WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.234 --> 00:00:01.667 Trip Adler is here. 2 00:00:01.667 --> 00:00:04.400 He is the CEO and co-founder of Scribd. 3 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:07.601 Scribd is an online content subscription service offering 4 00:00:07.601 --> 00:00:11.434 e-books, magazines, and now newspapers. 5 00:00:11.434 --> 00:00:16.000 The platform has 100 million users and 500,000 paying 6 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.200 subscribers generating $50 million in annual revenue. 7 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:22.901 As journalists increasingly cater to breaking news, 8 00:00:22.901 --> 00:00:26.968 Scribd promises longer premium content and higher returns 9 00:00:26.968 --> 00:00:28.601 for publishers. 10 00:00:28.601 --> 00:00:30.501 I'm pleased to have Trip Adler here at this table 11 00:00:30.501 --> 00:00:31.968 for the very first time. 12 00:00:31.968 --> 00:00:33.634 It is great to be here, thank you for having me. 13 00:00:33.634 --> 00:00:35.200 I want to get into the actually incredibly 14 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:37.501 fascinating story of how you started this company 15 00:00:37.501 --> 00:00:39.701 just out of college. 16 00:00:39.701 --> 00:00:45.300 But before we do, you launched a deal just in the past month 17 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:50.834 to provide newspaper content on Scribd. 18 00:00:50.834 --> 00:00:55.501 "New York Times," "Wall Street Journal," tell me about that. 19 00:00:55.501 --> 00:01:00.300 This is just another way for people to access news content. 20 00:01:00.300 --> 00:01:01.567 Yes. 21 00:01:01.567 --> 00:01:04.834 So Scribd is a subscription service for reading. 22 00:01:04.834 --> 00:01:08.501 We offer, we basically offer everything you want to read, 23 00:01:08.501 --> 00:01:10.767 everything you need to read in one place. 24 00:01:10.767 --> 00:01:13.567 So you pay a small monthly fee and then we offer -- 25 00:01:13.567 --> 00:01:14.801 How much is that fee? 26 00:01:14.801 --> 00:01:18.868 $8.99, $9 a month. 27 00:01:18.868 --> 00:01:21.968 Basically you pay and we offer over one million books, 28 00:01:21.968 --> 00:01:26.434 audio books, magazines, and as of recently, newspapers too. 29 00:01:26.434 --> 00:01:31.033 And by offering this altogether, we can really provide 30 00:01:31.033 --> 00:01:33.567 a much more frictionless and easy-to-read experience 31 00:01:33.567 --> 00:01:36.234 where you really discover new things to read, and ultimately 32 00:01:36.234 --> 00:01:38.234 get people to read more and enrich their lives 33 00:01:38.234 --> 00:01:39.667 through reading. 34 00:01:39.667 --> 00:01:41.434 Do you expect this is the beginning of 35 00:01:41.434 --> 00:01:43.667 a major new effort in terms of newspapers? 36 00:01:43.667 --> 00:01:49.000 Again, you started out with user-generated content, books. 37 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.767 This is a different thing. 38 00:01:51.767 --> 00:01:54.934 I mean, this is newspaper. 39 00:01:54.934 --> 00:01:58.133 You're focusing more on longer form kind of everything content. 40 00:01:58.133 --> 00:01:59.567 Yes. 41 00:01:59.567 --> 00:02:03.734 We think that this is -- it's all reading, right. 42 00:02:03.734 --> 00:02:08.334 The way our service works is you sign up to read and we show 43 00:02:08.334 --> 00:02:11.734 you all different types of reading around your interests. 44 00:02:11.734 --> 00:02:13.601 Let's say there's one topic you're interested in reading. 45 00:02:13.601 --> 00:02:16.234 Let's say you're interested in learning more about global 46 00:02:16.234 --> 00:02:18.200 warming given the new movie coming out, you can go to 47 00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:20.968 the global warming page and see all the books on that topic, 48 00:02:20.968 --> 00:02:22.734 all of the magazine articles on that topic, 49 00:02:22.734 --> 00:02:25.567 all of the newspaper articles on that topic, and we kind of 50 00:02:25.567 --> 00:02:27.767 cross-promote all that together and offer that as a package. 51 00:02:27.767 --> 00:02:29.901 The lines are blurring between these different 52 00:02:29.901 --> 00:02:31.200 types of reading. 53 00:02:31.200 --> 00:02:36.200 Because of the way this is organized, we can really drive 54 00:02:36.200 --> 00:02:40.567 more distribution to older articles, get people who want 55 00:02:40.567 --> 00:02:45.133 to go deeper on a topic and read the articles that might not be 56 00:02:45.133 --> 00:02:46.734 breaking news at the moment. 