Welcome to What Your Next podcast.

Hi Laura. So great to be here.

Hi Laura. Thanks for having us.

So happy to have you both.

Okay.

before I broke up with Good Reads. This year after a long-term relationship that was very toxic, good Reads, kicked me out and didn't allow me to see my friends, whether they were reading and other people. And I was just getting bombarded with junk and decided this is just a time clean break. I'm gonna track my readings. On my own, I have, I'm pretty good with data, but I friend of mine Julia from she, the shit, the Chick lit is the shed basically referred me. She's I met this, I want this app. And it's like amazing reading tracker and it's really pretty and you gotta try it. And I was like. Holy crap, I need to try this. I saw it. I was like, okay, this is like where I can go and enjoy. And long story short, I was like, oh I'm gonna reach out to the like founders and talk about them. 'cause this is female founders and so thank you both for agreeing. But my besties, my reading besties have been talking about page mount. They love the fact it's gamification. They love the fact it's a community that you can go and share. You can have conversations, and it's the good old age of good reads that we had 12 years ago. We're just bringing it back to the elements that we love. So thank you for creating something. And it's so pretty. Thank you for the UX and thank you for the experience that you're making. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself. Lucy first and then Jennifer, and then we'll talk about the app.

Yeah, well, I mean first that like definitely warms our heart to hear that you and your friends are enjoying it. We definitely tried to make the design stand out, so I'm glad that you guys can appreciate that. Yeah a little bit about me. So, I am the co-founder that's on the design and business side of things. Jennifer is a software engineer. My background, I had been working in tech for eight plus years, various kind of venture backed startups. Always been a lifelong reader, but never really thought I could turn that into my job. I am a Chinese American. First gen. So my parents were always like very practical and definitely like beat into me that the sense that I needed to like study business. Like I ended up dual degreeing in both English and business so that I could get both in, but I definitely could not have done just the English degree. So yeah, it's always been, I would say like a lifelong dream of mine to actually be able to turn my passion, which is reading into a career jennifer and I connected around the time when I was about to turn 30 and having, a typical midlife crisis about what am I doing with my life. Fortunately, I had, quit my job and was trying to figure out what to do next. And Jennifer was in a very similar place. So Jen, I'll let you take over our story from there.

Sure. Okay. I'll finish telling our story and then I'll get a little, like quick about me. But yeah, we were both having recently quit our jobs looking for the next passion project. Both wanting to be entrepreneurs start our own business, but like very aligned in that we wanted it to be a, something that we were passionate about and B, not something that we wanted investors or venture capital or any sort of outside money to be funding. We really wanted to do it ourselves and we have very complimentary skillsets. As Lucy mentioned, she's on the design and business side. I'm more on the product and tech side. If we were like, okay, this is kind of kismet, we can really make something happen here. Both being very passionate readers page bound, the idea for page bound just fell into our laps and we ran with it and luckily, what is it about a year and a half now, Lucy, that we've been launched?

We launched in January, so it's been 11 months. Mm-hmm.

So in that time we've, seen so much growth, so much love for the product. Like we've learned so much, I can't believe my, one of my friends actually just messaged me like a little shortly before this where she like told all of her friends to join our beta and she was like, look how far you guys have come in the past year. And I'm like, that is so sweet. It is true. We've come a really long way. So that's our little founder story. But yeah I'm Paige Bounds software engineer and I am lifelong reader. Re Lucy also loved to write was. Working on a book before we started Page bound. Haven't really been doing that much since, developing page bound now, but maybe one day we'll get back to it and, yeah.

So talk to us about Page. Because it's a unique app. It's for readers, but it's also like community. There's some features that you're breaking from tradition of what reading trackers should be. There's anonymous stuff, but there's opportunities for you to find reading twins, even in those anonymous places. It helps you connect with readers and stuff. So talk to us about the actual app and then what are some of the features that will set page mount from other reading trackers.

Yeah, so the way that we describe Page Bound is it's if Good Reads and Reddit had a baby,

Yes.

and so every book on Page Bound has its own forum. So our whole concept is like, why do you have to wait? Until you finish a book to talk about it, like in the form of a review, like on Goodreads, we think that you should be able to discuss the book while you're actually reading, and our site and app are set up to help you do that. So basically you can post your thoughts as you read from page 253. You can have your freak out reaction, and that post will live on that book form and also get sent to the home feeds of everyone who has that book in their library. So it really helps you connect with other readers who are reading or who have read that same book as you. And that's where that like community interaction really happens. It's less about did you already know that person before? Or like more like a traditional book club where you have a group of friends and then you pick a book to read together. It's almost like the opposite where you're forming a book club with these internet strangers just based on shared taste and the book that you happen to be reading right now.

Yes, which is what I love because as someone who's nosy and I would like, I just wanna talk about books and like I read certain books and I'm like, okay, I read this part. I'm like, okay, do I need to continue or not continue? What's going on? And I don't wanna be spoiled sometimes I just wanna know is it worth the journey? And am I doing it with other people? And having conversations. I think it also removes the idea of you only have certain trusted people. Like a lot of times we only see certain people or trusted recommender you just wanna have like strangers like who actually read the book, who are not the influencers driving it. And yes, I'm a content creator, but at the same time, like I want to hear from readers, like who are reading the book.

