Gadgetory

history itself began only when men carved their exploits and visions in stone and play and traced them in crude ink over parchment and papyrus striving to live in eternal memory through the written word as history began with writing it is continued with printed records books were the great treasures of the earliest civilizations today they are the great means of communication between people and nations oh I didn't see you there I was just reading this book I know what you're thinking Alexis that's not a book it's a phone and you're right it is a phone I'm reading on an app called Wattpad which allows me to read millions of e-books written by people all over the world just anyone can start writing in fact the one I'm reading right now is called High Times at City Hall it's a fictional account about Mayor Rob Ford which is appropriate because I'm here in Toronto home of Wattpad and I'm intrigued because I've got a bunch of questions for this company like how are they so huge in the Philippines and what are they going to do now that Amazon has gotten into their space and is trying to eat their lunch and finally how they can turn this passion for writing into real maple scented money for their users and their company I'm Alexis Ohanian start-up founder and Y Combinator partner over the last year I went on a 200 event book tour and met people building small empires all across now I'm back with a new season revisiting some of my favorite stops from the tool don't build a feature that's a mantra many startups here from experienced entrepreneurs and investors if your whole idea for a company is something a tech Titan is likely to simply bolt on to their immensely popular product then your entire company is at stake for Wattpad which built a platform for collaborative writing this challenge takes the form of Amazon's newest venture right on Amazon is a history of squeezing smaller competitors out of business and right on we'll connect with the companies immensely popular ebook store and Kindle devices Wattpad has a big lead with millions of users already contributing writing regularly now will need to figure out how to stop Amazon from stealing its thunder so anyone can be a writer do you really believe that I think everyone has a story to tell mm-hmm I think too you know to tell it in a compelling way in a way that is interesting for readers takes practice you need to learn that right and I think what path becomes a tool and a platform in which you can do that you have an idea right that first chapter that first paragraph and put it up there and see if it resonates with people see if people want to hear more it kind of gives you a lot of motivation to continue doing that the way I described Wattpad is that it's a place for people to escape connect and express through stories and Wattpad stories are really unique they're made for mobile they are highly serialized and they are place for writers and readers to connect with each other so how many people are sharing or writing stories right now a lot better well a lot of writers are also readers and readers are also writers so if not on a monthly basis we have over 35 million users we've created a community in which writers and readers are extremely positive about the entire active storyteller so as a writer why pad is a really safe place to be to not just get feedback about your story but get a lot of positive encouragement about the whole process of writing you'll find this audience you find this community and it's it's a way of sharing your writing with a low low risk kind of a way you know my wife did my cover design for me I kind of started out slowly I was getting you know 10 20 reads a day and then the day I got like I was on the feature on the main page yeah it was like a thousand reads a day overnight I think I found that my calling isn't is in writing and Wattpad has given me the platform to grow as a person as a writer without Wattpad I wouldn't be writing and now it's sort of my full-time aspirations my full-time passion what are some of your biggest success stories Anna Todd she started writing a One Direction fan fiction on Wattpad last year that was giving my idea she's gone over a billion reads on Wattpad and Simon Shuster published her book man paramount announced a film deal okay wait so they're making a film out of fan fiction she wrote on Wattpad about one direction right all right so what pads got millions of users traffic is booming when that happens I usually get the attention of large companies like Amazon which is just unveiled a new product called right on which looks suspiciously a lot like Wattpad historically large incumbent companies don't kill startups even if they copy them feature by feature they can't replicate what that startup does right there's just too much inertia too much momentum and that big company to adapt so it's always flattering when an incumbent tries to copy a startup right Amazon's got their right on product what's the argument for using Wattpad continues wipeout as opposed to and Amazon's new thing that Mazon is right on is very interesting they really kind of repackage their their Kindle it's still very much transactional based on the finished piece of work mmm so with right on writers are writing the whole story handing it over to Amazon and praying that Amazon picks it up and decides to publish it for them most writers on Wattpad are not looking for that most writers don't want that they have a story to tell all right and the way to do that is now from day one start connecting start building readers so I think Amazon's approach is very much kind of based on their existing model of getting content and selling it to readers yeah Amazon has done a very good job certainly an e-reader market and in getting penetration there but they still started out as a logistics company and in many ways they still are like moving physical things whether it's by drone or by messenger whatever their Sheila move its physical Adams going forward without all of the baggage of physical infantry infrastructure you all are seeing the world pretty much how I I think most of us will assume it is going to be in 10 and 20 30 years so I wonder what is the new world of publishing 10 years from now when Wattpad is the incumbent five ten years from now the content is going to be free and then it's about how do writers make money after they've given away their free content not you know not all that different from musicians today so started back in 2006 alright this is imagine time 2006 I was a lot Warner remember before iPhone before the Kindle before and so I didn't really exist exactly I loved reading I read a lot and I want to read wherever I happen to be and now there was really no other way to do that all I had on me was my old Nokia candy bar phone and I thought well I'm an engine I can figure out a solution to this so over a weekend I put together this prototype that was really the first cloud-based ereader that is you go to the website upload your story and then poof we can read it on your phone and I think you know a bunch of people that I knew reach out to Alan my co-founder and he said you know what I'm working on a similar idea we need to get together Wow and in cloud wasn't even a buzz word back then like this ahead of the game we were really excited and then you know we blast out to all our friends posted on you know on blogs and forums and the like and then and then nothing happened nobody was using it nobody everyone thought it was crazy like why would I want to read on my tiny mobile phone it didn't make any sense right so I would say the first couple years was you know a pretty slow grind and then when did you know you were on the Sunday I think as the s devices Scott was sophisticated the screens got larger data plans became more available that's when we started seeing users kind of really adopt this in the way that we had originally envisioned not in or using a mobile phone as your primary reading device no matter where you were this is what that this is what pad and I'm told there are millions of authors using this to write stories and they're all here no they're all over the world we have about a hundred people who are full-time employed here okay all of the titles that are on here are titles of actual stories that are on watch zombie rock that's really good product team in here with that community team working in here no office is really open concept open layout and that just allows us to all collaborate and connect with each other how did you end up here um I actually wrote a story on Wattpad what's the story called what's next I made it sound fictional and tone but it was essentially going over my resume it was two chapters long the third chapter said look II can't hear the rest of the story if you don't bring Danielle in for an interview so right then in there I kind of followed all of my potential losses on Wattpad I said this is the story of why I want to work for rock pad and I got called in for an interview that is such an unconventionally awesome way to apply for a job how long ago was that that was two years ago Wow and I was playing number 23 these are real quotes from Wattpad users about their connection to walk path so you'll see that throughout the office I have always loved reading but never had confidence to write anything myself that feeling you get when someone leaves a nice comment on a little file oh so rare in the internet these days anytime you create a platform there's no way to know how people are actually gonna use it when Wattpad started out they thought people would love to just read eBooks it turns out they wanted to write them too now no one could have predicted that it would be so popular in the Philippines it's such a success Wattpad it's actually got a TV show where every week they take one of those user generated stories and turn it into a TV episode the thing about the Internet once you put something online you lose control and that's a good thing Aussie Felicity sandal but you can call me city the city I live in is MP city is the Wattpad shown the Philippines in Tagalog or is it an alien it's in taglish it's happening law yeah so you can watch it and figure out what's going on until I go in these monologues again no idea what's going on what is mad mullah naman and super heart scrubs a campus that it's just a really particular demographic really particular audience I will tell you'd say that except it trends worldwide so it is what you're massively social because of expats I know because the Philippines the Philippines is that strong socially they drive worldwide trending on Twitter with white hat presents did the show come about because some on a producer in the Philippines was like this thing is amazing everyone loves this content we want to produces show out of it like which comes first as Wattpad see all the traffic and then find people in the Philippines to boost the show or is it the other way around this one was pretty organic cliff Wattpad was already really big in the Philippines and so it was sort of already at that household name say is where you know people are spending with billions of minutes on Wattpad and so they really already knew about Wattpad and then within the philippines like many of their top movies many other top films all came off of Wattpad and so sort of the natural extension was to bring it to the small screen I mean did you all go out of your way to try to build this community in the Philippines I think one of the things that we did early on was really made sure that the localization the translation in Tagalog worked really well on Wattpad and that sort of