57 00:02:46.734 --> 00:02:50.133 Then we can ultimately pay journalists for the reading 58 00:02:50.133 --> 00:02:53.167 activity of those older more backlist articles. 59 00:02:53.167 --> 00:02:54.133 Which is a good thing, by the way, 60 00:02:54.133 --> 00:02:55.434 paying journalists I mean. 61 00:02:55.434 --> 00:02:57.467 It's a good thing, I mean, that's really a large 62 00:02:57.467 --> 00:03:00.367 part of what we're trying to do is to create more revenue 63 00:03:00.367 --> 00:03:01.567 to share with journalists. 64 00:03:01.567 --> 00:03:04.100 There's been this question for a long time about, 65 00:03:04.100 --> 00:03:06.767 what's the best way to monetize journalism? 66 00:03:06.767 --> 00:03:09.200 People were thinking about it being advertising, 67 00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:10.567 they were thinking about it being micro payments. 68 00:03:10.567 --> 00:03:14.200 We're finally at the point that we know what the right model is, 69 00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:16.467 right, it's the subscription model, it works really well. 70 00:03:16.467 --> 00:03:19.567 It's working really well for video services, you know, 71 00:03:19.567 --> 00:03:22.234 services like Netflix and Spotify -- Netflix and Hulu, 72 00:03:22.234 --> 00:03:24.300 those are subscription services for video. 73 00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:26.367 In the music world, you have services like Spotify 74 00:03:26.367 --> 00:03:27.834 and Apple Music. 75 00:03:27.834 --> 00:03:30.133 Even dating apps like tinder are now being monetized 76 00:03:30.133 --> 00:03:31.133 with subscription. 77 00:03:31.133 --> 00:03:34.367 And for journalism, it's a great model. 78 00:03:34.367 --> 00:03:36.467 People pay once read what they want. 79 00:03:36.467 --> 00:03:42.100 It's a frictionless, just great way to pay 80 00:03:42.100 --> 00:03:43.567 and then to read what you want. 81 00:03:43.567 --> 00:03:46.200 The problem right now though is that while there are all these 82 00:03:46.200 --> 00:03:48.934 subscriptions, there are many subscriptions for news right now 83 00:03:48.934 --> 00:03:51.567 and they kind of are all siloed off into separate subscriptions. 84 00:03:51.567 --> 00:03:54.267 So what we want to do is bring all those together 85 00:03:54.267 --> 00:03:55.501 into one subscription. 86 00:03:55.501 --> 00:03:56.234 Buy the news stand. 87 00:03:56.234 --> 00:03:57.367 Exactly. 88 00:03:57.367 --> 00:03:59.567 Your service has been described as kind of 89 00:03:59.567 --> 00:04:02.968 a Netflix for reading, do you like that description? 90 00:04:02.968 --> 00:04:03.868 It works. 91 00:04:03.868 --> 00:04:07.167 It's a simple idea that you can just pay one fee and then have 92 00:04:07.167 --> 00:04:09.067 a really frictionless, great experience 93 00:04:09.067 --> 00:04:11.100 with great recommendations to read what you want. 94 00:04:11.100 --> 00:04:14.667 Right now, there's the experience you have to buy books 95 00:04:14.667 --> 00:04:17.501 individually over here, you have to subscribe to individual 96 00:04:17.501 --> 00:04:19.667 newspapers and individual magazines over here. 97 00:04:19.667 --> 00:04:23.434 In our case, we just bring all that together in one experience. 98 00:04:23.434 --> 00:04:25.434 People don't want to pay for each of these individually, 99 00:04:25.434 --> 00:04:27.133 but they will pay for the package. 100 00:04:27.133 --> 00:04:32.567 If they're paying for the bundle you can potentially get a lot of 101 00:04:32.567 --> 00:04:34.100 people subscribing to this bundle. 102 00:04:34.100 --> 00:04:36.868 You can get tens of millions of people subscribing, 103 00:04:36.868 --> 00:04:39.901 that is a lot of revenue to be returned back to journalists. 104 00:04:39.901 --> 00:04:41.901 Because the problem now for journalism, 105 00:04:41.901 --> 00:04:44.133 in some ways, it's a golden age for journalists. 106 00:04:44.133 --> 00:04:49.701 Our stories can go far beyond whatever organization 107 00:04:49.701 --> 00:04:52.701 we work for, whatever newspaper, television station, television 108 00:04:52.701 --> 00:04:57.567 network, Twitter, Facebook, Google, but the downside is 109 00:04:57.567 --> 00:05:01.467 it can be seen by millions of people and there's no revenue. 110 00:05:01.467 --> 00:05:05.667 And ultimately -- this is why we see newspapers struggling, 111 00:05:05.667 --> 00:05:07.000 newspapers dying. 