Aftershokz, a New York-based company that makes premium sports headphones, is relocating its headquarters to Austin with plans to add dozens of employees. The company specializes in making headphones geared for active lifestyles using bone conduction technology. It is moving from Syracuse, where it was founded in 2011 with the idea of bringing the technology, originally designed for the Chinese military, to the American commercial headphones market. Kimberly Fassetta, AfterShokz chief marketing officer, said she hopes the move to Austin will help continue the company’s growth. She said Austin’s energy, culture, talent pool and community of technology and active lifestyle brands were draws. “It’s a tech hub, it’s an outdoor lifestyle city and there’s lots of growth here and lots of talent,” said Jayme Schwartz, the company’s vice president of marketing and communications. “We want to take the next step in our growth and be a part of that.” Bone conduction headphones sit on the outside of a user’s ears and absorb sound by vibrations through the inner ear rather than through the eardrums like traditional headphones. The idea is to increase safety and improve communications in active environments, such as while running or biking, by allowing the user to hear both the headphone sounds and other sounds around them. “We’re all about staying connected to music and phone calls, but also your general surroundings,” Schwartz said. AfterShokz owns more than 200 patents for the technology, making it the only true bone conduction headphone maker in the American market. It sold more than 1.5 million headphones last year between Amazon and local retail stores, according to the company. AfterShokz has been moving employees into Austin for the past few weeks, temporarily working out of WeWork University Park, but the company has plans to take up two floors of Domain Place by March 2020. Eleven, or about a quarter of its Syracuse employees, will remain with the company through the relocation. The company plans to scale up to 40 employees with local hires by the end of the year. By 2021 the goal is to grow to 85 employees. Most of the positions hired will be in sales, marketing and customer support positions. “We are looking for Austin local talent,” Fassetta said. “Already the people that we’ve met and talked to have been incredible. It’s a much different pool than in Syracuse.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices