Nadia Odunayo was not going to take on the powerful global juggernaut that is Amazon, but for many book lovers, she has become a hero they don’t need.
For 18 years, bibliography cataloged readings, leaving behind reviews and star ratings, and was able to obtain the next reading recommendations from Goodreads, set by two graduates from Stanford University in California.
In 2013, the founder of Goodreads sold it to Amazon, and the already extremely popular site spiked. Currently, there is an estimated 150 million users.
Since 2012, one of these users has been Odunayo, a software engineer and developer in London. Six years ago, she sat down and created what she imagined to be a companion app for Goodreads.
After building a demo for several friends, she quickly realized that it was likely a competitor, using AI to provide reader tracking tools and trends, and then making the next book Helped to recommend it. And as of this week, Storygraph has 3.8 million active users, many of whom have abandoned Goodreads.
Just before Christmas in a blog post entitled “Leave Goodreads in 2025!”, the blogger and reviewer wrote a book with Bunny: There are a lot of things in the company, but I disagree… I feel Goodreads is outdated. Its interface is clunky and limited functionality… I found Goodreads’ recommendations to be overwhelming and heavily skewed into popular titles. ”
I think people love the different kinds of data we give. There are so many really cool features and the buddy is being read. But I think the best thing is that it’s just that Amazon doesn’t own it.”
Nadia Odunayo
Bunny announced that she will use Storygraph in the future. “I’ve loved it before! It’s not only female-owned, but it also offers so many great features.”
A Goodreads spokesperson said on Saturday that he welcomed millions of readers, and that our community read hundreds of millions of books, and that he wanted to read the shelves. I saw strong growth in the book I wrote.” .
Odonayo, 33, said: “I think people love the different kinds of data we give. There are so many really cool features and the buddy is being read.
“But if people compare us to Goodreads, then the fact that a lot of people go is, ‘It’s just that Amazon doesn’t own it.”
Goodreads struggles with the perception that there are malicious reviews and even personal attacks on users’ authors. In 2023, Cait Corrain, author of the debut work, was removed by her publisher Del Rey, and her planned publications increased the appreciation of her own work and attacked other debut authors. After admitting that he had created a fake Goodreads account, it was discarded at the same time as her.
In the wake of the Corrain incident, Goodreads welcomes both positive and negative reviews, but “prohibits readers and authors from harassing or unrelated to the author or the overall We have issued a statement that we will attempt to artificially differentiate or inflate the assessment.
“We continue to invest in improvements to quickly detect and mitigate content and accounts that violate reviews and community guidelines.”
Storygraph attempted to resolve such issues by not allowing private messages or comments on reviews. Odunayo said he wanted to avoid a situation where “everyone can comment on your review and you have to deal with the scary thing about having a review there.”
Odunayo had no ambition to work in technology when she was younger. She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University and offered to work at Deutsche Bank.
But after winning the competition for locations on women’s coding courses, “the best skill to get into my back pocket” – the tech industry has become her home.
Analyses and opinions on news and culture of the week brought to you by the best observer writers
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising, and content funded by external parties. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy. We use Google Recaptcha to protect our website and the application of Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
After the newsletter promotion
She considers herself lucky. “I’ve been in the tech industry for 10 years, and although it’s dominated by very white men, I was lucky with my colleagues and the company I worked with. Even when I went to Oxford, I was like me. Not many people looked like that,” she said. “So I know that not everyone like me has that experience.”
Storygraph, despite the user number climbing, is still run by Odunayo, who posts videos on Instagram and social media, discusses the app and her own reading, and answers messages personally directly.
But given the growth rate, can it last? And what if Amazon is calling a cash-filled briefcase to buy Goodreads competitors?
“That’s not something we’re interested in,” Odunayo says. “I had zero investment in StoryGraph. It’s a completely bootstrapped company. Clearly anything can happen in life, but now we’re happy and enjoying it. StoryGraph is me I think it’s the work of our lives.
“I don’t think there’s a limit to how big we can get and maintain what we’re doing right now. I just want more people to know about us. We want to be the most popular app in the world.”
For Odunayo, why she started all of this in the first place – the book is more important than ever. “I remember my friend was busy with social media years and only read 45 books,” she said. “And then, “Wait a second – I’m single. I don’t have any kids. The company I was running at was 9am until 6pm. I only read 13 books this year.’
“So I set goals for around 30 books a year, which is interesting because people always tell me.
In fact, Oduyano currently reads 70 or 80 books a year, separating non-fiction and novels. Her current reading is the Ministry of Era by Khalian Bradley. “I was exposed to more books by interacting with readers, so I was like, “Oh, I need to read this. I want to read it.” But I He is currently the CEO of a company, a reading tracking app. Therefore, reading is part of my entire identity. ”
