Cafeyn is an information streaming platform and digital news stand that houses magazines and newspapers for curious readers to consume anywhere at any time, all in one place. As of today, Cafeyn hosts over 2,500+ magazine and newspaper titles, with over 2m active users. It has both built and bought content platforms to support its growth and international expansion.
Since starting out in 2006, our ambition with Cafeyn has been to reconnect readers to content that is relevant to them through an ultra high-performance platform. We have assembled an international management team combining talent in publishing, digital media, e-commerce, data and technology.
We’re continuing to grow 40% year-on-year and have expanded our team significantly from 50 in 2018 and are expected to surpass a 170 headcount by the end of the year.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Cafeyn originally came to me while I was on holiday in New York in my mid twenties, and was unable to access my favourite French sports newspaper, L’Equipe, when not in my native country of France.
Being an avid reader, I was undoubtedly disappointed. It seemed crazy I wasn’t able to access my favourite newspaper merely because I was in a different country. In that moment, I idealised an efficient way of homing newspapers and magazines.
I looked at services that were thriving back then in the mid-noughties such as i-Tunes and asked why there was no similar service for newspapers. If there wasn’t one available I would have no choice but design it myself. I could see very clearly that the technological revolution was in no way slowing down, and that if journalism and publishing didn’t move with the current, it would in time inevitably be left behind.
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What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
Persevere and be confident with your own profile – it is a skill in itself to convince suppliers that not only is your business worth investing in, you as a person are too. So be certain in yourself – if you want to change the world with your business then of course this involves a degree of risk, but that is often worth taking.
Most importantly I’d say to do your best to spot an untapped market and have the conviction to pursue it. If you have a strong vision then you need to believe in your product and stop at nothing to go after it.
What can we hope to see from Cafeyn in the future?
We want to be the leading information streaming platform in the world, so we’re aiming to continue our international expansion.
Since our inception 14 years ago, Cafeyn has continued to rapidly innovate the way we promote information streaming at a time when the industry is reinventing itself, so we want to capitalise on the age of digitalisation.
We think we can do this by keeping our emphasis on having a well designed platform that is easy to navigate, to ensure Cafeyn is aesthetically pleasing for our users.
