YouSaid · the spoken record

Molly Barton

lines on the record: 79
first: 2019-01-07
most recent: 2019-01-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, I was just going to say, you know, I feel like the internet started with books in some ways. And then there was this whole maybe 15 years of throwing away gatekeeping and throwing away all of that. And I think we've all come to realize you do have to pay for quality.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the best way for people, you know, we're never going to try to out Amazon Amazon in terms of selection. There's no reason to. But many, many people don't know what they should read next.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In listening or reading your kind of co creating the experience, and so you're much more willing to step outside of your own limits or prejudices, whatever it is. So we feel like reading is incredibly important, more important than ever, and almost therapeutic in a way. The world is so busy, the idea of becoming immersed in a story is so relaxing, almost like meditation. And so our whole purpose is to make it easier for you to fit reading into your life and just weave it into your daily and weekly media diet. So the next phase for us is launching these huge recognizable brands next year in partnership with studios and then working with traditional publishers to bring more of their catalog onto the platform so that we become the best way to sample.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so reading is, and this is my sort of most philosophical reason for doing what I'm doing, is actually scientifically proven that reading, whether you're reading visually or listening, builds empathy more effectively than almost anything else. And if you think about that for a second, it makes sense because with any video format, you're still seeing. People who are not you, whereas”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. Well, I mean, they have really interesting audience insight, of course, that they don't share with traditional publishers.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hurdle. And interesting publishing is still with Amazon. Oh, no. Like, I'm like, stop. That's what they're focused on. I'm like, that's not the issue. And of course, Amazon had a four way into publishing. Who wants to sign with Amazon? It's the same difference, except you're in a worse position.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They've had their head handed to them. They're really interested in direct to consumer platforms. You know, every kind of studio has got one up or building one. So they're sort of past the hurdle.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that kind of thing helps a lot, obviously. And then we do some paid acquisition through many of the typical channels, but other interesting channels, you know, we look to the early days of Netflix and sort of who they co-marketed with as analogous.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's a blend of word of mouth and organic and earned media, which I like to say because organic is not organic. Like you work for that. We were really happy this morning to see actually yesterday iTunes sent out a list of apps you have to download before Thanksgiving. And it was like Delta United, Netflix, Serialbox.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What 10,000? That's the dirty secret, right? Well, which is ridiculous. Because, you know, if you look at podcast numbers of successful podcasts, you know, it should be much bigger than that. So, I mean, we have quite global and big ambition because our cost model is very efficient, we can break even on a series with just a few thousand readers, which is fantastic. But we're well above that for quite a number of our original costs.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In companies like this, where you can possibly do it. And I think it's really hard because I think you have to change users' habits of being stuff shoved at you. Right. Do you know what I mean? And even if it gets to be Netflix, which is cool, it then gets to be shoved at you. You know what I mean? Like that's how it all goes because it's easier to bring everything into under one roof than it is to be a little more creative. All right, let's finish up talking about where it goes from here. So you raise this money. What is a successful book to you guys? What does that look like?”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, in the end, they can have. I think this represents a really interesting bigger trend around that, around talent, where talent goes and how it deploys. Because with Hollywood and the book industry thrive on is insecurity and fear. Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, if I only get a book, if I don't get a book, and you're so captive in vanity, you're so captive of everybody else's efforts in a way that used to be team, but it's not now. Like, it's kind of an interesting. I think about that a lot. So I love.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and most of the writers who are really serious about their career have a blend, you know, where they have some work with a traditional publisher, but they've bought up the rights to their backlist, so they're managing that distribution. And then maybe they have our serial box series. So, you know, in the end, they can have five times.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think everyone should be able to do that. They are not. People are, either they're not talented enough or they're not, they don't have a risk aversion and things like that. It's an interesting. Things are, you know, in these creative fields, especially Hollywood, too. It's kind of interesting.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be with the same label, so they want to have their Wu Tang label, and then each of them could go off and do their own records and off years.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, honestly, it's fantastic for them because it's a good compliment to their own books. So, you know, we work with about 70 writers, 14 of which are New York Times bestsellers. They view their cereal box series as a great way to have more frequent contact with their fan bases. I actually was really inspired by reading about some of the early history of the Wu Tang clan and how they built that business, partly because I live in Staten Island. But they basically built a super group before any of them was tremendously famous. Right, right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But in many cases, like we've developed the concept, and then we're bringing writers in, and they've written two episodes. Right, right. So it's a contract work professional.