Trip Adler

We realized the best way to monetize content was through a subscription model.

content through best way

We see ourselves as the world's digital library. That can be a lot more than books. We do want to expand to other types of content: sheet music, magazines, user-generated content.

library digital music world

Entrepreneurship is about tackling big problems - often non-obvious problems - that will have a meaningful impact on the world, and this usually involves solving these problems in counterintuitive ways.

problems will impact world

I think the most important trait for an entrepreneur is persistence. When you try to do something new and difficult, you are more likely to fail than to succeed.

new think you persistence

When most people hit failure, they give up, but good entrepreneurs simply treat failure as a learning experience and use it to fuel and inform their next move.

good failure learning people

I'm not sure I'd go back and do anything over in my life. I've definitely had my fair share of failures and moments where I wasted my time or that of other people, but if I did those moments over, I'd have missed out on so many lessons.

my-life time life people

If we're going to build hardware, the thing we want to do is build reading goggles, so you can do hands-free reading.

build you reading want

Holding a book you're reading is kind of old-school.

you kind reading book

Books is our main type of content, but we include user-generated content and will include other verticals such as scientific papers, sheet music, and comic books.

content books will music

Just as it can be addictive to be in a real world bookstore or library, it's the same on the Web.

just library real world

Readers can read what they want and easily switch to other books, so we're seeing a lot of reading behaviors. Some verticals attract different usage than others. We can spot reading patterns.

some different reading want

Anytime there is a new, interesting space that comes along, there are a bunch of companies that enter the market.

market new space interesting

The subscriptions were working so well, and on top of that, we saw the success of Netflix and Spotify and thought, 'We can create a similar kind of experience for books.'

thought netflix experience success

The original idea was to make it easy to publish content on the Web and find an audience. What we learned from publishers is that the thing they want the most is more readers and more revenue.

find more easy want

I learned how important timing is; having a really good idea five years ahead of its time is practically worthless.

ahead good important time

If I make a good product and deliver value to users and to the world, the financial gains will come.

value will good world

The more you learn, the more you realize how much there is to learn.

realize more how you

I was in the class they made 'The Social Network' about.

about social made class

We actually determine whether the book is read and make payments to the publisher based on that.

read make determine book

In a startup, in the early days, it can be hard to explain what you do.

explain days you hard