[24] A month later, in November 2012, Goodreads had surpassed 12 million members, with the member base having doubled in one year. But Ive always been an engineering minded kid. If I know what my friend is reading, or has read, that gives me a basis for conversation around that. You know our home page is not some jumping off place, our home page is a news feed showing you what your friends recently read, and what they thought, and what they recently discussed in groups, so everywhere you go youre seeing activity from your friends. . [Break in audio] So what a lot of these authors are realizing Hey, Ive got to be out there on the internet collecting fans and gaining readership.. And I had moved to LAI had followed a girl to LA and so I didnt know a lot of people down there even though I grew up down there and I didnt want to get a job, like I said. Otis Chandler Founder and CEO in San Francisco Visit my company website. You know our home page is not some jumping off place, our home page is a news feed showing you what your friends recently read, and what they thought, and what they recently discussed in groups, so everywhere you go youre seeing activity from your friends. So, if the product is going to be viral it has to be useful, more useful if there are friends then if there are not. I know the first time that we tried this interview it didnt work out so well. Andrew: The book Think and grow rich, I think one of its points there is to work with good people, because their systems, their was of working is going to rub off on you. Interviewee: I couldnt do this without plugging the fact that we just launched book swap. Their latest investment was Series A - BookClub on Jun 15, 2021, when BookClub raised $20M. And Good Reads it was obvious. Am I reading your history properly here? Otis Chandler - San Francisco, CA (1,354 books) 585 ratings (4.19 avg) 385 reviews Goodreads Founder more photos (7) #32 most followed #3 top librarians Otis Chandler Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Otis. [31], Noting that some authors had been "too aggressive in their self-promotion" (as Goodreads admitted in an email) and that some readers had responded with aggression,[32] in September 2013, Goodreads announced it would delete, without warning, reviews that threatened authors or mentioned authors' behavior. For a lot of people, this is when things started to go downhill, and it's hard to argue against that. You know for us we had a problem where Goodreads was about cataloging your books so you come in and youd add a bunch of books and youd say what you thought of them, and maybe youd go kind of nuts. Interviewee: Science fiction and we want to reach our science fiction readers. Otis Chandler's income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. And its an iterative process. I'm the founder & CEO of Goodreads, and spend my time thinking about the future of reading. One of the sites we built, that photo-sharing site I mentioned, was called ringo.com. But So, the large degree most of the jobs I found were, you know, building printers for HP or just stuff that wasnt getting as exciting as hearing about all the stuff going on it the dot com world. And it turns out that most problems in mechanical engineering are pretty solved. I cant imagine what the next thing is going to be. And it actually launched under Goodreadz.com with a z. The site has since grown to nearly 5 million members who have added over 150 million books, completely by word of mouth. Youll notice that if you create a group on Goodreads the next page is invite your friends to your group on Goodreads and I wouldnt say those are insanely viral like that because youre not going to invite everybody, but it definitely helps. It was all about learning how you build the product. So its kind of fun like that. Maybe we can afford a down payment on a house, in East Bay. The other person who gets me a lot of books, I guess over time, Kareem Mayan, a friend of mine has recommended a bunch of interesting books. Otis Chandler is the most interesting person in the book, a driven, hollow man. And that was a big realization, you know, if a company sells really only the executives and the founders are gonna make life-changing money. Andrew: 2.7 million registered users I said in the beginning you got up to 650,000 on your own, no outside funding. It's been a labor of love. And both my grandfathers own their own companies and are successful. [inaudible] Id always kinda been a reader as a kid and I wanted to get back to that. That has that kind of community? [51], Goodreads librarians improve book information on the website, including editing book and author information and adding cover images. And two, I think Ive always kinda had the idea that I would start a company some day. Thank you everyone for watching, Im looking forward to your comments and Im looking forward to talking to, actually Im looking forward to your comments lets leave it there. If youre an entrepreneur, developer, or even into a Sci-Fi it seems like Otiss picks are the ones to go to, so thats one way. And Goodreads allows you to keep all of the books youve ever read. What else did you do that was different and that helped spur on virility? Did you have shares of Tickle.com? Should I go outsource to India or whatever? Im like no, just get a good engineer, get a smart guy out of college, give him a large piece of your company, make him your right hand man and go build something before you do anything and prove that it works. Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon[1] that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. "Reading may be a solitary activity, but what you're reading and what you think of what you're reading are . We allow you to actually create custom shelves. Thank you Otis. He had a number of good things about him. My mom knew to give me a broken VCR rather than throw it out. Otis figured he might prove him wrong, and in 2007, launched Goodreads, a book catalog and review site that he coded from his LA apartment. There is also a special section for authors with suggestions for promoting their works on Goodreads.com, aimed at helping them reach their target audience. What was it like at first? Otis Chandler is the founder of Goodreads.com. Interviewee: First, Ive always been a reader. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Chandler family $4.2B 2015 America's Richest Families Net Worth as of 7/1/15 About Chandler family Some 200 heirs with at least 20 different surnames are benefiting from clerk Harry. Ning has built like what? You know theyd spend half a work day going down memory lane, all the books I read in junior high, all the books I read in high school, and its a kind of fun process to go through actually. Andrew: Okay, great. Critics of Goodreads have considered this decision to be a form of censorship. Andrew: I see. And this is very similar to the Facebook self-serve product or the MySpace self-serve product. But if you wrote a book about a certain topic you should go to people whofind communities around that topic and market to them. Interviewee: Ah, right. Interviewee: Definitely. The website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. I actually found a dating site once for people who golf. So weve got that for authors. Interviewee: He was. And this is kind of like what MySpace does for bands. Amazon bought Goodreads for $150 million in 2013, though founders Otis and Elizabeth stayed on for a few more years. Goodreads often refuses to remove quotes with "likes" from an author's profile, even if the quotes are false or invalid. Andrew: Alright, so one of the reasons that it went viral is because people love talking about their IQs or the results of their tests, what kind of dog they were. Goodreads is a "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer, and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Khuri. Andrew: And I know from looking at Goodreads, from looking at your profile on Goodreads, youre reading Think and Grow Rich an inspiration for me. Regarding the 2013 Amazon acquisition of Goodreads, The New York Times said that: "Goodreads was a rival to Amazon as a place for discovering books" and that this deal "consolidates Amazon's power to determine which authors get exposure for their work". So lets take a look at it here. Do you have a group on Goodreads thats like that? [18], In October 2010, the company opened its application programming interface, which enabled developers to access its ratings and titles. It just seemed like there was a lot more innovation going on. Hundreds of dollars? Andrew: CS of course Computer Science. Blogger or WordPress, whatever. They finally have written a book, its going to be out there, people are going to know their name. So shes really been into the product and we kind of view it as both of ours a little bit. Do you have some advice that you can give to other scrappy entrepreneurs who say, I like the way Otis did it, he didnt go out and look for funding first, he built his product first, I want to duplicate that approach.. Im in Argentina can I find people who are here instead of having to get the book shipped from the US? Donta lot of authors I think get depressed because their publisher tells them to go do signings around the nation and so they go to some Barnes & Noble store in Ohio somewhere and ten people show up to sign a book and they just get, Oh man, what am I doing in Ohio with ten people? Thats not going to move the needle anymore. So that was the big lesson, serious is good but fun is viral. That gave his business enough traction to raise money from investors and take his business to over 2.6 million members. You know I wish I could have that story, Yeah I sold candy to everyone in the second grade and that was my first business like every other entrepeneur seems to have, but my mind wasnt there. GoodReads didirikan pada Desember 2006, resmi dirilis pada 30 Januari 2007 oleh Otis Chandler dan Elizabeth Khuri. [6] By July 2012, the site reported 10 million members, 20 million monthly visits, and thirty employees. Youll learn how he did it in this interview. Interviewee: I had an absolutely horrible design at first and then I had one of the Tickle designers, friend of mine, do the design and he was really good. Goodreads has a presence on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Interviewee: I think he hired smart people, and like you said, smart people want to work with smart people, and that just kind of grows. They dont want the interview; they dont want to be on anywhere. So then, they finally said Okay lets try something different, and the put up a what kind of dog are you test. He is from USA. Maybe theres the business model. So it turns out what had been going on, people who had this desire to share their thoughts about books, they had all been using blogs. As a young programmer in the mid-2000s, Otis Chandler watched as dozens of niche web sites began to take off. He says he loves Good Reads, he loves the community on there, and he wonders what youre going to do to get authors more engaged. 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