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At this point Oh, we just haven't asked because we've been focused on building up our catalog. Right. And the phase two of our strategy is rolling out these partnerships with the major studio.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Because etc right and I'm looking at the app right now so most of these are yours it looks like it's not at this point at this point and not the big is there clipping them not to want to give you all the stuff”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In a way, I mean, because we're focused on the serial format, it lends itself naturally to television, because we're focused on worlds where we can bring out a season two, season three, et cetera.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so we're looking at subcategories that are trending and seeing a lot of attention and sort of spikes in sales. And then we're also looking for kind of gaps in the marketplace based on series that ended 15 years ago or TV shows that have You know, a sort of cult following, but have fallen off. So, one example is geek actually, which is in some ways an updated version of Sex in the City. It's not all white women, not all straight women. And they met at a Comic Con and their friends in a Slack channel. And so that actually immediately attracted a bunch of film and television interest. So we're turning that into a series. Right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is about a young podcaster. Who gets embroiled in an investigation in her hometown And it's set in the South, written by three best selling Southern American fiction writers. And so we wanted to do something.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I think is catching people's interest. It has stunning art. It's beautifully written. And it sort of appeals to anyone who was into the Dark Tower. So it's got some good comparables, and we're just seeing it move out of the gate really quickly. We also recently released Silverwood, which I mentioned earlier, our first horror series that is doing quite well. And then Dead Air.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bullet Catcher is an amazing, very light fantasy set in the West. And it's this great relationship between a young girl and a bullet catcher who is someone who can bend bullets.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we have seen pretty even performance, which gives us a lot of confidence that we've been creating high quality work. Some of the older series on the platform, book burners and Tremontaine, which were our first two, we've had kind of the most time to market them. So they have more substantial audiences. But more recent releases”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So we're increasingly working with traditional publishers. Eventually we feel like our catalog will probably look something like Netflix where there's a bunch of serial box originals. Maybe 5 to 10 percent of the content available. And then we have the balance of the catalog. We're distributing other content creators work.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are really interested in the idea of installments, so they want to see, you know, how, what is the retention rate from one episode to the next? And, you know, it is this whole idea of not asking someone to buy a whole book before they know if they want it. Is compelling. Right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of unfair advantage there. Talent pool You don't have to read any prose anymore. Now, you do publish traditional stuff, right, in serialized form. How is the reception from the publishing industry to that?”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Well, and it's not, you know, we're focused on fiction for the originals because that's what we know best and we have kind of unfair advantage there in terms of access to the talent pool. Right. But many kinds of content will benefit from this delivery. The biggest difference between what we're doing and some of the other startups that have tread in similar territory is that we're not kind of throwing out the whole traditional industry and saying we have a whole new format. You don't have to read, you just read text messages, you don't have to read any prose anymore. We're taking the best of the traditional industry and innovating on that.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right, right. We look to models in the marketplace like China literature. Which IPO'd last year at a value of over $12 billion and raised a billion dollars in their IPO. It's a serialized reading platform, simple as that. So this just hasn't hit this market. We're ahead of it.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in terms of investment, I think there's just, you know, well, women led, you know, I think that last ad I read was 2% of venture capital went to women-led funding. So you add that plus real reticence around media. Right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Someone's in the basement. Don't go down there. Down there. Just was like, I can't take it. It's a little hard. It's pretty limiting in terms of story.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then you've got the kind of chat fiction apps like hooked and yarn. I'm sure you've heard people talk about them. That format is very different and much more similar to a mobile game.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there have been some different things going on. So, WAPD, everybody talks about they've been around a long time. The way that I describe the difference between what we're doing and what WAPAT is doing is essentially WAPD became like YouTube for writing. Anyone can post, and that's fine and sort of opens up self-publishing in a way. But really, what goes on on WAPD is more similar to Instagram, where it's the currency, the social currency is writing rather than photos”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. Yeah. So we sort of proven product market fit, proven willingness to pay. What do people pay every week? They could either pay $1.59 each week for a given series or pay upfront and get a bit of a discount. And that's for both the e-book and the audio. And they get a notification on their phone each week saying your new episode is available. So we raised 1.6 million in an angel round last August. We're actually in the midst of our seed round and negotiating. How hard this is?”