fostering some of the community and we had a community specialist on our team who's Filipino and that helped as well and so what's funny is that if you're on Wattpad it's not very long before someone writes you from the philippines and says welcome all right so you guys obviously don't produce dead tree books and it is quite lovely to see here this sculpture of a tree featuring what appear to be Wattpad stories yes that's right so all of the leaves on the trees are all Wattpad stories actually if you look all around the bottom these are all stories that originated on Wattpad this is our Joe Gibbs and if you look at the inside inscription for Wattpad calm HarperCollins ended up publishing this book but probably never would have looked at a draft of anything she would have mailed in no and and you know in Abigail's case she wouldn't have mailed in a draft she wasn't writing at all before Wattpad so doubly cool what does this mean about the role that traditional publishers are playing where you know in theory right you have these taste makers who are very smart very hard working people who sourced the great idea who knew AHA that's gonna be big right does that threaten the status quo is that threaten their industry I think their diversify their bets so to speak so they still do a lot of more traditional publishing but at the same time they they see that stories like Anna's after is getting over a billion reads online they know okay this is there something here and they want to make sure that they're in tune with the current audience space right but also in a sense a safer bet for them they know automatically yes there's going to be millions of readers from the get-go so I'm mark young I'm writer and father and professional in the insurance industry and been a writer my whole life but always have had the full-time job thing going as well you know feed the family all that but yeah my writing career is kind of taken off in the last few years and what has been a big part of that what did what had do to change the game the platform and how the reader interaction was kind of so so easy to have happen if you get a lot of readers on Wattpad it's almost like you have a huge team of beta readers you can get feedback you can get encouragement and that's all that's important to writers you know if you imagine the physical bookstore there are some viewers who have never been inside of a physical book table until you're right from the oldest there were shelves there were spaces that were divided in sections by genre yeah it would have been rare I think in in a purely physical world for someone who is into you know young at all One Direction fan fiction to have stumbled in to say your section yeah what does it mean that you get exposure to just a broader audience that that's sort of serendipity is that helpful for you or is it frustrating you just like get off my lawn yeah not at all no I think that's it's good and I think that kind of genre pollination that Wattpad allows it's like everybody's all in there together and somebody follows you today and you kind of go and look on their profile you see what's on their reading lists it's it's a very collaborative kind of everybody's sharing interests and then enthusiasm everybody's a really enthusiastic reader which is amazing like this day and age like teenagers are out there reading a lot again they're just not readin in the way people used to think about what reading meant what kind of feedback you get from the Wattpad community it makes it mean so much more because the stuff I write sometimes may be limited in terms of what I've envisioned but readers come in with their own perceptions their own backgrounds their own education and ideas and it becomes a collaborative process what does a company like Wattpad do for you as a writer when you could be publishing every day so it kind of liberate Smee from the need to have like perfect writing right off the bat and just bring out the first draft and it takes a lot of courage to do that but I think when you keep practicing you can get a lot of techniques and and learn a lot of skills that you need even in an age where you know we all have mobile devices now that are full of games and distractions right how does something like Wattpad compete against candy crush it has been that's the fun thing I guess maybe part of it is this this gamification of it like getting more reads getting more likes getting more comments maybe it's a way of people putting up their own fiction and they would go and read six pieces of fiction and try and get those people to read them and yeah so there's an incentive for authors to even be reading because that that virtuous cycle yeah exactly uh-huh and as a reader I would just say to you why not add a Kraken or some zombies maybe that's possible what what kind of stuff is spiking right now so one direction is still definitely very strong but we're seeing other pop-culture references come up for instance vampires was a very hot topic a couple years ago right but not so much now what about where werewolves also on the decline these zombies more sighs yeah so you're looking at all this you're looking all this data if you see here's an area that's clearly on the rise are there things you do to encourage writers to draw writers in to help get those things moving a couple of things I would try to do we certainly promote that to you know to readers we know that this topic is very popular amongst certain demographic people in certain in certain countries and then we can promote that to them so that we're kind of pouring through to fire so we can connect them with the right audience and writers respond a lot of this because at the end of the day they want to they want people to read their stuff so you're giving them the forecast for what they should be writing by so