There are “love at first sight” products & startups and Bookinou by Pimely is one of them. Discover their story, from creation to production, and their collaboration with Altyor through an interview with Vincent Gunther, co-founder of Bookinou.
There are “love at first sight” products & startups and Bookinou by Pimely is one of them. Discover their story, from creation to production, and their collaboration with Altyor through an interview with Vincent Gunther, co-founder of Bookinou.
Can you present your company and your activity?
Our company is called Pimely, but we communicate more on the name of Bookinou which is a brand name, which is also a product name which is a storyteller of books for children that we have created for children between 3 and 7 years old with the objective of transmitting to them, giving them a taste for reading. So from the youngest age, our main activity is to create this audio storyteller for children and also a range of content and and services that complete the user experience around it.
How long has Pimely been in existence and how many people do you have so far?
We are a young start-up that we created in 2018. “We” meaning Guillaume and I. Guillaume, is my partner who takes care of the the product part, I’m in charge of the business part. The product was put on the market in November 2019, so it’s still recent, it’s still fresh and we have a team of about ten people, an extraordinary team, a multidisciplinary team on different aspects, both technical jobs because it’s a connected device, so there are a lot of things on the development part, also a team on logistics, on customer relations, marketing, digital services for online sales and traditional sales, of course, as we distribute the product in well-known nationwide stores.
What product did you decide to develop and what need does it meet?
The main product and the first that we developed, is actually a storyteller of books for children. Children under 6-7 can’t read yet. They need to be told the stories and this object, we imagined it as a companion that tells children the stories that are in books. Here it is. It’s the real thing. That’s the main product that we are currently marketing. It meets a need that is parents wanting to accompany children, to give them a taste for reading. It’s also an answer to the problem of how to give access to to autonomous reading to children without necessarily handing them a tablet or a mobile phone to hold. In this way, we propose a solution called Bookinou which allows children to read when their parents are not necessarily nearby, who may be working, cooking, driving, and have a reading experience with their book in their hands.
How did you identify this need?
This need was born from an idea that Guillaume’s wife had. Guillaume is my business partner. She is a speech therapist meaning she works a lot with children, every day, with books. Her job is to work on language acquisition, reading, with children, so the starting point is really how do you give children a taste for reading? How do we make them want to read from one week to the next, from one session to the next? And from this blank page, we gradually reached the concept of Bookinou, which is the realization of this object that we validated step by step with users, and so on. But the genesis is really, in the thought process with a speech therapist.
Why did you choose Altyor as your partner to develop Bookinou?
Because of the team, the team, the team. That’s often said, but it’s so true. I think that the connection is really very good The first people we met with, and who are obviously more on the business development side, the requirements analysis and the people who worked on the product in concrete terms, on the design, development, then industrialization and production. So from start to finish, we were accompanied by people we trust with whom we enjoy working, and so this is, I think, absolutely essential. And the other point is that we were looking for a solution as a young business, a small business, we were looking for a solution that would be a little bit all in one, that would allow us to to manage in fact do the the project management of of an industrial product as we didn’t have all the resources in-house.
What was the main challenge for you and for Altyor?
When we started working with Altyor, the main challenge and the top priority that we established together, was the schedule. We have a product with a strong seasonality. We were on a schedule that was very, very tight so that the product could be delivered by Christmas. Especially since we had already done a pre-sales campaign, customers were already waiting to be delivered, so we arrived with maximum pressure to discuss the project with the Altyor teams. And state among ourselves, we absolutely have to be delivered by such a date. Within a few weeks and we all know that there are contingencies. We met that date, so the challenge lived up to. It was a good thing.
How would you describe the relationship with Altyor?
I think that the relationship in any case, in an industrial project, it’s a relationship that has to last over time, over weeks and months. So it is in your interest to be well accompanied and to have good relationships. We know that it’s never easy, so it’s rather in times of adversity that we measure the quality of the relationship. What I can say, is that we feel always a very strong involvement on behalf of the teams and people. That’s why we always talk about the team, because people are involved. You get the impression that it’s their product in some way. We really appreciated that. We felt that there is a real desire to put out the best product possible. To give full satisfaction to the customer and also because we are dealing with children and it echoes within us: I want to be proud of this product. I want my little cousin and other little children to use it and enjoy it.
What struck you in particular about the way Altyor works?
What struck me is that the Altyor has met our expectations in both thoroughness and commitment with a high degree responsiveness and in each reply given, each response was justified, explained and with an ability to understand and adapt to a start-up that doesn’t necessarily have the skills in-house, which does not necessarily have the experience of a large group and the teams at Altor have this capacity to help us grow and gain skills in our own industry and in areas that we didn’t master at the start. So that’s what was important and it was particularly pleasant because today we’re now able, we’ve progressed whch is very important for us to improve on the product level as well as on a personal level
What are your next steps?
Bookinou, is a product, which is young and fresh. We still have great ambitions for this project and for this product in particular. So I think the challenge is to to scale up, to really keep up exponential growth. This was also one of the fundamental criteria to choose our industrial partners and therefore to have a partner like Altyor who knows how to both start with, necessarily, small production quantities, and to be able to accompany us on quite an ambitious scale-up. That’s what the challenge really is and I think that Altyor is able to do it. So this is what awaits us in the months to come. I’m confident.