Full-Stack Developer looking for React Co-Founder to take on Goodreads out of spite
Hey hey all! A few months ago I started a small project with a big goal: build a better Goodreads. This is one of those "white whale" projects. Every year multiple people try to build a better Goodreads, and every year multiple sites shut down. Just search for "goodreads" here on Indie Hackers and you'll see a small graveyard of projects.
Since then we've been off to the races! We decided on a name for the project: Hardcover. We formed a team which currently has me (full time) and 4 other people working part time on nights and weekends. The team right now includes a full-stack dev/PM (me), a designer/front-end dev (who did the awesome graphic attached), a UX researcher, a biz dev/sales/author relations person and a new React dev.
We're building this in public and sharing equity for it. That means using the Slicing Pie model for equity where everyone is paid in equity for work done or money put in. No one (not even me) gets equity for being "first". In other words - if you join, you'd have the same opportunity to earn equity as the founders that joined a few months ago. I want this to be successful more than I want to be a majority shareholder. Working with other smart people is how that will happen.
What's Hardcover?
We're building a platform to help people read more life-changing books. This includes being able to track books you've read, see what your friends & people you follow are engaging in, and a ton of ways to discover new books you'll love. Here are a few ways we're aiming to be different from other platforms:
• Match % - A machine learning generated number (0-100) based on how much we think you'll enjoy a book.
• Discussions & Async book clubs - Connect and talk with other readers about books you're reading, or books you love (reddit/discussion style).
• Lists & Stats - Making it super-easy to use lists created around the web, on social channels (TikTok, YT, etc) and by news outlets to find user-curated books.
• Other ideas we're still exploring.
• What else? That's what we need your help with?
If you're familiar with Letterboxd being the indie IMDB - we're trying to make Hardcover the indie Goodreads. We have a handful of business models we're exploring from pro accounts, to ads, to affiliates, to author/publisher tools and more all evolving as we grow and new opportunities open.
What We're Looking For
Here's the details on the tech side of the project today:
• React, Next.js, Typescript hosted on Vercel
• GraphQL with Hasura and Postgres backend
• Express.js backend for server-heavy side using Bull (queue) and Redis
• TensorFlow.js for recommendations and Match %
• React Native in the future for mobile development
In other words it's JavaScript all the way down. We're looking for someone who's up for working with us as a full-stack developer in this, but with most work being on the React side. This would part time (~10hrs a week), up to as many hours as you want to work on it. You have 20 hours this week and nothing next? That's cool. Vacation and work have you busy? That's cool too. We're looking for people who love this idea to collaborate with long-term with the team in weekly meetings to help shape what this project becomes!
We're building this with this with a user-driven feedback cycle:
Develop a hypothesis as a team -> test hypothesis with users -> (maybe iterate) -> create prototype -> test prototype with users -> (maybe iterate) -> Code prototype
That last step is where you'd spend most of your time. You'd be in the codebase with me and the two other devs. We're usually working on one specific feature, grabbing issues on GitHub, pull requesting changing when we're done and iterating fast.
If working on a React, Next.js, GraphQL project in the book space sounds interesting, we should talk! Each time we've posted looking for new people, we've onboarded new team members. We're almost done with our MVP right now, and have work lined up for the next few months already.
Want to learn more?
👉 Check out what we're trying to build and how we're aiming to do something different: https://hardcover.app/
👉 More info on our tech stack here: https://hardcover.app/blog/the-perfect-startup-tech-stack
👉 Read any of these past posts looking for cofounders on Reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/cofounder/comments/oh3asn/usatech20_fullstack_developer_looking_for_visual/ , https://www.reddit.com/r/cofounder/comments/oh3asn/usatech20_fullstack_developer_looking_for_visual/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cofounder/comments/nln25p/usatech20_fullstack_developer_looking_for_react/
Up for working together? Reply to this post and let me know, or message me directly (adam at hardcover.app)!
Edit: Oh yeah, why out of spite? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Goodreads hasn't iterated on much in the last decade since they were acquired, review bombing, lack of discovery features, the platform making book launches more stressful for author launches and (of course) being owned by Amazon which is becoming a book monopoly.
Goodreads is the worst! Just wanted to say I support this! lol
Haha, thanks Allison. It's funny how many times we've heard that in user interviews. One of our user interviews questions is "Can you tell me about a time you were frustrated with Goodreads?" and let me tell you - this gets people riled up every time.
Hi Adam,
I might be interested in joining your project. I am a full stack dev with almost 6 years of experience. I am comfortable with JS/TS and NextJs and a few other languages.
I do have a few questions first. You mentioned that there is a graveyard of GoodReads alternative. Why do you think that is and what makes Hardcover different?
What is your business model? IMHO there are 3+ possibilities, either you end up charging the users/readers, the authors or you take a commissions on the sale of the books that you would end up recommending to the readers. Maybe I am forgetting some. Happy to be corrected.
Personally I don't see the readers paying for this service. My wife is an avid user of GoodReads and like you for a while I thought I could start a side project to try to compete with them.