that's something that we're spending a lot of more effort on is how do we you know make use of this data how do how do we make use of this information that we have to make it you know to make it better for our readers and our writers it's easy for user-generated content platforms to put making money on the back burner while they have high growth that's what what pads been doing but now is the time for them to start thinking about how to actually make money now the last thing they want to do is do that in a way that just ruins the user experience because after all the users are the ones who are creating all the value on Wattpad but the best-case scenario is one where Wattpad makes money and their authors do too let's go a few years in the future right let's assume this momentum continues and this continues what is the next logical step are you thinking ahead how can I make this into a career I would love to find a way to make it into a career but I mean it's a it's a crowded space and as you say we're always in competition with the latest app latest game latest TV show people are watching on the subway you know and there's a lot of content out there so I mean I think storytelling is a kind of content driven thing no matter what the space is you're trying to fit it in to keep on working on that are you making any money from it um currently not yet but hopefully soon what is your dream scenario I mean this like you're putting in serious hours producing stuff that people clearly love it seems like there should be a way for you to be able to get compensated for this in some way so that you can keep doing it I was acting you just in a meeting with another Wattpad staff talking about ways to monetize the writing process and and help authors out on a career so I think that's something we're still working on I have a lot of multimedia work that I'm doing I've created with the local artist collaborated on these cell phone charms coffee bean cell phone charms we want to really help writers close a loop so for the writers that are very very serious about writing and want to make a career we want to give them options and opportunities to actually monetize mm-hmm so what are what are some of those options yeah so there's a number of things that are we're experimenting with right now and that we you know I don't really know if I can talk about it in too much detail but really the main motivation is that we want to help writers make money off of not just their story but also the relationship that they built with their audience last year we tried this experiment that was sort of a fan funding initiative where we gave writers this platform where they could sort of activate their fan base to help them fund their next story or their next book that they were writing so that was one way in which we helped writers actually make money off yet watch that community so so kind of like the crowdfunding model right and so a writer because she already has the relationship with her fans doesn't have to take them to another platform can say right within their platform hey I want to write this book yeah all right what motivates writers people love other jobs in some cases to spend all this time and energy writing for free to get their story heard in the old world you write you know you spend weeks months years writing your manuscript you send that around to the publishers and it you know they reject it and you know letter thanks but we're not interested that's very demoted so the main motivation is really telling story having people read it and appreciating it that's a more main motivation for writers and like you said at the end of the day yes they're going to be people that are that they're looking to make money from their work but I believe first of all that's a small portion and secondly we're going to evolve new ways for these types of writers to make money and after they have given away they felt differently what do you want to be doing what is the dream gig for you five years traveling the world and writing a novel in every country I go to do you think is what Pat gonna be part of that vision definitely yep I think reaching out to readership online is a part of the industry now like we can't be separate from that people no longer just pick up a book and read it but they they're involved in the social media they're involved in the author's life so that's definitely going to be part of it I think first drafts will always go on Wattpad and see what readers think about it I always believe in what Cory Doctorow says is that the worry is not that people will read you for free is that they won't region so just getting your work out there just be read ya be read it's fitting that here in an international city like Toronto Wattpad has been able to build a global platform for authors to write works that can be read all over the world they've been able to connect Millions give people a voice that doesn't require a book deal that's awesome they've built a great platform the question is can they build a great business to Wattpad thrives because of its devoted users who continue coming back to the service whether you run an online community like Wattpad or a brick-and-mortar retail store building customer loyalty is essential to getting returning customers try giving your business a personal touch by sharing photos of you and your staff and your company website or why not offer specials and online discounts for returning customers loyalty cards and giveaways are easy ways to bring back customers and costs next to nothing if you have a brick and mortar store use the space to host special events for customers from workshops and demos to guest speakers these events are a great way to offer more and remind customers why they should be coming back for more business advice visit a ents business circle you