Wattpad unpacks its evolving strategy under new product head Chelsea Parry

Toronto’s Wattpad has brought on Chelsea Parry as its head of product as the online storytelling and social media platform gears up for its next chapter under the umbrella of digital comic producer Webtoon.

In an exclusive interview with BetaKit, Wattpad president Aron Levitz outlined why the company hired Parry and how Wattpad’s strategy is evolving under her leadership.

Levitz said Parry brings “a wealth of knowledge both as a fan and as an operator” from her time working with companies like Achievers, RBC, CBC, and MLSE, and that will help her increase fan interaction and client engagement at Wattpad.

“There are lots of places that [AI] can be a creative tool, but it is not a creation tool.”

Aron Levitz, Wattpad

“I’ve spent my career at the intersection of creativity, technology, and fandom, and Wattpad combines these three features like no one else,” Parry told BetaKit. “I’m excited to work with our teams to be part of Wattpad’s next chapter, reimagining search and discovery features to connect users with incredible stories, and growing our community.”

Parry joined Wattpad earlier this year and will be based in Toronto alongside the majority of the company’s more than 200 Canadian employees and its full leadership team (Wattpad also has a smaller presence in Halifax). She takes over from the previous chief product officer, Ellie Jieun Park, who joined Wattpad from Webtoon to focus on updating the user experience and back-end capabilities. Park has since returned to South Korea to focus on other Webtoon projects.

Parry will be tasked with helping Wattpad implement product features aimed at improving story discoverability on the platform, while providing readers and writers with more ways to connect. She will also ensure that human creation stays at the core of Wattpad as a barrage of generative artificial intelligence (AI) slop hits the internet.

Wattpad was acquired by South Korean internet conglomerate Naver, which owns Webtoon, in 2021 for $754 million CAD.

Since then, Levitz said Wattpad and Webtoon have shared intellectual property (IP) and users, integrated their tech and some services, and worked together to grow both platforms. 

This work included merging Wattpad’s film and television production arm and Webtoon’s digital comics-focused production studio under the oversight of Levitz, who ran the combined entity until stepping down from that role to focus his efforts fully on running Wattpad. Levitz was named co-president of Wattpad late last year alongside KB Nam, and became sole president in May when Nam returned to South Korea to lead Webtoon’s IP business.

“I think we’ve done a really good job of finding the balance between shared services to work more efficiently and to learn from each other and allow each platform to grow in different ways, and in ways that make sense for their existing community,” Levitz said.

Wattpad has become a hub for young adult and romance stories, as well as fan fiction. Together, Wattpad and Webtoon are home to 155 million monthly active users and 26 million global creators who have produced 64 million global titles.

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Like many other Canadian tech firms, Wattpad has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years amid deteriorating market conditions, including staff reductions in early 2023 and early 2024. Levitz said these changes marked an effort to “right size our team in response to a changing economic environment.” 

Levitz asserted that Wattpad now has the right team to execute on its strategy, which he said entails an increased focus on growing fandom and community on its platform.

“When I look at what we needed to change, it was a lot of getting back to the things that made us Wattpad, that made us unique in the world,” Levitz said. “Wattpad has never been a bookstore. It’s not a solitary experience where you peruse aisles and aisles of content or books, choose one off the shelf, and go sit and read it by yourself. It really has always been about creators, about authors who have an idea, can post their first chapter, and build fandom.”

Levitz said Wattpad has been working to ensure that its free product is as compelling as its paid content, and to make it easier for readers to find stories on its platform through revamped search capabilities and new personalization features.

“Finding that first story as fast as possible is a key investment we want to make,” Levitz said.

To that effect, Levitz said Wattpad has been rolling out improved search products (something he said the company has neglected for years), as well as polls (a new way for readers to interact with stories), and series (to let readers know that writers have produced directly related stories).

Levitz noted that the company has also been working to improve its advertising and subscription services, which are feature-based rather than paywalled.

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“When you think about those four big pillars, [user-generated content], enhanced discovery, social connection, and improving our subscription [and] ad experience, it really lays out a roadmap for us for not just 2026 but for the next several years,” Levitz said.

Levitz said subscriptions and ads are “a major driver” for Wattpad’s business—hence the increased investment. He also noted that adaptations of Wattpad stories into movies and other content through Webtoon Productions (formerly Wattpad Webtoon Studios) also mark “a hugely growing” piece of the overall pie for Webtoon.

While Wattpad is looking to take advantage of AI, Levitz stressed that human creation has been and will continue to be at the core of Wattpad going forward.

Levitz claimed that Wattpad will never become a website that folks come to in order to generate stories based on AI prompts, but he said that the company does see room to provide AI tools to support writers and leverage the tech to help readers find stories more easily.

“There are lots of places that [AI] can be a creative tool, but it is not a creation tool, and that’s really, really important to us,” Levitz said.

All images courtesy Wattpad.