Comment by johnfn
11 hours ago
If you don't mind some unsolicited and blunt feedback: I suspect the reason this didn't get a lot of traction is that it is unclear why customers would want this. Sorry, that's probably too harsh, but I find it difficult to imagine anyone buying this:
- Children's books, at least the well-reviewed ones, are pretty good
- This is AI generated, so I expect the quality to be significantly lower than a children's book. Flipping through the examples, I am not convinced that this will be higher quality than a children's book.
- At 20 euros for a paperback, this is also more expensive than most children's books
- Your value prop, as I take it, is that your product is better because it is a book generated for just one child, but I am not convinced that's a solid value prop. I mean, it is kind of an interesting gimmick, but the book being fully AI generated is a large negative, and the book being uniquely created for my kid is a relatively smaller positive.
Those are definitely the highiest-order bits you need to prove to me in order to get traction. A couple of smaller things you should fix as well:
- As an English speaker, almost all the examples are not in English. You should take a reasonable guess at my language and then show me examples in my language
- It's difficult to get started: "Create your own book" leads to a signup page and I don't want to go through that friction when I am already skeptical
Thanks for the blunt feedback - genuinely appreciate it.
You're right that children's books can be excellent, and for generic topics a well-reviewed book from a skilled author and illustrator will beat what we generate. No argument there.
Where we see real value is in the gaps the publishing industry doesn't serve. Bilingual families who can't find books in Maltese/English or Estonian/German. A child with an insulin pump who wants to see a superhero like them. A kid processing their parents' divorce. A child with two dads, or being adopted, or starting at a new school in a country where they don't speak the language yet. No publisher will print a run of one for these families - but these are exactly the stories that matter most to them.
On the UX points - you're right on both. We should localize the showcase to your language, and the signup wall before trying is too much friction. Working on both.
As a father of two boys, i can give you some feedback. The AI stories you will generate will probably be crap and not worth paying for. What my kids love is when i put them (like i take a picture of them, and then generate them in jungle or whatever setup it is with gemini banana) They want that i print them those out, i know it's temporary but its fun for us all. So you could combine those two things.