Yael Goldstein Love Plympton Inc. Jacqueline Chang [email protected] Jennifer 8. Lee [email protected] [email protected] Curated reading service for the smartphone
Jul 20, 2020
Yael Goldstein Love
Plympton Inc.
Jacqueline Chang
Jennifer 8. Lee [email protected]
Curated reading service for the smartphone
People wish they could read more,
but think they don't have the time.
Rooster is the solution.
“If you’re the kind of person who talks nostalgically about how you used to read novels... there’s an app called Rooster that might be able to help.”
– Anthony Ha,TechCrunch
The Problem
The Solution
More than half of Americans saythe thing that keeps them from
reading more is the lack of time.(2013 USA/Bookish Poll)
Overwhelming choice(300,000 books published each year)
Length is barrier to consumption
Current reading apps and devicesare clumsy, centered on workswritten for print
Curated recommendations
Installment-based delivery
Smartphone-tailored experience
Start reading great fiction every day.
How?
Rooster delivers great iction in easy-to-consume
installments, making it easy to ind time to read
Rooster Business Model
Subscription-based service with monthly recurring revenue.
Scaling content by partnering with Big 5 and independent publishers.
High engagement through scheduled push notifications.
Building a massive direct-to-consumer audience.
Digital fiction has incredible economies of scale.
A survey conducted by former Netflix marketing executives found
44% of the general U.S. population is interested in Rooster.
Our target user is not limited to current readers.
It’s everyone who has a smartphone.
Rooster turns non-readers into readers.
Broad Appeal
600 millionworldwide ... and growing.
Fans Take to Twitter
I
Fans Take to Email
“I think this app is one of THE coolest things ever!...THIS may be the niftiest thing now in the universe...”
“What an amazing app!”
“[P]airing classic and contemporary work is brilliant.”
“I'm impressed with your beautiful app.”
“Love your idea!”
“You guys are awesome!...Love what you're doing.”
“Awesome...I love the idea of your company.”
–Stephen
–Mark
–Jon
–Mark
–Owen
–Anonymous
–Jenna
Press Chatter
"Aims to make reading on the phone as aesthetically pleasing as possible."
–
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"The books are intelligently split into chapters, passages, and other snippets that you can read in as little as 10-15 minutes"
"If Rooster works as intended, you'll never have an excuse not to read a book again."
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"Elegantly designed to make reading easy on the little iPhone screen...bringing some tech-wizardry to intellectual fiction."
–
Since March 1st
21% overall conversion
Total invites sent:
Total accounts created:
Total credit cards signups:
3350
2000
70060% conversion
35% conversion
Road Map
Curated selection
$5-a-month subscription
iOS first
Invitation-Only Launch
Right Now Long Term
Building out a platform to monetize serially delivered content
International expansion
Publishers start tailoring their content to episodic installment-based formats
Casual reading rivals casual gaming as recreational mobile activity
Expansion into Science Fiction, Romance, Thriller, Mystery, Non-Fiction
Expanding pricing models
Android version
Personalized recommendations for readers
Build out social functionality
Next
1 2 3
Our Marketing Advisors
Matthew W. Granade Board Member
BridgewaterMcKinseyHarvard Business School
Yael Goldstein Love Editorial Director & Cofounder
Doubleday AuthorThe Paris ReviewGrub Street
Gary McMath Advisor
NetflixAT&T Wireless
Barry Enderwick Advisor
Netflix
Jennifer 8. Lee CEO & Cofounder
The New York TimesHachette, Simon & Schuster AuthorUpworthy
Jacqueline Chang CTO & Cofounder
MIT Course 6StumbleUponGoldman Sachs
Our Team
Who’s Working with Us
Writers in our Library
Julia Glass, National Book Award winner
Chang-rae Lee, PEN/Hemingway Prize winner
Adam Haslett, Pulitzer inalist
Alan Lightman, National Book Award inalist
Molly Antopol, National Book Foundation, 5 under 35
Deni Bechard, Commonwealth Prize winner
Mailing list with over 150,000 readers
Publisher contracts since 2007 including Random House, Harper Collins, FSG, Harlequin, Grove Atlantic, Oxford University Press, McGraw Hill, Hachette, Perseus Books, Wiley
ICM literary agency
Workman Publishing
Content Partners(Current Contract Negotiations with)
Open Road Media
HarperCollins
Contracts with Amazon, Audible, Scribd, & Byliner
Co-founded by Albert Wenger, partner at Union Square Ventures
Current Financials
Raised $750,000 angel round on $4 million cap
Our InvestorsAlbert Wenger (Union Square Ventures,
co‐creator of DailyLit)
Alexis Ohanian (Reddit)
Garry Tan (Y Combinator, Posterous)
Joshua Schachter (Delicious)
Adam Goldstein (Hipmunk)
Josh Levine (eTrade)
Craig Mod (Flipboard)
Tim Wu (Columbia Law School)
Andrew McCollum (Facebook)
Jeff Mayersohn (Harvard Book Store)
Matt MacInnis (Inkling)
Charlie Cheever (Quora, Facebook)
Elliot Shmukler (LinkedIn, Wealthfront)
Vegas Tech Fund (Tony Hsieh of Zappos)
James Hong (HotorNot)
Eric T. Lee (Pointstate Partner)
Elliot Loh (Yammer)
Our Unique Team
1 ENGINEER 1 UX/UI DESIGNER 2 EDITORIALSTAFF
2 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, MARKETING & OPERATIONS
Efficient customer acquisition and marketing
Building out engineering team
Acquiring premium content from publishers and authors
Uses for Capital
will redeine reading for the 21st century.
Join Us.