Meet Made Live, Winner of Startups of The Year 2024 in British Columbia

The special Startups of The Year 2024 Winners Interview series is a celebration of all this year’s Tech Champions. You’ve earned it! The HackerNoon community can’t wait to learn more about your journey!

Tell us about you.

Made Live is an end-to-end self-publishing platform dedicated to empowering creators of illustrated books, including children's picture books, comics, graphic novels, and other highly-visual book content. Our mission is to democratize publishing for visual storytellers, giving them professional tools and distribution channels traditionally reserved for large publishing houses. We envision a world where quality illustrated content can thrive independently, reaching audiences globally without sacrificing creative control or production value.

Tell us how your startup is changing the world.

Made Live functions as a bridge between traditional publishing's quality standards and the creative freedom of self-publishing. Our platform provides specialized tools for text-image integration, format optimization, and visual storytelling that existing self-publishing platforms weren't designed to handle. We're changing publishing by enabling visual creators to maintain complete creative control while achieving professional results. Our ultimate goal is to help diversify children's literature, comics, and educational materials by removing barriers for talented creators who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional gatekeepers.

What sets you apart from the competition?

While general self-publishing platforms treat illustrated books as an afterthought, Made Live was built from the ground up specifically for visual storytellers. Our platform includes specialized features like dynamic layout tools that understand the relationship between text and images, preview functionality for various formats, and guidance on technical specifications that preserve visual integrity. Beyond technology, what truly makes us special is our community of creators who share insights and support. We've cultivated this ecosystem by hosting regular workshops, building educational resources specifically for illustrated book creators, and showcasing success stories that inspire others.

What does it mean for you to win this title?

Winning HackerNoon's 2024 Startup of the Year for British Columbia validates our belief that specialized, focused solutions can thrive in a market dominated by generalist platforms. This recognition is especially meaningful because it comes at a time when visual literacy is increasingly recognized as crucial for education and communication in the midst of sweeping book bans. The award also belongs to our incredible community of creators who have trusted us with their stories and art. Their success is what drives us, and this recognition will help us reach even more talented creators looking for the right platform to bring their visual stories to life.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to set out for this mission?

Our team uniquely combines publishing industry veterans with technology innovators and passionate creators themselves. What I love most is how everyone brings both professional expertise and personal passion for visual storytelling to their role. We foster innovation through our "creator-first" approach - many of our best features have come from team members experiencing the platform as creators themselves. We're the right team for this mission because we genuinely understand both the technical challenges and creative aspirations of our users, having lived these experiences ourselves.

Looking back, what milestone was the biggest turning point for your startup?

Our most significant turning point came when we realized that software alone wasn't the solution our users truly needed. Despite building powerful self-publishing tools specifically for illustrated books, we noticed our most successful users were those who had personal guidance along the way. This insight triggered a fundamental shift in our approach - we expanded beyond our technology platform to introduce coaching services and the Self-Publishing Club, a live cohort-based training programs specifically designed for visual storytellers.

The results were transformative. Users who participated in our first cohort programs reported much higher satisfaction with their progress and the creation process. And one author who opted in on one-on-one coaching published her first illustrated children’s picture book in just 8 weeks! This human-centered pivot taught us that even the best technology needs to be complemented by community and personalized support, especially in creative fields where encouragement and feedback are invaluable. Now, our most impactful offerings blend our specialized software with live guidance from experienced illustrated book publishers who understand both the technical and creative challenges our users face.

This milestone fundamentally reshaped how we view our role - not just as a technology provider, but as a complete support system for visual storytellers on their publishing journey.

What’s one valuable lesson you learned this year that you’d pass on to other startups?

In 2024, we learned that specificity is a superpower, not a limitation. Early on, we faced pressure to broaden our platform to serve all self-publishing authors, not just those creating illustrated books, or shift to directions that didn’t resonate with us. By maintaining our focus on being the best solution specifically for visual storytellers, we've achieved deeper market penetration and higher user satisfaction than we could have as a generalist platform. For 2025, we're looking forward to applying this lesson further by developing even more specialized tools for specific illustrated book categories like children's educational materials and graphic novels.

