DAWN

Page 101

Lifestyle/Culture

Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur By Lily Herman IF YOU’VE SPENT any amount of time discussing books on the internet, c h a n c e s are you’ve done so on Goodreads. The Amazonowned platform remains the stalwart in the space, with over 90 million users. But a twoand-a-half-year-old upstart out of the United Kingdom called The StoryGraph is quickly gaining a cult following — and its founder Nadia Odunayo believes she’s created a platform that finally puts readers first. After studying at Oxford University, Odunayo dove headfirst into the world of software engineering. But when a startup job in the U.S. fell through in early 2019, she decided to take a break from the 9-to-5 grind and tinker with a few ideas she had put on the back-burner. Among them was an early version of The StoryGraph, a reading list app Odunayo had designed as a supplement to her Goodreads account. She knew firsthand about the issues with existing book cataloguing sites: their shoddy algorithms filled with advertiserdriven book recommendations, the lack of space to build communities, and the strange user experience quirks, like Goodreads’ refusal to allow half-stars in book ratings. She and the many readers she interviewed were still searching for a service that could provide two key things: quality personalized book recommendations, and the ability to filter books by mood (think “emotional,” “adventurous,” or “sad”). Odunayo believed she could build a platform that offers both. “I finally felt alive as a developer,” she says of the early days working on The StoryGraph. Odunayo describes her platform as the best place for 101

September-October 2021

readers to find books based on their feelings, as well as any topics or themes that they’re interested in. She pitches it like this: “What if you could build the ultimate friend? They get you and your mood on any given day but also all of the books in the world.” With over 322,000 users and counting amassed over two and a half years, it seems Odunayo is onto something. It’s easy to see what draws readers to the platform. The StoryGraph offers many features that bookworms have long requested of other sites — like an in-depth data panel with information about a user’s reading habits, the ability to check out a book’s mood or pacing, and customizable reading goals. Devotees also love the dedicated content warnings section, which helps people skip materials they may find triggering. The business model is also about putting users first. To avoid being beholden to advertisers, who are liable to request changes in book recommendations and product options, Odunayo opted for a subscriber model. She was nervous about adding a paid tier, but says that many readers like the idea of paying a monthly fee to support an up-and-coming business, particularly one working to upend the book recommendation space. “I still have doubts of, ‘Is it different enough? Is it going to survive?’ You see companies all the time that come along and go big and disappear,” she says. Still, she believes her product has staying power — and The StoryGraph is definitely in growth mode. In addition to its subscription tier, the site also recently launched its app on the Google Play and Apple Stores. Odunayo, at least, is in it for the long haul. “I want to continue to be a customerdriven business,” she says ofher platform. “[I want] The StoryGraph to be everything.” www.bustle.com/entertainment/the-storygraphgoodreads-competitor-nadia-odunayo Image credit: videos.goruco.com, blog.tellwell.ca

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The History of Congo's Leopard Men Society that Inspired Marvel's Black Panther

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pages 112-114

Netfl ix and Disney Have a Major Disadvantage in Africa’s Streaming Wars

2min
page 108

Agoodjie Warriors: The Black Women Amazons that once Protected Benin

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pages 110-111

LIN CROWLEY FINE ART

2min
page 109

Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur

2min
page 101

How Digital Beauty Filters Perpetuate Colorism

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pages 102-105

World-Famous Ghanaian Artist Will Be First to Have Artwork Featured in Outer Space

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page 100

Tracking the Future of Tennis

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pages 98-99

Undefeated: First Black Girl Duo Wins International Debate Competition at Harvard

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page 97

Barack Obama to Join NBA Africa as Strategic Partner

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page 96

African Languages to get More Bespoke

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pages 86-88

The Promise of the African Genome Project

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pages 94-95

A $2 Billion Fintech Startup has Become Africa’s Fastest Unicorn

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page 82

Covid-19 is Changing the way African Countries are Collaborating with Each Other

3min
pages 92-93

Alphabet’s Project Taara Laser Tech Beamed 700TB of Data Across Nearly 5km

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page 83

Welcome to the Age of Wireless Electricity

7min
pages 89-91

Ethiopia to Build Local Rival to Facebook

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page 84

3 Takeaways from Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Teaming up to Fund Women’s and Girls’ Causes

3min
pages 80-81

IMF OKs Big Increase in Funds to Alleviate Pandemic Impact

7min
pages 77-79

A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory

2min
page 76

Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First

5min
pages 74-75

African Stock Exchange/Bourse

2min
pages 72-73

Remittance to Africa Projected to Decrease

4min
pages 68-69

Conferment of Sierra Leonea Citizenship

1min
pages 70-71

West African Regional Bloc Adopts New Plan to Launch Eco Single Currency in 2027

1min
page 67

Ghana, Hub for Doing Business

4min
pages 63-65

The UK has Committed to Making Africa’s Landmark Trade Agreement Successful

2min
page 66

Lab-grown Coff ee Cuts Out the Beans and Deforestation (and the farmers)

3min
pages 52-53

Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine for HIV is Starting Human Trials

4min
pages 58-59

Pfi zer and BioNTech in Agreement to Manufacture COVID Vaccine for Distribution in Africa

2min
page 56

Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) Fill Vaccine Information Gaps

1min
page 57

Novavax’s Eff ort to Vaccinate the World, From

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pages 54-55

Madagascar is Suff ering from a Climate Change Famine

2min
pages 50-51

This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors

4min
pages 44-45

Economist Magazine calls for Georgieva to Quit IMF over World Bank Data Scandal

2min
page 33

7 Business Models that will Rule the Next Decade

6min
pages 26-27

Why You Want to be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven

4min
pages 28-29

Elon Musk’s new Satellites Could Sneak Internet Past the Taliban

4min
pages 46-47

IPCC Scientists Still Haven’t Cracked Africa’s Biggest Climate Mystery

3min
pages 48-49

Empowering African Women Entrepreneurs

4min
pages 34-35

The Skin Lightening Business is Booming in Kenya—Though No One will Admit it

6min
pages 30-32

7 Easy Ways to Use PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Content Marketing Campaign

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pages 16-20

A Bank at Every Corner Store

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pages 21-24

21-Year Old Becomes Ghana’s Youngest Female Commercial Pilot

1min
page 25

Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon'

3min
pages 8-10

Linktree Partners with PayPal to Allow Users Globally to Accept Direct Payments

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page 12

Amazon Inaugurates its First Logistics Centre in Egypt

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page 13

Publisher's Message

4min
pages 4-7

Kenyans Lead the World in Peer to Peer Crypto Trade

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page 11
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