Lived It Lecture with Allen Lau of Wattpad - Entrepreneurship 101 (2013/2014)

Enrich Lives Through Stories

Last month people spent over 5 billion minutes on Wattpad

(that’s in the same ballpark as Pinterest)


The largest community for reading and sharing stories

It’s a new form of entertainment

WHAT IS WATTPAD


A new reading and writing experience that enables the creation of personal connections

and billions of new stories.

Together with the crowd we will enable the future of storytelling.

OUR VISION


Video

Audio

News

Blog

Interest based social media

Images

Stories


•  5.2 billion minutes per month •  24M monthly unique users •  75 minutes / DAU mobile •  3M monthly uploads, 35M total uploads •  30M monthly comments/messages •  Top ranked eReading app in all major app stores globally

OUR NUMBERS

0

5

10

15

20

25

Jan-‐12

Apr-‐12

Jul-‐1

2

Oct-‐12

Jan-‐13

Apr-‐13

Jul-‐1

3

Oct-‐13

Users in M

illions

Monthly Unique Visitors

Android

iOS

Desktop

0 500

1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 5500

Jan-‐12

Apr-‐12

Jul-‐1

2

Oct-‐12

Jan-‐13

Apr-‐13

Jul-‐1

3

Oct-‐13

Monthly Time Spent (Million Minutes)

Android

iOS

Desktop


1.  It takes a loooooong Ome to build a company 2.  Perseverance 3.  Build a company with a purpose

WHAT I LEARNED ….


The WaRpad Story


Fall 2002


October 2006


January 2007


February 2007


Summer 2007


We started another company because we need to eat.

Summer 2007


Summer 2007


We did freelance consulOng on the side to keep us going. But we also declined a few projects.

Spring 2008


•  FeedM8 was acquired! •  A week later, Lehman Brothers collapsed •  App Store launched in July •  T-‐Mobile G1 Android phone was announced •  Meanwhile, look at a snapshot of our traffic at that Ome!

September 2008


•  Launched on the App Store & BlackBerry App World •  Renamed to “100,000 Free Books – WaRpad” •  RIM pulled our app within days •  Started to work on filter for copyright infringing material

Spring 2009


Print Books Are Target of Pirates on the Web

“An expanding appeOte for e-‐books has spawned a bumper crop of pirated ediOons on Web sites like Scribd and WaRpad”

“Sites like Scribd and WaRpad, which invite users to upload documents like college theses and self-‐published novels, have been the target of industry grumbling in recent weeks”

May 2009


•  Filter launched with help from Random House, Penguin, HacheRe etc.

•  Meanwhile, we ported our Java app to Android •  Monthly new story uploads jumped to 10,000

June 2009


“Allen, thank you for bringing the wriRen word to my country. We have no access to bookstores. Even if we did, we wouldn’t have money to buy books. I am grateful for what you have done for us.”

Summer 2009


Full Ome working on WaRpad, again!

September 2009


“Ten years ago I couldn’t even get my daughters to pick up a book never mind read one. Now not only are they actually reading books but wriOng them … goRa love it!!”

January 2010


May 2010


We raised $3.5M from Union Square Ventures, Golden Venture Partners and Version One Ventures

September 2011


London Meetup

April 2012

Enrich Lives Through Stories Hackney, East London, UK


“Basic reading skills can lif millions out of poverty”

United NaOons


Thank You! Allen Lau CEO and co-founder wattpad.com/allenlau @allenlau P.S. We are hiring :-) Funded by: Union Square Ventures Khosla Ventures OMERS Ventures Golden Venture Partners Version One Ventures Jerry Yang

Lived It Lecture with Allen Lau of Wattpad - Entrepreneurship 101 (2013/2014)

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Transcript of Lived It Lecture with Allen Lau of Wattpad - Entrepreneurship 101 (2013/2014)