A new chapter for Goodreads

Reading. It’s fundamental. It is essential to thought and understanding. It’s the foundation of human-to-human knowledge transfer in the modern world. There is no other input mechanism that allows us to process complex ideas, rich histories and tragically emotional stories. It inspires us to engage like few other activities can: we regularly commit multiple hours per day to reading for work, for pleasure, for life. Reading is reflexive, innate. The pen is indeed far mightier than the sword, and the written word has been a rich source of beauty and pain since the beginning of society.

Passion. It is one of the most important characteristics of all great Founders. It’s the thing that inspires us to relentlessly pursue a vision. It’s what’s required to build an idea (even a brilliant idea) into a business. It doesn’t always pay off, but it is almost always worth it. Otis Chandler is passionate about the power of books, and seven years ago, he had a vision that was both simple and incredibly grand: unite the world’s readers. Gather people to talk about books and the ideas they contain. Talk about what these words and thoughts mean to you. Talk about what Dostoevsky, Poe, Hemingway or Franzen taught you. Talk about how authors make you feel. Connect, discuss, and share the joy, pain and exaltation of the human condition. Connect on a fundamentally human level.

What started as a simple idea in 2006 captured the world’s imagination and became a very large company indeed. Otis and Elizabeth Khuri Chandler embarked on the journey called Goodreads and built it into the world’s largest community of passionate readers, which is now the world’s largest online source of independent book reviews. Goodreads connects book lovers around the globe and connects authors to their global readers, enabling expression of appreciation, understanding and (importantly) enjoyment of the written word. Goodreads solves “discoverability,” one problem that plagues today’s literary landscape. The site catalogues more than 360 million books, with 22 million (and climbing) added per month, and receives about 140 million monthly page views and 22 million monthly unique visitors. Recently featured in The New York Times, Goodreads is widely considered by publishers and the media to be the clear leader in book reviews and discovery.

The newest addition to Goodreads’ impressive list of credentials was just announced today: Goodreads has been acquired by Amazon. It has been a beautiful thing to see Otis and Elizabeth’s passion for reading ignite millions of voracious readers around the world. And it’s a beautiful thing that their reach will now extend even further.

The story of Goodreads is a True story. We seed funded Goodreads with $105,000 in 2007 after being introduced to Otis by two entrepreneurs we love: James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky, Co-Founders of Ooga Labs. James and Stan have been incredible friends to us personally and also to True. They are both brilliant and prolific entrepreneurs, and they are the best of partners. We believe in and trust the judgment of great entrepreneurs when they tell us about other great entrepreneurs, so it didn’t take us very long to see what they loved about Otis. He was full of passion and drive, and his idea was big in impact and very capital efficient. We saw Otis as a missionary. Otis wanted to start a movement. Otis genuinely wanted to change the world, and he was driven by great values, tons of energy and boundless depths of passion. Otis inspired us.

Empowering this kind of Founder is why we started True in 2005. Was there a business? We weren’t sure. Was there a need for this connection in our world? Of that, we have never been more certain. We were committed to reading the last word as soon as we saw the cover, and to that end, we invested significant, additional capital in the summer of 2009 when liquidity in the early stage venture market was essentially non-existent due to the financial crisis of 2008.  Today, in 2013, True is very proud to be the largest non-Founder shareholder in Goodreads as they complete their sale to Amazon.

We couldn’t be happier to see a company we believed in from the beginning take this next step to impact the world for good. To our friends at Amazon, congratulations.

To Otis, Elizabeth and the Goodreads team, we are thrilled for your success. It has been an honor to be a part of the Goodreads story. Thank you for believing in True, and thank you for inspiring all of us who love knowledge and who endeavor to make the world a better place.

Read more on Amazon, Goodreads, TechCrunch and AllThingsD.