Totally. Yeah. I think you've hit on something that we see as well and see is really important that we've definitely made product decisions to emphasize, which is that, page bound is not a platform for influencers. Unlike Book Talk or Bookstagram, there's so many other platforms that already exist for that. We are really like a reader platform. Intentionally do not show public follower counts. There is no algorithm. So there's, popular stuff or clout or drama does not automatically win. It's really about a democratic voice. As long as you've actually read the book and have interesting thoughts to share, like that's why people will up vote your post. That's why they'll follow you and that's how you build connect.

Yeah. talk to us about the idea of list and like reading Taste and how do you evolve, as someone who's a mood reader, who enjoys book club books, monster Romance,

Love it.

And Cozy Mysteries. I'm a person, I have multiple.

Mm-hmm.

A genre fluid kind of girl. And so look at like how do you create those reading tastes to help you find that. Do you hone into say I like these books, and then it's maybe I like this book, or that idea, for mood readers which I think it might be a great place to go.

Yeah, so all of the recommendations and the pathways defining new recs and new books is all human curated on page bound.

Yeah.

that you are reading, like a cozy mystery and then all of a sudden you're in this cozy mystery corner of page

Yeah.

run by some algorithm only sending

Yes.

It doesn't work like that. You are connecting with other readers based on your unique taste because quite literally we give you five books to exemplify your taste. You pick out these five books so you could, pick out your five genres that are very disparate and we'll show you users that also have taste. those same books. So you're making friends that way. also can see on any single book page lists that other users have created. So we have this concept of lists, which we like into a Spotify mixtape or Spotify playlist. And you can see. Any list that a book was included on the books page, all of the human recommendations that a book was given by other users that are like, Hey, like on the bottom of good reads, where it's like all the recommended books, that's

Yes.

on page bound, it's literally other readers that are giving you these book recommendations so quickly you're able to spin off into different sub-genres, different niches that are really unique and not the kind of lists and recommendations that you'll see elsewhere.

I love this. I love that it's human driven. It's not the algorithm. 'cause sometimes the algorithm does it dirty so many times. Like is one, Google is another one. Like you're just like. Other readers like this or you like this, we're gonna try this. And you're like, yeah, but this doesn't make sense. This is the right thing that I need to read right now.

Everyone is so unique and an algorithm cannot capture your uniqueness,

yes.

approach better.

Yes. Talk to some of the features that readers can expect that unique for, that you want to highlight for page file.

Yeah, so, one that we haven't mentioned yet, a very popular feature of ours is called Quests. So quests are our version of reading challenges. It's gamified so you can earn badges. The more books that you read in a quest, and there's two types, so there's main quests and side quests. We have a lot of fun with the naming. It's very video game inspired. Main quests are like a sub genre or a niche, but like 30 or more books, and you can actually get tier of badges from bronze, silver, gold. Then side quests are even more niche. They're 10 to 15 books. You earn a badge of five books and you can actually earn a sparkly badge if you read a hundred percent of the books in the Side Quest. And these are human created, our top contributors make them the badges we design in house, I make them. So yeah, they're, I think they're really unique. Like truly, I don't know of any other place that kind of has this, and we hear constantly that folks. It really pushes them to explore new genres and new niches that they might have not considered. Mostly because they just wanna earn the badge and be able to pin it to their profile. But I think that's great because a lot of our quests are so intentionally curated to highlight non-traditionally published authors to just give a voice to what I think in a lot of these bigger book sites or more algorithmically driven book sites are just not going to even come onto your page.

Yeah. And so let's talk about how to add new books to the database. Is there a way to do it? I know other reading trackers, it may take some time and

I.

If readers are like, Hey, I'm reading this book, it's not on the app. Like how do I go about it? Is there a way.

Yeah, we make it actually very easy for you. The only prerequisite is that the book already has to be on Good reads.

Okay,

you can just grab the Good Reads link, drop it into page bound, and it'll be in our database within 30 seconds, so it's very easy.

Perfect. And then if I wanna import my Good Reads app into your app, how can, is it possible? I have a thousand books that I read and I don't wanna lose him,

yeah, absolutely. You can definitely import your good reads. You can import your story graph as well. Those are the only two sites that we

Yeah.

Right. Now we get the request for Fable a lot, but unfortunately Fable does not let you export, so we cannot import your Fable

Yeah.

But, it's quite smooth. It's quite easy. There's some things that Goodreads isn't going to put into your, like data export file. So we always like to say we're only as good as the information that we're given. So for

Best.

get reread data. But we do our very best to make it as seamless as possible. It's a very quick process too. Once you get the CSV export, your data will be imported into page bound within two to three minutes. It's very quick.

Yeah. I'll do a little guide on how to export things out of it. 'cause the CSB wants you even sometimes cleaning the data, sometimes it's just a simple thing and it's keeps it simple and easy and it's just export, importing it to the new place.