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there's no reason for it. I mean, every time we bring writers together and take them through this process that we've built, which is kind of our secret sauce, one of them will exclaim, this is magic. This would have taken me four months to figure out on my own. We just solved it in 20 minutes.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, we focus on for the originals that we produce ourselves. We focus on science fiction and fantasy, mystery crime and thriller, and some contemporary drama. We're starting to work with partners that we'll be announcing soon on some of the major studios on big franchise properties. But we're also working with a few nonfiction partners.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Less than 12 months. To the show real time. Is really fun. And it's interesting that you pick like horror and stuff like that that's easy to do that you can work with a team. It's harder with some genres, presumably, right?”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even in fiction, if you think about the difference between television and books, right? Like most novels are finished 18 to 24, maybe 36 months before they're published and they hit your hand in the store. Whereas television written and then shot very quickly within less than 12 months, they can pick up, you know, zeitgeist and what's going on in the news and fold that into the show real time. So we're doing that in our fiction series, which is really fun. And it's interesting.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And it should be this kind of She thinks right now. Right, exactly. Not what she thought 18 months ago. Right, exactly. That's the problem with books. They're so static. That's why I absolutely don't want to, everyone's like, I've literally been given 30 offers of books. I'm like, no. I just don't. It's just, what, 18 months from now? I don't even understand that. Right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know what I mean? Like, or something. Well, I love the idea that it's not fixed in time. Like we met with a writer yesterday who's working on a really interesting book involving Some very visible political characters. And He was saying, I'd love to leave it kind of open so that I can go back and change episode two or installment two, depending on what happens. Right. And it should be this kind of live stream because, you know, people want Kara, what she thinks right now. Right, exactly. Not what she thought, you know, 18 months ago. Right.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You've already published it. The idea of what a publishing is is different. You know, again, when I think about books, I'm like, why do I want to publish a book? I do it every day. I publish a book every month. You know what I mean? Or something like that. The team of writers thing I think is kind of brilliant if you think about it.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've published them in eBook and audio. And then we hold the rights in all formats. So publisher have come to us and licensed print rights or licensed translations.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we hired Brian Keane, who's one of the best horror writers in the world. He's one of the Bram Stoker Award a bunch of times. He's considered a grandmaster. And then we surrounded him by a really great team of other writers, including a pair of sisters who write together as the Sisters of Slaughter and a writer who works with Stephen King quite often. So we put together this kind of supergroup of four writers, and they built a season, quote unquote. So 10 episodes that at the end you've essentially read a book, but you've done it in the same way that you watch TV of like, oh, I'll try one. And then if you like it, you can say, oh, I want another.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. So, one example is our first horror series that we just released about a month ago called Silverwood. And so that actually originated as a web series on YouTube. And it was an anthology story structure. And we thought, wow, there's almost a million subscribers who are into this show. But there's a real opportunity to come in and write a narrative spine.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We stood up the platform. We also created the other thing that we're doing is kind of industrializing content development. So we're using methods from television that we've adapted based on my own editorial experience. So that teams of writers write serial box originals that we release. So we do distribute other publishers' content, but we have serial box originals, most of which are written by team. So the first couple of years was trying to build up a small catalog.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And also, just that whole idea of breaking it into parts is so simple, but on the other hand, so useful if you say to yourself, okay, I know I have 45 minutes then. I can fit this into that.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It knows where you are about it. Yeah, it's great for the commute. I mean, most Americans have average is 22 minute commute, and part of that is walking, part of its riding. And so we really wanted to tune the experience to that daily ritual and make it easy to keep going. So you can be walking to the subway, listening, hop on your train.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we spent about 24 months actually before raising external capital, proving early product market fit. And so really, just to say it really clearly, we're evolving the delivery of book content for the smartphone age. What we do is we deliver audiobook and e-book installments that are bundled together so you can switch back and forth between reading and listening.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the outset, we did it sort of the most honest, hardest way, meaning we wanted to develop a proof of concept before we Went out and raised external funds. So we bootstrapped. We got a little bit of help from family and friends. And our first phase of the strategy was to stand up the platform. So you do.”
2019-01-07 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Serial Box CEO Molly Barton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT