Yarn
Chat fiction — thriller stories told one text message at a time.
What it is
Short fiction delivered as a text message thread. You tapped to advance, reading a conversation between characters as though you'd picked up someone else's phone.
Problem
Teenagers weren't going to read short fiction on a phone — not because they don't like stories, but because a wall of text asks for a kind of attention a phone is bad at giving. Yarn made the unit of reading a single text message. You tap to advance, one line at a time, and it feels like reading over someone's shoulder rather than sitting down with a book. It turned reading into something you could do in a queue, with a cliffhanger every few taps instead of every few pages.
My role
Yarn didn't exist until I arrived — it was the first app I helped Mammoth Media build. I started as its designer and, as with Wishbone, became VP of Product. I helped conceive a stories-style video experience, where you tap through short clips the way you tap through the text, and worked heavily on monetization — the in-app currency and the subscription model.
Outcome
Ranked in the US Top 100. Mammoth apps collectively reached over 30% of US Gen Z.
