This Women-Powered Social Platform Is Revolutionizing the Way Authors Market Their Work Only 2.3% of venture funding went to women-founded companies in 2020, but Allison Trowbridge beat the odds to found Copper and amplify authors' voices.

By now, even the least tech-savvy among us are familiar with the most popular social-media platforms and the niche audiences they attract. Photographers flock to Instagram, dancers abound on TikTok, and gamers gather on Twitch. It's good business sense for creators to gravitate towards apps that support and enhance their crafts. But until recently, one of the oldest groups of creators was largely ignored amid the surge of digital artistic expression: authors.

The lack of an outlet for authors inspired Allison Trowbridge to found Copper, a platform that uses curated content to connect authors with their readers, and vice versa. As an author herself who was publishing her book Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning with HarperCollins while pursuing her MBA at University of Oxford's Saïd Business School, Trowbridge was discouraged by how difficult it was for authors — from debuts to New York Times bestsellers — to market and promote their work.

Soon-to-launch Copper does just that for any author, whether he or she is going the self-publishing route or has already dominated bestseller lists. "It allows the authors to really build a centralized place online to meet and connect with their readers," Trowbridge says. With live events, curated reading recommendations and discussion threads, Copper focuses on deepening author-reader relationships and scaling authors' audiences in a sustainable way.