Volodymyr Usov's idea for interactive books is tied to his purchase of his first iPad in 2010. A year later, the Gutenbergz publishing house appeared in Odesa, and its first serious project was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for tablet. That very book was among the five presented at Book Arsenal in spring 2014.
The festival takes place at Mystetskyi Arsenal, the former arsenal of the Kyiv fortress, which today operates as a center for contemporary art. The program covered literature, music, and conversations about protest: a month and a half after the events on the Maidan, the organizers discussed the philosophy of protest and new Ukrainian music. Against this backdrop, the book section looked like an attempt to show that Ukrainian publishing is seeking its own path, not merely repeating the print model.
Five Stories on One Stage
The presentation was conducted by Chytomo, and the participants presented their own works. Volodymyr Usov spoke about Sherlock Holmes from Gutenbergz. Alongside him were Mykola Nikolaev from Pirates of the Kyiv Sea with Kotyhoroshko, Taras Malkovych from A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA with The Snow Queen, Maryana Savka from Vydavnytstvo Staroho Leva with Zabavlyanky, and Olha Cherepanova from Glowberry Books with the book Mama Hurries Home.
It is important that this was a joint presentation by five publishers, not a separate appearance by Usov. The Book Arsenal program allotted Gutenbergz one line, and no one spoke further about the project that day. Nevertheless, the picture itself was telling: Ukrainian publishers came together on one stage with books that exist on a tablet screen and are intended for sale beyond the country's borders.
What Stood Behind Sherlock Holmes
The project was released in the App Store on December 2, 2012, a year later than the original plan. The launch cost approximately 25 thousand dollars, and for a small Odesa team this was a serious bet. Already in March 2013, the app had been downloaded 23 thousand times, 70 percent of sales came from the USA, and the team consisted of seven people.
For Gutenbergz, the American market proved to be the main one. The interactive book on iPad competed not with Ukrainian publications but with English-language apps, and this determined the price, the design, and the choice of themes. Conan Doyle's classic detective story suited the format well: the text is known, the audience is ready for new ways of reading, and interactive elements fit easily into the plot.
From Politics to Technology
In 2014, Usov was also known as a politician: he headed the Odesa organization of Batkivshchyna. In an interview with Chytomo on March 31, a week before the festival opened, the talk was about the Gadgetarium project and a GTF grant of 240 thousand hryvnias. At that time, Usov also said he had left politics, and his interests were shifting toward technology.
After that, Usov's career developed rapidly. In October 2014, he launched Kwambio together with Dmytro Kryvosheiev, and the project won at IDCEE and received 500 thousand dollars from an Odesa company whose name was not disclosed. In autumn 2015, Usov went to Boston, where in June of that same year the recruitment for Techstars, one of the most famous startup accelerators, had begun. In total, the summer cohort had twelve teams, and the investment from Techstars and angels amounted to 650 thousand dollars. The second Ukrainian resident of the program was Yehor Anchyshkin's team GV Machines.
The Kyiv presentation of 2014 became for Gutenbergz one of the public episodes in a transitional period. A few months after it, a new stage began for Usov in Boston: in June 2015, his project received a place in the Techstars program, and money and mentors became part of the next step.
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