But when I asked my wife if she would pay for such a service, she said no. The reason she said no is because despite me explaining to her that she was just handing over her data to Amazon, GoodReads is a nice to have and a not a need to have. If GoodReads was not there, she would do without.
There is also this false belief that people are becoming more privacy minded lately but the latest Iphone debacle does not bode well for this argument as the fact that Apple is ready to just up and grab everyone's pictures from their phone and this fact has not led to a decrease in Iphone sales.
So to me a privacy inclined platform is not a guaranteed win.
The conversation with my wife made me think a lot about a potential sustainable business model and I could not find one that worked besides selling the reader's data to a 3rd party aka Amazon.
I would not feel comfortable either by taking a % of each book sale happening on the site. This type of income is highly volatile and can disappear overnight if whoever pays the commission decides to reduce your cut or ban you from the platform for whatever reason.
I hope you understand that I am not trying to be a pessimist. I think GoodReads should be disrupted but I am not sure if having a better matching algorithm and other minor but needed improvements and more privacy will be enough to sway people away from GoodReads.
I mean, one can only hope. After all Facebook ended up beating MySpace but one could also argue that MySpace(in light of recent events) was actually not a bad platform.
Thanks for your time in advance. I hope you understand that I am not trying to be rude with my questions/comments.
The reason I am asking this questions is because I have built a few side projects in the past with no business plan and those did not turn out well.
Now, I try to think of ways to monetize the site before building it. If I see no sustainable and ethical way to make it work, then I usually move on because without income, then there is no real business, only another site that is DOA.
Awesome reply, feedback and questions! I'll try to respond to everything here.
Why do you think that is and what makes Hardcover different?
The biggest thing, in my eyes, is that most people (and this is also true for all of the 50+ users we've talked to) don't use Goodreads as a place to discover new books to read. Readers find new books to read elsewhere – Twitter, the news, friends, Audible, Bookbub, and other platforms. Goodreads is where they go to validate that reading choice, or to track what they want to read. It's rare that someone learned about a new book from Goodreads outside of their yearly "Readers Choice Awards".
Instead, they're using Goodreads for 3 things: tracking their "to read" list, tracking what they read, and getting the details about a book including reviews.
We're implementing (or already have implemented actually) those core features of Goodreads that most readers use, but then also focus strongly on discovery of new books. The hope is to be a non-Amazon platform that authors of all kinds can use to offer up more diverse voices and books that they might not see on other GR, but that may resonate very well with the reader.
That focus on discovery might seem like a small thing, but it's a huge difference in product design, what features we focus on and more.
What is your business model?
I think you're right about people not wanting to pay for this. When GR gives something away, it's going to be unrealistic that people pay for it.
What we're planning to do, with the mindset that we'll quickly iterate on if it turns out to fail, is to offer pro accounts which offer a few power-reader features at a low, reasonable price point. Pro accounts will also be ad-free, while free accounts will have ads.
This is something quite different from other new goodreads alternative platforms out there. Most have stated they won't show ads at all. As much as I dislike ads, if they can help pay the bills while we grow, I'd be open to it.
I'd love to eventually get to a place where general ads are not needed and we could make a sufficient amount of revenue from affiliates, brand deals, promoting authors books and more.
Imagine how powerful it would be for authors to be able to pay us to promote their new book to people that we believe will already enjoy their book based on our algorithm? Authors/publishers would get the most targeted ads possible, readers would see ads for books they're already likely to enjoy and we'd make money. That's (one of) the end goals - but pro accounts, and general ads are a way to get there in the meantime.
Why This Site Then?
Your comments get to the heart of why no one has made a Goodreads alternative yet – there's very little chance of success! Odds are this project is going to fail as well. There are no "easy wins" on this one on the revenue side. For it to work, it has to be better (to some users) than an already established brand owned by a multi-trillion dollar company (😅).
There's a really good article on "Why no one has made a better Goodreads" ( https://uxdesign.cc/why-has-no-one-made-a-better-goodreads-dfc9cb9e149a ) that digs into some of the competitive research we've done as well.
The tl;dr is that Goodreads is huge because they've built up a massive moat in the industry. They have a massive SEO advantage, they have an army of librarians updating book metadata, and they have more than a decade of curated book history – more accurate than any other source out there.
That's the bad news. The good news is that from the SEO research I've done, ranking on the front page for many books (the long tail of the millions of books out there), looks surprisingly doable with some good content. They also haven't significantly updated their interface, improved recommendations from the Java engine they acquired in 2009ish or tried out major new features since 2013. Long-time users recognize when a platform stagnates.
When it comes to the revenue side, we do have a lot to figure out. I'm fortunate enough to be a retired developer who has a lot of time on their hands. Right now there are no other project I'd rather work on. That buys one important thing – time to figure it out. Having a super-low run rate and mixing that with passion from a team is a recipe to take on a David vs Goliath project like this. I'm excited to see where we go. 😄
It's a good challenge. I would be tempted to expand the site to include related services people already pay for. GoodReads type platforms may naturally attract amateur or professional writers. Perhaps there is opportunity to sell writing tools and services? Could those services feed back into the reader side (i.e. publishing such material on the site for members to read)?