Yeah.

all right, let's talk about how can we support you. Is there a paid option

Yes, we are self-funded. No, I mean we, as Jennifer mentioned, we intentionally chose. To go this route of, I think the harder route, but also like we now can feel confident that we're making the best decisions for our community. Right. And not for some shadowy shareholders or investors in the background. So yeah, we would love it if folks who are financially able to support us. We have a monthly subscription called Page Bound Royalty that is $10 a month. And I think it's the mindset behind why a lot of people contribute and support today is kind of. The same mindset why some folks choose to buy from their local indie bookstore versus Amazon, right? It's a little bit more expensive, but you know that if you want indie businesses to continue to exist, you kind of have to vote with your wallet. And so we're so thankful and appreciative for everyone who does choose to support. But philosophically, we also, are not going to suddenly pay wall the free experience. Like we totally understand that not everybody can support. And so. We really rely on our page bound royalty members to not only. Help Jennifer and I continue working on page bound full-time, but also make page bound accessible and cover all of our technology costs to make this platform available to now more than 60,000 users from all over the world. So that contribution really helps us cover our costs and make all of the good work that we're doing possible. If a subscription is, you can't. Make it work financially or you just are tired of sick and tired of subscriptions, which I totally get. We also have a one-time contribution option and you can access both of those just by clicking the crown icon in the web or app. But yeah, we're still like very new. We launched Web in January and then we launched the app only a month ago, and along with the app was when we launched Page Bound Royalty. So it's still a very new program. We are releasing more and more features. For royalty soon, but as of now, yeah, it's just kind of folks who really like the platform and wanna put their money towards something they care about.

Oh, I'm so excited. All right. Talk to George Substack, 'cause I really appreciate that you're also in substack sharing about the app and telling other readers who might be interested. So talk to us about it.

Yeah, since we're self-funded, we don't do any paid marketing. All of our growth has been organic, and I think we've been fortunate that. Folks have kind of really resonated with our message on different social media platforms. We joined Substack right after we launched the app. We wanted, now that we have a bigger user base, we wanted a way to connect with folks, via this like newsletter. And I like how Substack is. It's also about community, right? It's not just like the typical marketing newsletter, which we were not really interested in. It's more like trying to build a connection. In all aspects, to reach our users. And so we've we're pretty new to it, but Jennifer and I have been writing articles and having fun. And yeah, it's been a great experience actually. A lot of new users have discovered us who've come from Substack and there's obviously a huge writing community on Substack already,

there's like also a nice little reader community, which has been really nice too. It's a quiet corner. It doesn't feel so loud as the other social medias, but it's a thriving community You have more space to share your message and, saying five minutes or 30 seconds, like this is what it is. He is actually like here's the feature and here's why we chose to do this feature. It was really interesting to hear your decision on why to go anonymous, and I was like, oh yeah, it totally makes sense. Not for the reasons that you think it's gonna be anonymous trolls. It's actually just makes it sense to feel safe

Mm-hmm.

that fosters that community, that space. Let's talk about how you get page mount. So we got the app and we got the web design tele sheet addresses and specifics so readers can pick it up right away.

Sure. So you can find us on the web@pagebound.co and then on the app stores, if you search page bound, we should come right up. But if we don't try Page Bound Social book tracker and we'll come right up there.

Yeah, the app is available in 70 countries, but not everywhere. It's challenging to be available everywhere, and we're doing our best, we hope to be in more countries next year too, but website is available everywhere, so we definitely welcome users from all over the world.

Thanks. Any final thoughts for listeners who are ready to give it a try. Like any ideas you should start this, or This is where you get started.

I feel the new year, the holiday season is a great time to try a new reading app.

Yes.

I think a lot of people wanna stick with one thing throughout the year, and I think if you were to even just go to the app store and check out page bound, it should be pretty obvious from just looking at that listing even before you've committed to downloading the app. What kind of vibe we are bringing, and it's pretty different from all of the other kind of mostly beige colored book apps out there. So I think you will know right away if it feels like a right fit for you. And if it is, then yeah, we would love for you to come check us out. We think of ourselves as. The place to have more in depth discussions about books.

Mm-hmm.

we are less focused on like selfies or photos of your book with your coffee. I think there's so many other sites already, and then social media apps. Where you can do that. So if you're looking for more like long form text-based old internet style conversations, if you like miss what the internet was like, like you said at the beginning, like 12 years ago, then you know, page Mountain might be the right fit for you and we would love to have you join.

Yes. I think it's old school millennial

Mm-hmm.

where you just like, you go down, you just have stream of consciousness, have a conversation, have thoughts, or just the space. And I think this might be like the right app. So listeners, if you're looking for a new reading tracker. This is a great way to go. You have an opportunity to get a fresh start to find new reading twins so you don't get burned by other, bad recommendations. 'cause I know we all have been burned, so have an opportunity to give this a try. So thank you Lucy, and thank you Jennifer for being on the show and talk about Page Bow and so thank you.

Thank you so much, Laura. Appreciate it.

Thank you. This was so fun.

Thanks for listening to the What three next. For more book lists, cozy reads and library tips, visit the what three Next block.com. Your next great read might be waiting there.