112 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.501 We see tremendous challenges for the networks. 113 00:05:09.501 --> 00:05:14.634 Are you ultimately optimistic, pessimistic, 114 00:05:14.634 --> 00:05:18.934 where are you about the future of journalism? 115 00:05:18.934 --> 00:05:21.234 So I'm optimistic -- 116 00:05:21.234 --> 00:05:23.434 Because if there's no revenue coming in, 117 00:05:23.434 --> 00:05:25.701 journalists can't be paid, there's no funding for 118 00:05:25.701 --> 00:05:27.067 investigative reporting. 119 00:05:27.067 --> 00:05:27.734 Yeah. 120 00:05:27.734 --> 00:05:31.167 Well, you know, with other types of media, you know, 121 00:05:31.167 --> 00:05:34.000 like with e-books, for example, when the transition went 122 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.701 from physical to digital, the publishers did a good job of 123 00:05:37.701 --> 00:05:39.567 still setting the expectation that you still have to 124 00:05:39.567 --> 00:05:40.701 pay for e-books. 125 00:05:40.701 --> 00:05:44.734 And this transition with news happened so abruptly that people 126 00:05:44.734 --> 00:05:48.100 quickly got trained that news should be free. 127 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:49.834 It is free. 128 00:05:49.834 --> 00:05:51.901 But I think you really could put a lot of 129 00:05:51.901 --> 00:05:54.067 this content behind a subscription pay wall, 130 00:05:54.067 --> 00:05:57.567 as long as the experience is done right, and as long as 131 00:05:57.567 --> 00:05:59.734 you're getting enough value for that subscription fee 132 00:05:59.734 --> 00:06:01.033 that you're paying. 133 00:06:01.033 --> 00:06:03.901 But you have tens of millions, even over a hundred million 134 00:06:03.901 --> 00:06:05.968 people paying for video subscriptions, 135 00:06:05.968 --> 00:06:07.400 paying for music subscriptions. 136 00:06:07.400 --> 00:06:10.567 There's no reason why you can't get tens of millions of people 137 00:06:10.567 --> 00:06:12.567 paying for news with the right product. 138 00:06:12.567 --> 00:06:14.067 How do I share this? 139 00:06:14.067 --> 00:06:18.634 I have an article or a story that I want to -- that I find 140 00:06:18.634 --> 00:06:21.567 interesting, I want to put it on Facebook and share it. 141 00:06:21.567 --> 00:06:24.400 But then, it's behind -- I have it because I'm a subscriber 142 00:06:24.400 --> 00:06:29.100 to Scribd, but what happens if my friends aren't? 143 00:06:29.100 --> 00:06:34.868 I mean, I think that the newspapers or Scribd 144 00:06:34.868 --> 00:06:37.734 needs to build an experience where this content is behind 145 00:06:37.734 --> 00:06:42.200 a pay wall and people actually really want to put their credit 146 00:06:42.200 --> 00:06:44.767 card in and pay for this because the value they're getting 147 00:06:44.767 --> 00:06:46.501 with this subscription is so good, right. 148 00:06:46.501 --> 00:06:50.501 As long as you have critical mass content and a frictionless 149 00:06:50.501 --> 00:06:52.868 great experience, people are willing to pay for that. 150 00:06:52.868 --> 00:06:55.834 Let's get to how you started this company. 151 00:06:55.834 --> 00:07:01.167 I read through, you were a student at Harvard. 152 00:07:01.167 --> 00:07:03.434 You were already -- I saw somewhere that you were 153 00:07:03.434 --> 00:07:05.367 known as an entrepreneur. 154 00:07:05.367 --> 00:07:07.467 Well, it really started when I was a senior 155 00:07:07.467 --> 00:07:12.400 at Harvard, I met my co founder Jared there, and we decided to 156 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:14.734 start a company and we started tinkering 157 00:07:14.734 --> 00:07:16.300 with a lot of different ideas. 158 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:20.400 We tried everything from a ride-sharing service 159 00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:22.400 to Craiglist for colleges. 160 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:23.634 Ride-sharing service, that'll never work, 161 00:07:23.634 --> 00:07:24.501 right? 162 00:07:24.501 --> 00:07:26.200 Yes. 163 00:07:26.200 --> 00:07:29.300 We were actually working very much on what kind of Uber 164 00:07:29.300 --> 00:07:31.133 and Lyft had become, but we were just a few years 165 00:07:31.133 --> 00:07:33.100 ahead of the time. 166 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:36.834 If smartphones had been where they are now. 167 00:07:36.834 --> 00:07:38.234 That is true. 168 00:07:38.234 --> 00:07:41.334 With entrepreneurship, even if you have the right idea, 169 00:07:41.334 --> 00:07:43.300 but you're five years too early, that is just as good 170 00:07:43.300 --> 00:07:44.801 as being wrong. 