“If you have good customer research set up, it’s very hard to go wrong.”

—Nadia Odunayo

Picture this: You walk into a bookstore, and the first floor is filled with books selected based on your personal tastes. They’re not based on the comp title research you’re doing for work or the books you looked up out of curiosity after the latest publishing kerfuffle. Instead, they’ve been curated based on books you’ve already read and answers you gave to a few questions the moment you walked in the door.

Now, imagine a close friend works at the bookstore—this person knows every book you’ve ever read (INCLUDING all the ones that you have on your Goodreads shelves), and they also have a catalog of every book in the world in their heads.

Nadia Odunayo, Founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, and her cofounder Rob Frelow work day in and day out to create a quieter, safer place online where readers can find their next favorite book—without predatory algorithms or unwanted messages from strangers. Nadia joined Emily to discuss their company mission, how they prioritize what features to build, and the importance of cultivating relationships with loyal, invested users.

Guest Bio

Nadia Odunayo is the founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, the new website that helps you to track your reading and choose which book to read next. She previously worked at Pivotal Labs as a software engineer and originally learnt to code at Makers Academy in London. In her spare time she loves to take dance class and, naturally, read!

Follow The StoryGraph on Twitter @thestorygraph and Instagram @the.storygraph