What about a subscription service which sends you a handpicked book every month based on your personal preferences and reading habits? Something you may not have picked out yourself or a random book from your want-to-read list?
I think there are many ways to monetise such a site. Readers Digest would be a good place to start. They have a subscription offer: https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/subscribe.
As you say, it's a nice-to-have. I use GoodReads to keep track of the books I've read and want to read based on reviews and ratings. I wouldn't pay for it. The question is whether they could capture enough users who would pay for certain services and turn a profit.
Hard agree on all of this. The core features Goodreads offers kind of have to be free for any competitor. Readers paying us requires some unique addition – like the handpicked books each month.
That's not a bad idea for a feature to be honest. It could be one more feature powered by the algorithm we're already creating that helps clarify what the reader gets from this core piece. I'm going to add a question about this to our next round of user interviews to get some user thoughts on this one. 😄
I'll definitely pay for a service like this, getting one book a month for a yearly subscription.
I would suggest a twist, I am assuming the book is generated by ML and not a one-fits-all category (ex. sci-fi, romance, etc) but I would be really interested in including a "premium" book a year or something like that, that is, a book that I really want to read but the price is well above the average I pay for a book, obviously I'll understand that to make that happen some other books (not all of them) would be below average price but laser pointed by ML.
Just an idea, I am not sure if complex logic like this could make a good business model.
I think there might be a miscommunication in my description. We're not generating any books, or granting access to any books. That is starkly different than Netflix or other platforms that are exploration and consumption.
For Hardcover, we're aiming to be the discovery & tracking side. The reading experience would still happen on their own – buying a book, getting a kindle book, listening to an audiobook.
We would love to integrate with Kindle's library, with Overdrive/Libby, and with OpenLibrary – basically anywhere that allows you to read. That's still down the line though.
Haha, no worries, probably it is me who misunderstood something.
From this suggestion:
I thought your response about not being a bad idea include it, and since you are using ML already I thought it would be awesome to get books with a more sophisticated picking algorithm.
Oh yeah, I think I just misunderstood. We could send people a book recommendation each month, but not a book itself. All the mailing and logistics side of actually mailing books would be a tricky one haha.
I very much enjoy how many projects start out with "out of spite". A wonderful way to light a fire. Good luck!
I would love to have a chat and contribute, I am a full-stack but I don't think I can consistently work on it 10 hours a week.
I've been thinking on something related for some time now and started working on a very basic prototype with almost the same stack. My idea, and I would happily pay for it if it is in the same price range of Netflix or Spotify, is to offer book threads, something like a graph to make annotations on books that would help track my progress, then write some post about the book, and finally meet other readers that highlighted or were attracted by similar paragraphs than me so I can take their suggestions or read lists more seriously.
I am not asking/suggesting features, just sharing what I miss from GR and hoping it help you build a better product.
We should chat! Could you reach out to me at adam (at) hardcover.app?
Love this idea and your approach to it. I'd be so into joining if I had the time. I hope you find that breakthrough 💪
Thanks for the encouragement!
I think branding, UX, and design should be the main focus rather than features. Make it a 'cool' site. GoodReads makes me feel like I'm in school. I can imagine your site being successful if it was like last.fm circa 2009, when people would ask what your last.fm profile is. I can imagine the same thing for a book site, because it seems to me people are passionate about books because of the time they put into it. There is a sense of pride in it: both in having a particular taste, and in having read a lot of books. I think you should really think about the psychological aspect. And with the UX aspect. For example, why people are switching to Notion over Evernote despite it lacking features. Good luck with it
Very good point. One reason none of the other sites have grabbed wide attention can be attributed to this I believe. People can get excited about a platform with fewer features if those that are they are good and branding/experience is on point (Instagram coming along after Facebook for example).
One way I've been thinking about it is how people describe using the site. Do they say "I use <x>", or do they say "I'm on <x>". Use implies it's a tool, while "on" says it's a platform they're proud to be on. For most people we've talked to, they say they "use goodreads" – which makes me think there's room there to do exactly what you're describing: become that platform people are passionate about for books – if we can figure out what's missing and execute on it.
Hi Adam, the product looks great and you seem to have a good understanding of how to approach such a project. Good luck 🍀
Thanks Dennis! It's going to be a lot of work, but it's a fun project at least!
Hi Adam,
I might be interested, I have already worked with React, React Native, Next.js and Hasura.
That's awesome! Can you email me to chat? adam at hardcover.app.
Hey Adam, I really like this idea, i am front end react developer, know some node, and want to lern react native .... i am looking for a full time gig right know... is there a option where salary and equity might be available ? I am in south america
Hey Juan, unfortunately there's no cash in the bank or money coming in the door, so we're unable to pay in anything other than equity. We're 100% bootstrapped, so right now so everyone is working on this for fun/free – which is why most people are part time. I'm only full time because I'm fortunate enough to have had a large exit at a past company.
Hey @adamfortuna.
I am interested in joining your project part time as a React Dev . I also have experience in node and express .
here's my portfolio https://udit-takkar.vercel.app/
Sounds like it could be a match! Could you reach out at adam at hardcover.app? We can go from there. :)