Subscription-Based Children’s Site Retains 75% of Subscribers and Gets $6.2M in Funding

Last year, I wrote about A Story Before Bed, an innovative interactive storybook service for kids and grandparents. But they’re not the only player

Last year, I wrote about A Story Before Bed, an innovative interactive storybook service for kids and grandparents. But they’re not the only player in the space, and Speakaboos is making headlines with its $6.2 million in seed and Series A funding. But what I find impressive is their 75% retention rate among parents and schools for interactive children’s storybooks, which means they’re able to retain the most attention-deficit audience — children!Speakaboos originally launched in 2009 as a website with videos of storybooks being read out loud or to music. Currently the site lets visitors view 10 free stories before asking them to subscribe for $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Schools can purchase group subscriptions, the highest priced at $2,500 a year.The company also launched an iPad app that’s even more innovative and sure to get them more subscribers. For the same price, subscribers can adjust the content presentation for a child’s reading level — the most basic level allows a child to “lean back” and hear the story being read outloud while the text is highlighted in real-time. The second level let’s children click on words to hear them (helping them learn unfamiliar words as they read out loud). Kids can also interact with the content, moving pieces and playing games. Finally, the third level lets young readers record their voices as they read out loud. Here’s a video that shows how each level works:The company licenses popular titles from major publishers, such as  The Jim Henson Company, Pearson, Dr. Seuss, and Penguin, but then turns them into interactive storybooks. It adds about one or two titles every week.I personally love the idea of creating digital content for kids, and Speakaboos has an exemplary team, headed by Dr. Alice Wilder of Blues Clues fame, which became popular with kids and parents by equating attention with learning. But by holding attention, both kids and parents are willing to pay and continue their subscription. Already the site has a 75% retention rate, and  children using Speakaboos complete 40 storybooks per month on average, spending close to 3 hours reading, and are completing over 85 percent of opened books.

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