Kyle
This is the story of an awesome New York startup for many reasons. First off, it’s a woman founded startup, we love covering women founded startups in addition to startups everywhere else. Secondly, it brings back a favorite past time of mine, and many other technogeeks around the same age in Choose Your Own Adventure.
I remember many a day sitting at a Crown Book Store (way before the big boxes) and deciding which of hundreds of Choose Your Own Adventure titles I would buy with my lawn cutting money and my allowance. The series of books really sparked your imagination and it was almost like buying many different books in one by the way the stories were laid out and the alternative endings you could navigate through.
Now, Katherine Myers, who had a career in the entertainment industry, with stops at DreamWorks, CBS, AMC and New Line Cinema, has turned entrepreneur and launched StoryTBD, a digital, mobile form of Choose Your Own Adventure.
We got a chance to chat with her a bit interview after the break;
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
It’s really a solo operation for the most part but I’m working to change that. My background is in entertainment, I’ve worked for DreamWorks, CBS, AMC and New Line Cinema in development roles, just sussing out ideas for new films and TV shows in some capacity or another. I graduated from Penn in 2008, with a degree in archaeology. Wildly helpful, as you must imagine. My programmer, Chris Shanley, who did the entire back end of things, studied music at Berklee and is a Flash developer for some really big ad agencies in the city like JWT and McCann Erickson.
How did you come up with the idea?
I wanted to make great video content super interactive, and honestly just couldn’t answer the question, Why hasn’t anyone done this before?
What problem does StoryTBD solve?
It makes you keep watching. You have to stay engaged with the content because the content demands an action from you to keep going. In doing that, my hope is that ‘making’ a story is way more fun than just ‘watching’ one. It fills the gap between game and entertainment
What is your target market?
Teens and young adults who both watch a lot of video on mobile and also play a lot of games. This, to me, is the best of both worlds. Fingers crossed.
What kinds of story adventures do you have? Like space? Frontiers things like that?
We’ve got a cat caper, for starters. Then we do indeed venture into outer space, and parse its very limits. We also travel back in time to 1776, so look out for that one. Arguably the greatest choose-your-own-adventure of all time = the Founding Fathers.
Choose your own adventure books seemed to have skipped a generation, do you think you’ll attract older fans of the original series or is it targeted more towards kids/teens?
Hopefully both! There’s definitely a nostalgia factor for adults, and it is 100% a goal of mine to use the platform for children’s content soon. The simplicity of the stories and choices totally makes sense for kids. It’s really fun.
Tell us one challenge you’ve had launching StoryTBD?
Challenge schmallenge! It was a flawless execution. Chris and I were both first-timers so pretty much every single step presented a “learning opportunity”. (Example: Catastrophe video). But truthfully I saw and continue to see what this platform could be and that makes everything easier.
How has the feedback been so far?
Great. People have a lot of ideas for it, which is always a good sign to me. It sparks something that makes people think of its possibilities down the line. In general users have really enjoyed the content, too, though I readily admit that some adventures are better than others.
What’s the “secret sauce”
The exclusive goal of making the product as much fun as humanly possible.
Have you run into any challenges as a woman entrepreneur, in building your startup?
There have been a few things here and there, (shout out to the bro-grammers), but generally the tech world seems to be really pumped about having more women jump in. Which is definitely happening. Watch out dudes. I wouldn’t say ‘ho-grammers’ is appropriate, but it would delight me to see that word used elsewhere.
New York is getting tough for startups, it’s becoming as cut throat as the Valley, got any advice for people planning to move to NY to launch their startup?
I hear if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. It’s tough for every industry, but that’s what makes it the best. It’s an “industry town” for a dozen industries. Use that. Connect with finance people, film and TV folks, friends in design, fashion, food, writing. You never know what kind of person you’re going to meet at the next party and that can only be helpful if you’re open to it.
Is their plans for an Android app?
Heck yea!
What’s next for StoryTBD
TBD. This is literally where our motto came from. Lets see, it is a two pronged plan of attack. We’re fundraising to expand the platform to other mobile devices and web. And we’re establishing partnerships with content creators / producers to keep material coming through the platform.
Where can people find out more about it?
We’re in the iTunes store so download StoryTBD and play around with it and let us know what you think! We’re on Twitter @storytbd, and facebook/storytbd, so go crazy there.
Linkage:
Here’s StoryTBD on Apple’s iTunes app store page
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