Wow, did we do a lot of crazy things in 2024! That's one of the luxuries of being a small 2 person indie startup. To give you a rough idea of what we've been through, a tech startup in the world of books has a lot in common with a new bookstore that's just opening up, and with that come many of the same difficulties. There are a lot of variables to consider, and it's tricky to make an independent business work. At the end of the day we live in a capitalist society and a tech startup, much like a bookstore, needs a business model or else it's simply not a business. And that's where creativity and foolhardy courage come to the rescue!
Truth is, tech startups are a much rarer breed than bookstores and other book businesses. There are many reasons for that, some of the most obvious include the higher barrier to entry in the form of tech expertise. Also, bookstores and other similar businesses are part of an established industry that has existed and has been a validated business model for centuries. But probably the most important reason is that a lot of the awesome digital tools that exist for readers are already free.
So how do you compete with free? There are two very simple options: either you provide so much value that it blows the free option out of the water and customers are more than happy to pay for it, or you simply try something different. That's why we started 2024 with a strong focus on bringing the Theater experience to life, a unique offering of complementary art for awesome stories. In essence, you could say we started the year with a strong bet on selling art. A bold bet, but a beautiful one. If you check out our Theater you'll see all of the goodies that we were able to create this year with the help of many awesome human artists and authors (we respect artists and pay them for their work, we don't use AI for that purpose here).
Besides that, we added many new innovative features this year and Storylace grew significantly. Many of our decisions were shaped by talking to different readers. From people who will read over 52 books a year to the people who read 1 but wish they could read more. We were inclusive in our data gathering process and merged those findings with our own creativity. And that's pretty much Storylace for you. It's a whirlwind of innovation where we are not afraid to break the rules and try new things, because we build for readers.
As a reader, you are an everyday superhero. Making reading an important part of your identity changes your life in the most profound ways. Your ripple effects in the world become different, and the world needs stories now more than ever. Recent news about the reading crisis is worrying but this phenomenon is nothing new. Reading hasn't had the mass appeal of other entertainment media. Nevertheless, reading is and will always be an extremely powerful activity.
Reading is likely the strongest form of media to stimulate our brains and change the way we think, because it forces us to think. It strengthens our deep and critical thinking, reshapes our brains, sharpens our emotional intelligence, expands our language, vocabulary and ideas and very importantly, it is a powerful source of imagination and creativity. Put simply, reading is magic.
Quick Recap 2024
Here are some of the highlights of goodies we delivered this year:
- Town Square where you can post and share anything about books.
- Story Quests, featuring over 50 different ones. The Book Collection quests have also increased to over 100.
- Leveling system to get that extra bit of motivation to read more. Creating your own Kinsprits and customizing them to your own style through your reading achievements.
- Artist Alley where any professional artist can share and self-promote their awesome artworks, such as book covers.
- Beautiful journey visualization in your Book Memory Lane.
- Story ranking in your Stats page.
- Book Discovery Aisles in your library with both random books you might be interested in as well as personalized book recommendations.
- And last but not least, Storygazers saw a completely revamped experience in the Theater. We went from almost 0 artworks in the Theater to having today nearly 100 professional illustrations, 75 music tracks and many interactive scenarios across 6 awesome books. Plus a comments section in each artwork to share your thoughts and discuss the most awesome book scenes with others.
Biggest Failures of 2024
In this blog post I'd also like to share some of our biggest failures and lessons learned because life is hard! Very hard. But we accept failure, embrace it and grow with it, for that is in great part what makes us human. The important thing is to keep trying. So continue chasing those seemingly impossible dreams and cherish every moment! Here's where we dropped the ball ourselves:
- Our first failure was not letting more people discover Storylace. We worked so hard on making magic that we neglected the important responsibility of packing it in a bottle, putting it in a cart and going to the town square to share it with others. A hugely important part of our mission is connecting readers, so trust that we'll give it our best to remedy this.
- Our second failure was not making time to read more. We realized this more than halfway through the year. So what did we do? We set out to solve this seemingly common problem: "I wish I could read more but I don't have the time or motivation", sounds familiar? And that's how the Story Quests were born. It's our creative solution to this problem and it's been doing wonders for us. If you're on the same boat, definitely give them a try!
- And one more for the road. This year we failed to better integrate Storylace into the mysterious, giant and beautiful thing that is the book industry. We were so enthralled in making our platform as fun, creative and useful as possible for all readers that we forgot to explore potentially beautiful synergies. If the books industry were an expansive magical forest full of centaurs, gnomes, fairies, druids and whatnot, Storylace is a small kinsprit that's new to the forest. We'll try our best next year to bring you the fruits that may come from exploring this.
Happy New Year!
Alright, so after that final heart to heart, there's nothing left to say but happy new year! That was 2024 for us in a nutshell and we hope yours has also been full of adventures. Keep nourishing your soul (or multiple ones, if you have many kinsprits, why not) in 2025 by reading more. For our part, you can expect us to try to succeed where we failed this year and hopefully try a lot more crazy stuff for the love of books and art. You fall, you get up and try again. Keep on reading and enjoy the journey in 2025.