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In episode 6 we dive into the Untold Story of PublishDrive, an innovative online book publishing platform for both indie authors and book publishers. Our guest, Kinga Jentetics, the company’s founder and CEO is here to share her inspiring story of turning an unmet need into a $1,5M company!

In 2015 after having difficulties with publishing her master’s thesis, Kinga decided to create an easy-to-use e-book publishing platform. In the same year her persistent LinkedIn networking already led them to become one of the Apple Approved Aggregators.

“That’s actually a real passion of ours, it’s in the company’s DNA that whenever we’d see a problem, we just went to solve it and we don’t stop until we do it.”

In just a few years, after participating in the Startup Wise Guys program and the Google Accelerator program, PublishDrive grew from a Hungarian e-book distributor into an international company covering all aspects of the whole book-publishing scene. Other than e-books they also offer print-on-demand books and audiobooks followed by all kinds of functionalities, book marketing tools, analytics features and royalty management solutions.

“Even during the pandemic when everyone was cutting all the development, and just focusing on keeping whatever they had, we came out with new things. Even I would say one of the biggest things that we had before, and I think that was already a good sign for most of the clients...”

However, they had their most important launch on the very same day when Hungary was shutting down due to the pandemic, thanks to their new features and innovative relationship management they still managed to grow by an incredible 60% in last year.

Hit the play button and follow along the growth of PublishDrive as well as Kinga’s journey as a female founder by the following questions:

<0.49>

What made her want to become an entrepreneur?

<04.50>

How did she find the right partners?

<06.01>

How did the initial e-book publishing platform become the PublishDrive we know today?

<16.42>

How does the technology work behind turning ebooks into audiobooks?

<20.28>

After starting off with distribution, how did they add all the following functionalities overtime?

<25.48>

How do they keep all the stakeholders satisfied? How do they prioritize the huge network they have to maintain?

<29.51>

What were their greatest results during the past few years?

<32.25>

Why did they change from the standard commission based business modul to the subscription model?

<34.49>

How long does the user typically stay with PublishDrive?

<38.27>

What are some of the big industry insights they uncovered based on their analytics?

<44.53>

What were the “big names” they wanted to win for their case?

<48.48>

When did they take on their first financing round and how did it go?

<54.45>

What was the biggest unexpected challenge Kinga had to face as a CEO?

<58.24>

What does the team structure of PublishDrive look like? How do they deal with remote work?

<1:01:56>

What is Kinga’s best advice for female founders?

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The Untold Stories Podcast series brought to you by Startup Europe Networks and Startup Hungary, powered by TechCamp and US Embassy Hungary.