Storybird

Storybird is an online collaborative storytelling platform founded in 2009 by Mark Ury, Kaye Puhlmann, and Adam Endicott. The concept originated from a personal experience Ury had while creating a story with his son, which sparked the idea of a cloud-based, collaborative publishing platform. Before launching Storybird, the co-founders spent a decade working at large user experience consultancies with major brands, a background that influenced the platform's design-centric approach. The company was bootstrapped for its first two years, allowing the team to refine the user experience before seeking venture capital. It later secured $3.35 million in funding from investors including Index Ventures and Learn Capital.

The platform provides a unique approach to creative writing by having users select artwork from a curated library of professional illustrations to inspire their stories. This reverses the traditional picture book model by starting with images to unlock narrative potential. Storybird is designed for a broad audience, including children, families, educators, and amateur writers, fostering a community where users can share their work and receive feedback. The platform is particularly popular in educational settings, with tools specifically created for teachers to manage students, create assignments, and build class libraries.

Storybird operates on a freemium business model. Core storytelling tools are available for free, while revenue is generated through premium subscriptions that offer enhanced features. Additional income streams include educational packages for schools, the sale of physical and digital copies of the stories created on the platform, and royalties from artists whose work is used. The platform allows users to create various formats, including picture books, long-form stories, comics, flash fiction, and poetry. While the company was acquired in 2017, its platform continues to offer a space for visual storytelling, with hundreds of lessons, quizzes, and writing prompts to support users.

Keywords: collaborative storytelling, creative writing platform, visual storytelling, educational technology, K-12 education, digital publishing, art-inspired writing, freemium model, online learning, children's literature, user-generated content, illustration marketplace, writing prompts, classroom tools, story creation, digital books, family activities, writing community, edtech platform, interactive stories