How do you envision your industry evolving in the coming years, and how will your startup stay ahead?

The illustrated publishing industry is heading toward a fascinating convergence of digital and physical experiences. We anticipate growing demand for dynamic content that can exist both as beautiful physical books and as interactive digital experiences. Made Live will stay ahead by developing seamless tools that allow creators to design once and publish across multiple formats. We're also seeing growing global interest in diverse visual stories, which we'll address by expanding our platform to better support multilingual publishing and culturally diverse artistic styles.

How do you or your company intend to embrace the responsibility of this title in 2025?

As a 2024 Startup of the Year winner, we plan to use this recognition to amplify the voices of independent visual storytellers who are transforming publishing. We'll leverage this title to launch a mentorship program connecting established illustrators and authors with emerging talent, particularly focusing on creators from underrepresented backgrounds. We also plan to organize community events and educational workshops that promote self-publishing literacy among visual artists. Our goal is to use this recognition not just to grow our business, but to strengthen the entire ecosystem of independent illustrated publishing.

What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2025?

In 2025, we're focused on three major goals: First, launching our collaborative creation tools to better support author-illustrator teams working remotely. Second, expanding our distribution network to include specialized channels for educational materials and international markets. Third, introducing tools to help creators better understand their audience engagement and optimize their marketing efforts. Underlying all these goals is our commitment to continue making professional-quality publishing more accessible to creators regardless of their technical background or industry connections.

2024 has been crazy, with all the new techs, and all the geopolitics fluctuations. What are the impacts of these to your startup, and to your industry as a whole? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.

2024 has been a year of significant challenges for the publishing industry. The rise in book bans across numerous regions has created a troubling environment where creative expression, particularly in children's literature, faces increasing scrutiny and restriction. At Made Live, we've seen this disturbing trend actually drive more diverse creators to self-publishing platforms like ours as traditional publishing becomes more risk-averse about potentially controversial content.

Simultaneously, new tariffs and supply chain disruptions have dramatically increased printing and distribution costs for traditional publishers, forcing them to make difficult decisions about which projects to pursue. These economic pressures disproportionately impact illustrated books, which already have higher production costs than text-only titles.

This combination of cultural and economic pressures has created both challenges and opportunities for our industry. While many creators are struggling with increased costs and distribution limitations, we're also witnessing a renaissance of independent publishing as authors and illustrators seek more control over their creative work and how it reaches readers.

At Made Live, we've responded by developing resources to help creators navigate these complex issues, including guides on working with print-on-demand services that minimize the impact of tariffs, and building communities that can support and amplify diverse voices that might otherwise be silenced. We've also enhanced our digital distribution options, recognizing that in some cases, digital formats may be the most reliable way to ensure content remains accessible when physical books face barriers.

These challenges have reinforced our commitment to creating pathways for important stories to reach young readers, regardless of the obstacles. We believe the publishing landscape that emerges from this period of disruption will ultimately be more diverse, resilient, and creator-centric.

We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us?

HackerNoon has provided a fabulous platform for connecting technology innovators across diverse industries. We particularly appreciate how the publication bridges technical discussions with real-world business applications, which aligns perfectly with our approach at Made Live. The Startup of the Year competition has been exceptionally well-organized, with clear communication throughout the process.

Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us?

The most powerful innovations often emerge at the intersection of seemingly unrelated domains. Made Live exists at the crossroads of publishing, visual arts, and technology - fields that traditionally operated in separate spheres. By deeply understanding the challenges specific to this intersection, we've been able to create solutions that none of these industries would have developed independently. For aspiring entrepreneurs, we'd encourage you to look for these underserved intersections in your own areas of expertise and passion. The most valuable problems to solve are often hiding where different worlds meet.