Pagio (2025)

Jerry Zheng & Adithya Sriram

Pagio reimagines how kids interact with stories by tackling the “fourth grade literacy slump”—the point where reading engagement drops for millions of students. With our platform, a kid can pick up any book and we’ll know exactly what’s happening in every chapter. Our system makes hyper-specific references to moments in the story, connects themes across chapters and even across different books, and personalizes prompts and activities to each child’s unique interests. Students can discuss books with real-time audio, generate comics from their own stories, and receive adaptive prompts tailored to their reading levels. Our built-in reward system gamifies progress and keeps kids motivated, meeting them where they are in the digital age and turning reading into an experience they genuinely want to come back to.

Sam: Walk me through how a student would use Pagio.

Jerry: A student logs in with their school email. They enter age, interests, and favorite genres. They rate a few past books, and we generate a personalized profile. That powers book recommendations, Lexile-level matching, and previews.
Adithya: Once inside, kids can do chapter quizzes—specific enough that you can’t just skim an AI summary. They can also role-play chats with book characters, like Harry Potter in Chapter 5, via text and voice chat.

Sam: What else have you built beyond books and quizzes?

Jerry: Daily personalized articles—if you like Roblox, you’ll get a gaming article at your level, which adapts based on performance.
Adithya: Kids can also write short stories that auto-generate into comics. They share, like, and comment on each other’s work. We added friends, leaderboards, and weekly challenges. Top kids earn gems, which buy gift cards (Roblox, Apple, Dunkin) in a region-specific store.

Sam: How many users are you seeing so far?

Adithya: About 5 daily active users, 10–12 weekly, and 20 monthly. Mostly middle-class 8–12 year olds. We found them through our teacher interviews, Brown faculty parents, and posters in Providence libraries.
Jerry: We’re onboarding 7–8 schools next month, aiming for 500 users. Funny story: our first “launch” was at YC Startup School—on Juneteenth. We got zero clicks because teachers were all on federal holiday, which we didn’t know about because we’re not US citizens.

Sam: Which features are most popular?

Jerry: We assumed chats would dominate, but kids actually grind multiple-choice quizzes for hours to rack up points. Daily articles are by far the most used—we had to increase the cap from 1 to 5 per day.
Adithya: Voice chat flopped—almost nobody uses it. Costs were high, but usage is low.

Sam: Speaking of cost, what does it run per user?

Adithya: Text features (articles, chats, quizzes) are cheap—about 5¢ per session. Comics are pricier. If kids use everything except audio, that’s ~$1/month. Add rewards, and it’s about $2.50 per user per month total. Jerry: Schools sometimes ask to plug in their own reward systems—pizza parties, classroom prizes. That could reduce costs further.

Sam: What’s next on your roadmap?

Jerry: A “battle mode” where kids build quiz bases and challenge friends, like Clash of Clans. Also a Goodreads-style review system, since kids trust peer recommendations more than adults’.

Sam: How do you split the work between you?

Adithya: I build the core system. Jerry experiments with system prompts, user onboarding, and outreach. We collaborate on pitch decks and outreach.
Jerry: Prompt engineering is surprisingly critical—we’ve spent hours tweaking word choices to get AI outputs right.

Sam: What surprised you most this summer?

Adithya: That kids didn’t want to use voice chat at all—this is the texting generation.
Jerry: That multiple-choice questions are beloved. I hated them growing up, but kids grind them for points like a video game.
Adithya: Even strong readers are motivated by points and character chats. Strangely, our top users don’t redeem gems, they just like points-maxxing.

Sam: Favorite and least favorite parts of the startup?

Jerry: Best—seeing teachers and parents gush that Pagio would help their kids. Worst—lack of structure. Unlike banking, there’s no roadmap, just constant problem-solving.
Adithya: Same—creating something kids use daily is amazing. Hardest—juggling product, outreach, pitch decks, legal, all at once, with no clear “right path.”

Sam: Any advice for other students starting companies?

Jerry: Focus on 5 real users with real problems—if you solve for them, others will follow. Be honest about whether this is a side project or your real focus.
Adithya: Be resilient. You’ll face rejection and failure. Iterate until you find product-market fit. And sell—go talk to people. I once approached a family on a train from Paris to Amsterdam and got them signed up on the spot.

Sam: Any favorite rejection stories?

Jerry: We once pitched an investor who questioned whether parents even want their kids to read. We had no data, just assumed it was obvious. It made for a brutal call and even worse follow-up email. We’ve since built data to prove there’s a big enough market among parents in private schools, wealthy districts, and international schools.

Sam: If you ran this fellowship program, what would you change?

Adithya: Emphasize selling, not just building. Building is the easy part—convincing people to use your product is the real test.
Jerry: More frequent calls. Early on, a positive call was the best motivation when everything else felt uphill. Also, maybe distribute grants in stages—our initial lump sum was more than we needed at the start.
Sam: So more “cheerleader functionality.”
Jerry: Exactly. Sometimes even a Slack ping like, “Hey, Gen Z isn’t reading, what’s your plan?” would kick us into gear.