Meet Karl Rosander, Chairman & Co-Founder at Digital Content Platform: Sesamy

Sesamy is a digital content platform focused on providing a crucial complement to digital subscriptions: frictionless and transparent single purchases. Our goal is to support publishers and creators to increase their incremental revenue streams without cannibalizing their existing revenues from subscriptions.

The internet was never intended to restrict our access to digital content through subscriptions, but rather to widen it, making consumption easier for the average consumer whilst simultaneously supporting creators to make a living. Our innovative approach to monetizing digital content provides a timely alternative for consumers who are cutting back their expenditure on digital subscriptions as inflation bites. We enable people to access only the content they want, when they want it, and on any app or device.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
During our time building Acast – the world’s largest global podcast platform – we introduced premium podcast subscriptions for the first time. But since then, the problems with ‘zombie subscriptions’ – whereby people pay for large volumes of unused and unwanted content – have become stark.

We came to a realisation that, for many, the existing mass-subscription model is not providing value, and that both consumers and creators of digital content were crying out for an alternative. We have now reached peak subscription, so we created Sesamy as the solution.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 
We first started out with a focus on audiobooks and ebooks. Since then, we’ve recently expanded into news by partnering with leading Swedish publication Breakit ahead of a wider expansion into the news and magazine sector. Our goal is to support publishers, by utilizing our technology to generate crucial new revenue streams as advertising revenues face increased turbulence. We’ve also introduced our SmartID software, which will enable our publisher partners to suggest the right price to the right person, and at the right time.

SmartID also assesses which website visitors would benefit from signing up as subscribers, and those who would be better off using the single purchase option. This ensures that our single purchase option does not cannibalize existing revenues from subscriptions – a long-held concern of publishers that have remained reliant on subscriptions to plug declines in print circulation – whilst offering both consumers and content creators greater choice.
 

What can we hope to see from Sesamy in the future?

 
We’re now focused on expanding our B2B offering, with further partnerships in the news and magazine sector firmly on the horizon. In SmartID, we have a unique piece of technology that we will roll out across a range of media, which could each benefit from a tailored approach to monetizing their digital content. We believe single purchases will only grow in prominence and demand over the coming months – and we intend to be at the very forefront of this revolution.