171 00:07:44.801 --> 00:07:46.934 You have to have the right idea at the right time 172 00:07:46.934 --> 00:07:48.601 in order for these things to work. 173 00:07:48.601 --> 00:07:52.767 We were tinkering with a number of ideas. 174 00:07:52.767 --> 00:07:55.567 Eventually we're having a conversation with my dad 175 00:07:55.567 --> 00:07:59.234 who is a doctor at Stanford and he had a medical paper 176 00:07:59.234 --> 00:08:01.467 that he wanted to get published. 177 00:08:01.467 --> 00:08:04.567 And he was complaining that just to get this paper seen 178 00:08:04.567 --> 00:08:06.834 by all the right people, takes 18 months. 179 00:08:06.834 --> 00:08:11.501 This gave us the idea that we could just build a service that 180 00:08:11.501 --> 00:08:14.934 would allow him or anyone to take any kind of written content 181 00:08:14.934 --> 00:08:18.167 and easily publish that on the web. 182 00:08:18.167 --> 00:08:20.300 We made a service that would allow people to take documents, 183 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:22.234 publish them on the web, find an audience. 184 00:08:22.234 --> 00:08:27.667 And the idea basically became very viral very fast 185 00:08:27.667 --> 00:08:28.467 and it took off. 186 00:08:28.467 --> 00:08:32.234 And within a few years, we were reaching over a hundred million 187 00:08:32.234 --> 00:08:34.300 a month users, one of the largest websites in the world. 188 00:08:34.300 --> 00:08:37.167 We had over 80 million pieces of content uploaded 189 00:08:37.167 --> 00:08:38.701 and we went from there. 190 00:08:38.701 --> 00:08:41.868 When did you start charging? 191 00:08:41.868 --> 00:08:44.334 How did that work? 192 00:08:44.334 --> 00:08:46.000 So a few years in, we started out with 193 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:49.334 a free service, we were backed by venture investors. 194 00:08:49.334 --> 00:08:52.000 Like all companies in this situation, we needed to start 195 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:53.300 figuring out a business model. 196 00:08:53.300 --> 00:08:57.334 And we tried ads, but ads didn't work too well. 197 00:08:57.334 --> 00:09:00.033 Like they weren't really scaling for the type 198 00:09:00.033 --> 00:09:01.200 of volumes we had. 199 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.133 We tried actually buying and selling content on the service. 200 00:09:04.133 --> 00:09:06.400 That also didn't get much traction. 201 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:09.100 We were tinkering with the subscription model and it was 202 00:09:09.100 --> 00:09:12.033 getting a lot of traction, and it very quickly became our main 203 00:09:12.033 --> 00:09:16.133 revenue source, so between the traction we had and this idea 204 00:09:16.133 --> 00:09:19.334 we could build a subscription service for books, we decided to 205 00:09:19.334 --> 00:09:22.033 go out and partner with all the big book publishers. 206 00:09:22.033 --> 00:09:23.567 When was that? 207 00:09:23.567 --> 00:09:25.667 Five years in. 208 00:09:25.667 --> 00:09:29.968 We talked to all the big book publishers here in New York 209 00:09:29.968 --> 00:09:34.067 and we got the first ever subscription terms for e-books, 210 00:09:34.067 --> 00:09:37.200 and we launched the first ever subscription model for e-books. 211 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.634 Basically the idea is you can use Scribd for free and read all 212 00:09:40.634 --> 00:09:43.834 of the free content uploaded by users, or you can pay $9 a month 213 00:09:43.834 --> 00:09:45.934 and you can read all the bestselling books. 214 00:09:45.934 --> 00:09:48.601 So what next? 215 00:09:48.601 --> 00:09:50.567 You started this company. 216 00:09:50.567 --> 00:09:54.033 You've got, you know, $50 million in revenue. 217 00:09:54.033 --> 00:10:00.901 You've got a hundred million users, what next? 218 00:10:00.901 --> 00:10:05.067 We're really just focused on two key things. 219 00:10:05.067 --> 00:10:07.334 The first one is just building out the content library. 