Episode 5: Lucy Zhao on building Pagebound, social reading, and rejecting AI

In this episode of Always Bring a Book, I sit down with Lucy Zhao, co-founder of Pagebound, a fast-growing social reading app built as an alternative to Goodreads. Lucy shares how Pagebound grew from an idea between two lifelong readers into a self-funded platform with over 100,000 users in just one year, all without ads or venture capital. She reflects on leaving the tech world, betting on the reading community, and building a product rooted in values rather than growth-at-all-costs.

The conversation touches on organic growth through BookTok and word of mouth, difficult feature tradeoffs made by a two-person team, and what’s next for Pagebound including giveaways, deeper author and publisher collaborations, and hopes for more in-person and library-based community building.

Intro music by Trevor Vaughan

This week’s recommendations:

• Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

• We Are Always Tender with Our Dead by Eric LaRocca