Two Birds, One Stone Publishing is a medium-sized, family-owned publishing house based in New York, established in 1935. Two Birds is estimated to be worth $125 million. The company entered the digital space five years ago. Leadership and operational teams have struggled to transition print book sales to digital ebook sales, though they realize this shift is vital to their future success. Their ebooks span a number of topics: Persuasion, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and design, Productivity, Self-improvement, and Leadership.

Two Birds ebooks have 2 million active users. But in the last two years, those users have not purchased as many ebooks as forecasted. Two Birds projected a 15% increase in ebook sales for the previous quarter but the actual sales only grew 7%. The Two Birds executive team would like to see the digital ebook sales grow by at least 11%, and your team has been tasked with achieving this goal by year’s end. Leadership has given you the flexibility to create your own product strategy. This includes updating and adding new ebook titles and categories, updating the current ebook platform, target customers, pricing, and messaging. You have a huge opportunity to bring an established player successfully into the digital arena.

Ebook Industry in the United States - Statistics and Facts

• Estimated number of ebooks sold: 307.6M
• Number of self-published ebooks: 122,000
• Share of consumers who read ebooks: 31%
• Preferred ebook marketplace: Amazon
• Number of illegal ebook downloads: 17M
• Total loss of sales due to illegal downloading: 330.2M
• U.S. share of ebooks vs. rest of world: 47%

Two Birds’ Ebook Business Model

• Two Birds ebooks are only sold on Amazon and currently can only be accessed via a Kindle.
• It’s a subscription platform. For a monthly subscription of $12.99, a user can access 3 ebooks. This subscription can be purchased annually for $129.
• If the user chooses to purchase additional ebooks, they receive $1.50 off of the ebook purchase price.
• Users can view excerpts of the ebook before purchasing.
QUESTIONS
1. Use SWOT to analyze the company
2. Writes hypotheses and assumptions. Use industry data, information from ebook or industry experts, and other resources that you find online.
3. State two engaging target user personas for your proposed solution. They must include the six most common persona elements.