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February 14, 2022

#113 - Co-founders Reunited!

Seeing Rob in person once again, the launch of the 2021 Reading Wrap-up, customer interviews, and improving the user experience with book editions.

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#113 | 14 February 2022

Co-founders Reunited!


When I last saw Rob in person, The StoryGraph was in beta.

When I last saw Rob in person, The StoryGraph had 234 users.

When I last saw Rob in person, he hadn't even officially joined StoryGraph yet!

So yeah, a lot has happened since then, and as you might have guessed, I'll be seeing him in person soon! 🥳
 
Photo of me and Rob in a hotel lobby area. Rob's arm is extended and then hidden, indicating he is holding up the camera. We are both grinning and holding our thumbs up. On the table in front of us are two laptops.
In a hotel in London, 1 February 2020, the last time we were together in person.

I'm very much looking forward to working on the product side-by-side and replacing our Virtual Reality table tennis breaks with real-life basketball ones!

Fun fact: I noticed on StoryGraph this morning that Rob is reading a book that I read the last time I was abroad. It was November 2019 and I was in Japan. Rob had just gotten in touch about potentially helping me out with my startup... 

Maybe by the time I arrive in the States he'll be done and we'll be able to talk about it face-to-face! 🥰
 

Since last time...
 

The 2021 StoryGraph Reading Wrap-up is finally live! 🎉

There's a whole range of stats in there, including most read moods, average rating, how long it typically takes to finish a book, longest and shortest reads, best and worst months, and so much more!

Screenshot of a section my StoryGraph 2021 Reading Wrap-up. There are three rows of information, with alternative text and cover images. The first row has text stating that I read 69 new-to-me authors in 2021. There is a cover of N. G. Peltier's Sweethand to the right of the text. The second row has a cover image of The House of the Spirits, and text to the left reading "11 of the books you read were part of a series". The final row reads "You decided to go back down memory lane once with 1 reread this year". Alongside that text is teh cover of Philyaw's The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.
 
Everyone seemed to love the fun collage of all the books they'd read last year:
 
A screenshot of the top of my cover collage from my 2021 Reading Wrap-up. There are 3 and bit rows of book covers, each with 4 covers in a row.

And our Plus users got a little something extra:
 
Screenshot of the top of my Plus section of my 2021 Reading Wrap-up. There is a heading reading "Compared to 2020...", then there is text reading "Number of books", and red text indicating it's decreased by 3%. To the right is text reading "Number of pages" and then red text indicating it has decreased by 8%. There's then a reading "Your personal 2021 reading experience" and a subtitle reading "Charts generated from your reviews". The top of a pie chart is seen. The rest is cut off.

I'm also in the middle of a customer interview round! I've been chatting to people who pre-ordered a Plus subscription at the end of 2020. I'm learning about their experience using the product over the last year and how the Plus offering fits into that. 

I'm particularly enjoying how similar everyone's answers are despite how different from one another each interviewee is!
 

Next two weeks


As well as working on some tooling for our volunteer librarians, we hope to address some common pain points users have when searching for and browsing different book editions in the app.
 

What I'm reading right now


I'm really enjoying my reread of Bring Up the Bodies!
 
Screenshot of the book pane of Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies. At the top is an indication that when I last read it, I rated it 4 stars. There's a badge indicating that the edition I'm currently reading is "user-added". The book is tagged with: fiction, historical, challenging, emotional, and medium-paced. There's a link to "View buddy read" and a progress bar, filled out up to 22%.

Have a great week,

Nadia

P.S. Know somebody who's an avid reader or would enjoy following along with this journey? Please do forward this email to them! Thank you. :-)
 
Haven't tried The StoryGraph yet? Check it out today!
Love the app? Consider upgrading to our Plus plan!

Want to volunteer? Apply to be a Librarian!
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