What is your company name? Widescript

Where are you based? Amsterdam, The Netherlands

How would you describe your company to the head of digital from a publishing company? We make a high-quality cloud-based e-book reader for publishers. It works on virtually any device or screen, is customizable (branded) and embeddable. No need to deliver files to the consumer. And it features a powerful analytics dashboard. It's like Scribd but built for e-book publishers – from the ground up.

Why would a publisher want to work with you? What's in it for them? If a publisher feels like they are losing control by: - Yielding to pricing pressure from online retailers/distributors - Simply giving away e-book files to consumers (fear of piracy, bad user experience juggling with files and/or DRM, incompatible formats) - No way of providing rich multimedia and interactive content - Missing feedback, losing engagement with their readership - Not understanding how people read and failing to find patterns and improve future sales- Or simply need an additional distribution channel, usually alongside their sales channel / bookstore.

In simple terms, how is your company going to make money? We are already making some money with our first customers. We charge a setup fee, and from then on take a small cut per distributed e-book.

Where is your funding coming from? Self-funded.

What date did/will you launch? We slightly pivoted our concept, new launch date: Dec 1st, 2011

How would you describe your company to a book-loving friend? You can use Widescript to read your books anywhere, anytime. Study from the school's PC, or your iPhone on-the-go... even offline. Get home, carry on where you left off, view a summary of your notes and highlights. Learn with videos and interactive exercises.

What are your plans to give your company exposure? Who is your target audience? All e-book publishers. Particularly small publishers - especially those who already have a sales channel. We want to increase our exposure by being more involved in social media and going to influential book conferences. We want to meet with as many publishers as possible, with the clear goal of learning better first-hand what kind of problems they're facing today.

Your vision for your company in three year's time? Publishers need to dramatically innovate in order to stay competitive. Learning from, creating experiences with e-books but also engaging with their readers is key for their survival. Right now that loop is not being closed. As we come to witness a myriad of different devices and screen sizes, and increasing especially on mobile, reflowable content will be king. Readers, students, have greater and greater expectations about content (quality, productivity, portability) and its support in the near future. Our product will not only be used throughout the publishing world (even with new business models) but also in many other verticals that consume and collaborate on huge amounts of content.

What is your end game? Build a company that provides real value to real problems,that  helps level the players on the field, and makes consumers (and ourselves!) happy.

Three things you've learned from launching a startup? - Ideas are just a starting point and almost worthless - Don't build something nobody will want – constantly learn/build in small steps - Functionality is an asset, code is a liability

Who are you? Francisco Treacy 

Find out more about Widescript, here.

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