Guest: Ricardo Vice Santos, CEO and co-founder of DreamStories.ai
Topic: Agentic content studio, personalized children’s books, character-consistent AI imagery, subscriber-style publishing economics
Episode Overview
How DreamStories.ai turns kids into the hero of their own beautifully illustrated adventure. Ricardo explains the “agentic content studio” model, why he started with physical books, how he achieves character consistency at scale, and the unit economics behind paid acquisition and repeat purchase behavior.
Time-Saving Highlights
- DreamStories.ai basics: Upload photos → AI creates a consistent main character → choose a template → get a printed book
- Why books first: proven category, premium willingness to pay, repeatable nightly ritual, durable margins
- “Intimacy at scale”: personalization that feels one-of-one, delivered with production reliability
- Team and traction: lean engineering-heavy team, strong repeat purchase behavior, moving toward broader creative tools
- Market approach: US-first, added non-Latin scripts to expand globally
- Paid growth reality: Facebook as the steady workhorse, ROAS math, and the path from novelty to service
Key Takeaways (Founder-Focused)
- Personalization moat: Character consistency is hard; solving it is a defensible advantage
- Service over one-off product: Episodic books drive retention and higher LTV
- Physical-first strategy: Consumers expect digital to be free; physical goods sustain CAC and margins
- Distribution truth: Paid acquisition is an auction—win by superior LTV and repeat behavior
- Taste matters: Make the creation flow enjoyable for parents, not just the final artifact for kids
Ricardo’s Playbooks and Frameworks
1) Agentic Content Studio Framework
- Input: photos + light preferences
- Orchestration: model mix (open-source + proprietary) for character consistency
- Output: stylized, on-brand illustrations across pages
- Feedback: human-in-the-loop edits and text control
- Scale: “Infinite content” goal with guardrails
2) Intimacy-at-Scale Loop
- Personal artifact → nightly family ritual → social proof at school and with relatives → referrals and repeat gifts → episodic upsell
3) Retention Through Episodes
- Series structure rather than one-off novelty
- Age-aware prompts and evolving language difficulty
- Seasonal and milestone triggers (birthdays, holidays, grade changes)
4) Paid Media Unit Economics
- Expect CAC ≈ AOV at the start
- Unlock winning bids via higher LTV (repeat, bundles, subscriptions)
- Use episodic content to justify continuous repurchase
5) Brand-Safe Personalization Guardrails
- Restrict IP where necessary
- Style and conduct policies for cameos and co-characters
- Human review points for edge cases
Resources and Links
- DreamStories.ai: https://dreamstories.ai
- Ricardo Vice Santos on LinkedIn: search LinkedIn for “Ricardo Vice Santos”
- The NeverEnding Story (reference)
- Choose Your Own Adventure series (reference)
- WILD Foundation: https://wild.org
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