Storybird

There needs to be a balance between a great UX and making money for the business.

Kaye Puhlmann
Co-founder & Head of Growth at Storybird Inc.

Previous work experience includes:
VP Creative at Critical Mass
Creative Director at Blast Radius
Instructor, VFS Foundation Visual Art and Design at Vancouver Film School
Instructor, Graphic Design at Sheridan and is also a former alumnus where she studied Graphic Design and Computer Graphics.

Kaye returns to Sheridan College to talk about some of the challenges with Storybird Inc. A story in 3 parts - Design, Analytics and Design.

She started work on this project 10 years ago. It started out as a publishing platform for children in schools. Inspiring students to write with the help of pictures and making a book. Some children jumped 3 grad levels by using this platform to write. It is now used by all ages for all different subjects. Storybird lets anyone make visual stories. It curates artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspires writers to turn those images into their own stories. Users can choose artwork from a specific artist and then add text to create a storybook.

Storybook fundraisers allow teachers to turn a project or an assignment that the children worked on into a fundraiser. Parents can buy their child’s book and 30% of the proceeds go to the class or school depending on the scope of the project. The books become family keepsakes and make great year-round gifts for relatives and friends.

Design

The Storybird logo was re-branded after it started looking a lot like the twitter logo. The new logo was a whimsical bird wearing a crown. It also has a secret name. The new logo is super fun because it has many expressions and can wear many hats.

Analytics

Lots of users and lots of stories was being generated. Regular users were talking about their experience and what they wanted to see on the site. Storybird listened and solved their problems and created the best UX they could. But no one was buying books. The business was not making money and something had to change in order to survive. There needed to be a balance between the user and what was going to make you money. The business was driving them instead of them driving the business.

Google analytics gave them lots of information. Almost all of the users were students and a small group of outside users were the ones communicating their needs. The silent majority was not being heard or did not want to talk. Who was buying their books? There were lots of questions so Kaye leaped from being a designer to being a business person. She was able to funnel information from the spreadsheets getting a better understanding of the data and the business. She says a capital “D” designer needs to wear both hats. And found a new respect for good business people.

Design

They discovered that there was a retention problem. A drop of 20% after the first day. Teachers get students engaged and leave when they are done. New products needed to be added to keep the user coming back from home rather than from the school. They decided to reward them for coming back. Give them beautifully designed crowns. They can spent the crowns to publish their book faster. They can show them on their dash board. They also get a badge for more books you write. Creating a habit loop. People liked the rewards and where starting to stick around longer. This increased the chances to sell them memberships and subscriptions. The company was starting to see a positive change to their bottom line.

Storybird started measuring it's business by Badges, Writing Days, Redeemed Crowns, Golden Crowns (paying membership). A way to look at business that is driven by design. Elegant, understanding and clarity. Qualitative and quantitative.

Final words from Kaye “It’s not real until someone uses it”.

Thank-you for a great presentation!