Launched after a cofounder became dissatisfied with a personalized book he bought for his daughter, Lost My Name is a U.K. publishing startup that uses technology to create personalized physical picture books. Since its launch in April 2013, the company has sold more than 600,000 copies of its only title, The Little Girl/Boy That Lost His/Her Name, an illustrated, customized children’s book whose story is determined by the child’s name.
Lost My Name is a vertically integrated firm—all the books are sold directly to consumers via the Lost My Name website (lostmy.name) and drop-shipped to customers. Indeed, all aspects of Lost My Name’s operations are run in-house, said Lost My Name cofounder Asi Sharabi.
Since its launch, Lost My Name has become something of a U.K. publishing phenomenon, as it makes a bid to revolutionize the personalized book business. The company was cofounded by Sharabi, who has a background in academia and advertising; Tal Oron, a technologist; David Cadji-Newby, a comedy writer who has worked in advertising; and the book’s illustrator, Pedro Serapicos. The company is based in London and has a staff of about 40 people.
“Customized books have been around for years, but they get no respect,” Sharabi said. “They’re seen as a commercial gimmick with no literary quality or value,” he said. To counter the perception, the LMN founders—drawing on data from 14,000 people’s names in the U.K.—developed a program that creates books that are adjusted for girls’ and boys’ names. Whenever customers put a child’s name into the LMN website, they can see a preview of the complete book in full color. Each letter in a particular name carries a different set of illustrations and story lines that are compiled on the fly by Lost My Name’s technology. The publisher can compile a book from names of three to 12 letters, and it’s possible to adjust the story for names that are close or related, like Teddy and Freddy. The number of pages vary depending on the name, but even a three-letter name will produce a book of at least 28 pages. “That approach lets each book tell its own story,” Sharabi said. “Every book is unique because the name is the structure of the story.”
After the company’s public debut in April 2013, the book sold a couple hundred copies a month. But in November of that year, Sharabi said, sales shot up to 50,000 copies per month—all by word of mouth. “We knew then that there’s something here,” he said. The company took some investment seed money and immediately caught the attention of motherhood blogs, the Guardian, and BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den, the British equivalent of Shark Tank, where it raised about £100,000. In late June, LMN raised $9 million in new funding from outside investors.
LMN uses six POD printing vendors stationed around the world to manufacture the books. The company uses Facebook for marketing and now sells about 60,000 books a month in six languages in 136 countries. More languages are coming in the next few months. Books for U.S. customers are priced at $29.99.
Sharabi said the company wants to become better known in the U.S. (130,000 copies of its book have sold here). It’s also planning to add a new customizable title by the end of the year, he said, and the company wants to add more products and more personalization. “We’ve created a technology company that makes books,” Sharabi said. “We’re the accidental publisher.”
