NatWest Back Her Business has provided £5,000 of match funding
Online Reading Lounges for Communities
London, England, United Kingdom
Aim
ReadApp Lounge is an innovative social reading app designed for the modern-day book club connecting individuals within communities.
OUR VISION
Our vision is to promote a central online community where users can read together in groups, discuss their favourite novels or dish about exciting new releases. We want to encourage a shared reading culture, by not being content to read alone but be passionately excited to explore areas of interests collectively. We want to acknowledge the individuality of each reader but also develop the boundless potential of a shared experience.
As a business leader with 20+ years in industry, I mentor and prepare the Next Gen for life’s successes, often by suggesting reading content for their personal development, this applies to all areas of life. The aim is to ignite an attitude of restless curiosity, to be deeply passionate about what is going on around us and be genuinely considerate of others, to be effective as leaders. The ability to grow deeper silently resides in communities where ideas are exchanged.
The idea for the app was birthed in the desire to develop a shared reading experience!
Our app offers a reading lounge for all groups, where each lounge provides content central to its interests and invites or accepts requests to access content in its community. Users may pay to read or freely read available blogs and can share comments in a discussion thread. The variety of lounges caters to different interests and provides a space for every reader to find an armchair they feel comfortable in!
More recently, as we socialised the idea within focus groups, we’ve seen an opportunity to also test our product with the over 60s. They are using technology to enrich their daily experiences, but even more so, we want to particularly reach those who may be feeling isolated and homebound today and connect them to reading groups with mutual interests. We term these sub-set of baby boomers "the adaptables" for their flexibility to adopt new technology.
We've also seen a rise in creativity, notably the rapid growth in Tik-Tok video content uploads.! Likewise, we want to create access for budding writers; we want to promote a new generation of content providers and bloggers, by providing easier ways to distribute their content and reach an engaging user base.
We want the lounges to be a space for readers and content providers to meet and have fun!
HOW WILL THE MONEY BE USED?
With unprecedented changes in today's society, threatened by environmental risks, there is a sense of urgency to scale and roll out our product. Every donation helps us to accelerate our goals to release our product by summer 2020. We are mindful that with heightened uncertainty, sources of funding are drying up; we therefore relying on you - our sponsors to help us get our product released on time. It allows us to play our part imminently to tackle those who are feeling isolated and help improve wellness.
The funds will be used to fast track our product launch.
We have put in a stretch budget to allow us test our product with the Older Generation. We can be part of the solution to defeat the viral spell and improve online social engagement & connections.
Each lounge opened with the funds raised in this giving round will be provided (and funded by us) with a dedicated reading assistant/ youth leader/mentor/ buddy. Please partner with us to increase literacy to the disadvantaged, to younger readers, invest in the NextGen, and tackle isolation for the adaptable Older Gen groups.
Technology can be a force for good, however we ultimately we want our users to have fun; so please join us in our campaign.
This project successfully funded on 13th April 2020