220 00:10:07.334 --> 00:10:09.801 We're still acquiring a lot of great books, a lot more great 221 00:10:09.801 --> 00:10:14.100 magazines, more newspapers, and likely going into other 222 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:15.634 new forms of content, too. 223 00:10:15.634 --> 00:10:19.400 The more, we want to give as much value and as much content 224 00:10:19.400 --> 00:10:21.200 to our subscribers as we can. 225 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:23.968 And then the second thing is we're just continuing to 226 00:10:23.968 --> 00:10:24.801 improve the product. 227 00:10:24.801 --> 00:10:27.801 We want it so that as a subscriber, we're constantly 228 00:10:27.801 --> 00:10:30.033 giving you exactly what you want to read and knowing 229 00:10:30.033 --> 00:10:32.067 what you want to read in any moment. 230 00:10:32.067 --> 00:10:34.100 We are just continuing to build those two things and I think 231 00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:39.133 that we can build a really large subscriber base here. 232 00:10:39.133 --> 00:10:41.767 Similar to what's happening in the video and music spaces and 233 00:10:41.767 --> 00:10:45.100 that revenue can all be passed back to authors and journalists 234 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:46.901 and publishers, which is really what we're trying to do, 235 00:10:46.901 --> 00:10:48.834 we're trying to build those two sides of the ecosystem. 236 00:10:48.834 --> 00:10:52.334 And in doing this, I think we can support journalism, right, 237 00:10:52.334 --> 00:10:56.567 I mean, journalism plays a really key role in our society. 238 00:10:56.567 --> 00:11:02.501 We want to be a voice for supporting quality journalism. 239 00:11:02.501 --> 00:11:05.267 You can search the full text, everything, and also, 240 00:11:05.267 --> 00:11:07.968 it's all done by recommendations, so you can, 241 00:11:07.968 --> 00:11:11.267 as you read and use the service, we'll recommend more content 242 00:11:11.267 --> 00:11:13.167 to you based on your interest. 243 00:11:13.167 --> 00:11:15.367 Before you go, since, again, going back to 244 00:11:15.367 --> 00:11:17.701 the entrepreneur thing and you've tried so many different, 245 00:11:17.701 --> 00:11:21.901 you have many different ideas, do you have advice in terms of 246 00:11:21.901 --> 00:11:23.868 going out and trying to get funding? 247 00:11:23.868 --> 00:11:28.868 I think in your story, one thing you tried not to do 248 00:11:28.868 --> 00:11:32.000 was to not get too much venture capital. 249 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.801 Yes, I mean, in our case, we never really 250 00:11:35.801 --> 00:11:37.334 had much trouble raising funding. 251 00:11:37.334 --> 00:11:40.067 That isn't entirely true. 252 00:11:40.067 --> 00:11:42.167 When we first started, it was impossible 253 00:11:42.167 --> 00:11:43.934 to get any investors. 254 00:11:43.934 --> 00:11:46.567 Then we launched the service and given that we had so much 255 00:11:46.567 --> 00:11:48.934 traffic early on, we've always wanted to have tons of investors 256 00:11:48.934 --> 00:11:53.033 because people see that audience or tie in the revenue growth 257 00:11:53.033 --> 00:11:55.067 and we're comfortable investing in that. 258 00:11:55.067 --> 00:11:58.834 My general advice about funding though, is that if you have 259 00:11:58.834 --> 00:12:01.501 a good product and a good team, the funding will follow 260 00:12:01.501 --> 00:12:02.734 pretty naturally. 261 00:12:02.734 --> 00:12:05.334 If you're having trouble raising funding, it's most likely 262 00:12:05.334 --> 00:12:07.167 something about what you're doing. 263 00:12:07.167 --> 00:12:10.400 If you solve that first, the funding comes pretty easily. 264 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:17.234 These days -- the idea and the team, there's usually more 265 00:12:17.234 --> 00:12:20.834 funding out there than good ideas and there are more good 266 00:12:20.834 --> 00:12:23.033 ideas than there are good like engineers and talented people 267 00:12:23.033 --> 00:12:24.667 who actually work on those ideas. 268 00:12:24.667 --> 00:12:26.100 It really all starts with the team. 269 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:28.968 If you have a good team, I think the ideas and the funding 270 00:12:28.968 --> 00:12:30.634 will come pretty naturally. 271 00:12:30.634 --> 00:12:33.501 All right, Trip Adler, debut here at the table. 272 00:12:33.501 --> 00:12:34.133 Thank you. 273 00:12:34.133 --> 00:12:35.767 Thank you very much, I appreciate it. 274 00:12:35.767 --> 00:12:36.734 Thank you.