Livrada Team Blog

Start spreading the news…

The Livrada team is coming back to the city next week (June 4th) for the Book Expo of America! Woohoo! Two of us - myself and Jeff Wang - used to live in NYC (I even have my 917 number to prove it), so it’s always a pleasure to be back.

We will be doing a ton of meetings; but in between meetings, we’ll be coding, coding, coding. We have a major product deadline coming up at the end of the week, and we can’t let meetings stop us from making progress.

We are looking for a co-working space or a start-up with an extra desk for us to camp out at for several hours a day. We will probably spend some late nights there as well. Does anyone know of a good space? Preferably around Union Square and below, but we’re flexible! We’re low-maintenance; just need a little bit of desk space and some plugs. We even have our own Clear hotspot. We’d also love to take the opportunity to meet more local entrepreneurs while we are in town, and this would be a fun/inspiring way to do it. Thanks! @leonardchen721

I love receiving books as gifts; it is the perfect gift. When I hold a book in my hands, it represents a promise of at least a few hours of pleasure, inspiration, thought-provoking activity, or just plain entertainment. Books unlock the imagination, allowing us to escape the mundane things of life - studying, working, cleaning the house, diapers, what have you - and transport us to another time and place.

I read beat up paperback of Tale of Two Cities, for example, one hot summer day, while traveling in the dusty back country roads of Kunming (Yunnan province) China. I was covered in sweat and dust because the A/C in our tiny bus was busted and we had the windows all the way down. But in my mind, it was 1775, in the cold streets of Paris and London. I was completely absorbed. I love books.

That was over fifteen years ago. I now read e-books on my Kindle, Nook, or iPad; but the promise of what each new NYTimes bestseller holds for me still brings the same excitement. I tend to read more non-fiction now that I’m a father and an entrepreneur. However, in between reading inspiring business biographies - like Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness - I still indulge in some of the classics. I recently downloaded The Great Gatsby to re-read. I’m also engrossed in Bourain’s Kitchen Confidential. (I know, anyone who lives or lived in NY should have read it already).

And I still love to give books to others as gifts. But, as more and more of my friends pick up e-readers - Kindles, Nooks, Kobos, Sony e-readerss, etc. - I found that the experience of discovering, purchasing, and giving an e-book was really not that great. Finding a book on a website, ordering it, and sending it via email is difficult, uninspiring, and sterile, at best.

So this is why we created the title-specific e-book gift card, or the “Livrada card.” It’s tangible; you can touch and feel it. You can stumble upon it while out and about in your favorite stores. You can pick it up and give it to someone and see the delight on their face when they recognize what you’ve given them.

It’s much better than receiving a gift via email. And it’s much better than a generic stored value card. It says you put some thought into it. There’s meaning and intent behind it.  And it actually “feels” like a gift.

We’re launching six bestsellers at your local Target store in July! And that’s just the beginning…

I’m thrilled to be writing the first blog post for Livrada, Inc. We are a Southern California-based company working on a cool new product: title-specific e-book gift cards.

I’ll keep this first post brief. Allow me to introduce ourselves quickly. We are a crew of four - myself (Leonard Chen), Jeff Wang, Edison Ko, and John Tantum. We are passionate and voracious consumers of media - books, music, TV, movies, etc. We love and believe in technology as an enabling force for good, and we are entrepreneurs who are passionate about building a product and company that brings tremendous value for all involved - our customers/users, authors, publishers, and our retail and distribution partners.

Our backgrounds include the founder of Virgin Mobile USA, veterans of multiple start-ups, a Major Record Label exec, McKinsey & Co., Lexis-Nexis, and some fancy degrees from expensive institutions. These experiences help us get in the door, but we are here to build real value through blood, sweat and tears (more on this later). I’ll use this blog to share more about our experiences building this company, and opine generally about books and technology.

Here we are!