Our Story

Hi 🤪,

My name is Ben, and I am an entrepreneur who LOVES to read.

I can remember the exact moment when I learned to read. I was trying to read The Snow Baby by Margaret Hillert, and I was jumping from word to word. There was this magical moment where the words came alive, and it all clicked. It was one of the most amazing feelings in my life. That moment inspires everything I am building with Book DNA.

I want to help more people find books they love. Books that make them a better person, inspire them, teach them, entertain them, or humor them. I think books are one of the biggest net positives in the world. The more I can encourage reading the better world I help create.

Carl Sagan said it best in Cosmos:

What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

What sparked the first version of the app?

We launched in April 2021 and back then it was called Shepherd.com 😄

I always wanted to create something around books but could never find a unique approach. One day I walked into an independent bookstore and they had little post-it notes next to books the staff loved and why they loved them. I loved that idea because it exposed the passion behind the picks.

So that is where we started, but with a twist. We asked authors, experts, and interesting people for their favorite books around a central topic, theme, or moods and why they loved each book. We grew from there.

Want to follow our story?

Every three weeks I share my raw thoughts on building Book DNA (subscribe here). It covers the ups, downs, and everything in between. We also have two monthly newsletters if you want to stay on top of what we are building.

• A monthly newsletter for authors that shares what we learn about book marketing, traffic stats, early access to new author features, and feedback requests to help shape the platform for all authors.
• A monthly newsletter for readers with my favorite book recommendations of the month, early access to new reader features, and feedback requests to help shape new features for readers.

Thanks for your support,
Ben