App maker Once Upon launches web version of photobook maker

GaryPageau
Once Upon on desktop

Swedish photobook app company Once Upon is taking its photobook-making technology to the web. The company claims it is the “only company in the photo book industry to be able to create its book seamlessly on different platforms at the same time,” according to a press release.

Lina Anderssen, CEO, Once Upon

“It feels fantastic to be able to say that Once Upon breaks new ground,” says Lina Andersson, CEO and founder of Once Upon. “The hope is that we can get even more people to discover our service and how easy it is to save nice and invaluable memories, which are actually pictures.”

Start the book with mobile photos on your iPad, continue creating on the web at home on the couch with photos from your computer or external hard drive, pick up your smartphone the next morning and build the end of the book on the bus on the way to work. Due to the seamlessness between Once Upon’s new web function and the app, this is a reality.

Linus Nilsson, product manager, co-founder, Once Upon

“If you add an image to the web, you can directly see it on your smartphone and vice versa. A bit like Spotify, but there is music and with us photo books,” says Linus Nilsson, product manager and co-founder of Once Upon. “We are not the first to be available on both the app and the web, but we have not found any other service that is as seamless as the one we now offer.

“It’s probably about many people having a different view of photo book creation, that the whole book should be done in one go. We believe more in creating a little at a time, that you e.g. build your yearbook during the year instead of at the end. And when we received the same signal from our customers, it was obvious to make it possible to spread the creation, not only over time but also platforms.”

Once Upon has had rapid growth since the start of sales in 2017 and increased sales by just over 120 percent from 2020 to 2021, the company claims. Once Upon reported sales of just over SEK 94 million in 2021. According to a report in DI.SE, the company lost SEK 10 million last year.

“According to surveys we have done, the market for a web-based photo book solution is much larger than the app, so with this, we attract a wider range of people,” says Andersson. “The market for seamless creation they still know nothing about but they think that in the long run, it can be very large.