Scribsy

The IDE and data layer for long-form fiction, built to own the creative AI stack for serious writers.

Raising $3M seed to get to MVP + 1,500 heavy-use authors and a defensible narrative data graph.

Owning the Narrative Data Layer Is a $10B+ Opportunity

The market for creative software, tools, and services represents over $10 billion in annual spend — yet it sits on top of broken or nonexistent data models.

100M+ Writers Globally

Hundreds of millions of people write fiction or long-form stories worldwide. Millions already pay for tools, courses, and coaching.

Fragmented Spend

Today's dollars are scattered across Scrivener, Notion, Google Docs, specialty tools, and editors. No one owns the underlying narrative data.

Adjacent Markets

The same infrastructure powering novel-scale fiction extends to game narrative, screenwriting, interactive fiction, and IP/franchise management.

The winner becomes the system of record for narrative IP — a $1B+ outcome on software and data alone, before tapping adjacent verticals.

AI Skipped Serious Writers

AI Slop Everywhere

AI made it trivial to crank out high-volume, low-quality text, flooding the world with generic content that dilutes the market.

Serious Writers Left Behind

Fiction writers and narrative teams face a binary: tools either try to ghostwrite for them or treat a 100,000-word novel like a long Google Doc.

Context Drowning

The few "AI for writers" tools using story bibles or codices just dump siloed data on models, drowning them in irrelevant context.

Static Files, Not Living Worlds

Manuscripts are treated as static files instead of living, structured worlds the AI can reason over and understand at scale.

What Scribsy Is

Scribsy is an IDE and data layer for long-form fiction. This is an infrastructure product disguised as a writing tool: whoever owns the narrative data layer owns the creative stack.

01

CRDT-Native Editor

Built for multi-million-word projects and real-time collaboration. Handles the scale and complexity professional authors demand.

02

Semantic Graph

A rich knowledge layer over characters, locations, timelines, plot threads, and themes. Your story becomes a queryable world.

03

Smart Orchestrator

Routes the right slice of context to models so AI actually works at novel scale. No more drowning in irrelevant information.

Who It's For (And Why It's Not Niche)

We're starting with serious fiction authors and narrative teams — users who already spend real money and time building ad-hoc "story bibles" in Notion, Scrivener, and wikis, then fight their tools instead of focusing on story.

Scribsy becomes the place where that work actually lives — and where AI can finally use it.

Professional Novelists

Authors writing large, complex series need tools that scale with their ambition and handle interconnected storylines.

Narrative Designers

Teams building games, TV shows, and films who manage shared worlds and intellectual property across multiple projects.

Editors & Story Teams

Professionals who need to move through many manuscripts with shared context and consistent world-building.

Early Validation: Are Writers Actually Changing Behavior?

We're not measuring vanity metrics. We're asking: Will serious writers reorganize their workflow around a narrative IDE, not just play with it?

Inner Circle Testing

3–5 "inner circle" authors are running real chapters through the Scribsy prototype on active projects.

Expanding Cohort

20–30 additional serious writers using Scribsy for active manuscripts, not just demos or experiments.

Real Metrics

We're tracking completion rate (% who finish a full scene/chapter in Scribsy), multi-week retention, and whether they'd be upset if we turned it off.

Willingness to Pay & Evidence of Demand

We're conducting structured interviews and offers to our early cohort, including "founding author" plans.

The signals we care about go beyond interest — we're looking for people who commit to a waitlist with price attached, say "I'd pay $X for this right now," or pre-commit to early paid access.

These aren't curiosity clicks. These are serious writers willing to put money down for a tool that finally gets how they work.

The Moat: Narrative Data + Workflows That Get Harder to Copy

Data Lock-In

Every manuscript, edit, and entity becomes part of a structured narrative graph. Switching tools means giving up that history and context.

Narrative-First Models

We fine-tune and rank on narrative-specific outputs: completion rates on complex editing tasks, "stay in voice" scores, character consistency.

Operating System for Writers

We become how serious writers and narrative teams plan, draft, revise, and manage worlds. The longer they stay, the more painful it is to recreate elsewhere.

Ecosystem Play

Plugin and API surface around the narrative graph means other tools (editors, game engines, analytics) plug into your data model instead of replacing you.

18 Months to Prove Scribsy Can Be the Narrative System of Record

1

0–6 Months

  • Ship MVP with core IDE + CRDT + basic semantic graph
  • Onboard first 150–250 heavy-use authors
  • Validate core workflows: outline → draft → revision
  • Establish baseline WAU/MAU metrics
2

6–12 Months

  • Expand semantic graph + orchestrator for multi-book series and shared worlds
  • Hit 750–1,000 heavy-use authors with 35–45% WAU/MAU
  • Launch first internal "plugins" (AI-assisted revision, world-bible views)
  • Test willingness to pay for power tiers
3

12–18 Months

  • Plugin + API surface for 3rd parties (editors, game tools, analytics)
  • Scale infrastructure to support 100k+ users and multi-million-word projects
  • Hit $1–1.5M ARR from power users on tiered pricing

Business Model: Simple, Subscription-First

Core SaaS Subscriptions

Monthly and annual plans for serious authors and narrative teams. Simple, predictable pricing starting at $20–30/month for solo authors.

Power Tiers

Higher-priced plans ($60–100/month) for heavy users who need multi-project scale, advanced AI tools, and collaboration features.

Future: Platform Revenue

Plugin and API revenue share as the narrative graph becomes infrastructure for adjacent tools like editors, game engines, and analytics.

Custom enterprise pricing for narrative teams in games, TV, and publishing who need white-glove onboarding and support.

Team: Infrastructure + Narrative + AI, All in One Place

Steven Pattison

Founder & CEO (Chief Empathy Officer)

Systems thinker with 10+ years as Chief of Staff in deep-tech and blockchain. Bridges product, infrastructure, and operations seamlessly.

  • Led initiatives that helped spin out Verifiable.com ($27M Series B) and Remote.com ($300M Series C)
  • Obsessive about narrative, workflow, and "human-first" AI for long-form creators

Dr. Bernhard Borges

Co-founder & Chief Science Advisor

PhD and post-doc in adaptive behavior and cognition. Expert in distributed/agent systems and bounded rationality.

  • Built intelligent systems at IBM, PwCC, Dock, and Fluence. Now CTO at Better Half AI
  • Owns Scribsy's AI and data architecture: semantic graphs, agents, and evaluation frameworks

Adam Lyle

Co-founder & Head of Engineering

14+ years shipping complex, high-scale systems in games and SaaS environments.

  • Deep experience with distributed infrastructure, agentic workflows, and creative tooling in Hollywood
  • Owns Scribsy's SaaS infrastructure and implementation of the CRDT + narrative graph stack

The Ask: $3M Seed

18 Months to De-Risk Product, Usage, and Infrastructure

Team

Hire 5–6 senior engineers, 1 design/UX lead, and 1 part-time GTM specialist to execute the roadmap.

Product

MVP shipped, 1,500 heavy-use authors onboarded, and 35–45% WAU/MAU on that core cohort.

Infrastructure

Proven CRDT + semantic graph stack on multi-million-word projects with rock-solid performance.

Revenue

$1–1.5M ARR from power users, with a clear path to $3M ARR if traction continues.

This is the infrastructure play for the next generation of narrative creation. We're building the system of record for story — and we need partners who see it.

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