Christophe Sibieude
Cofounder and CEO

Christophe Sibieude, tell us about Short Edition :

CS : " Short Edition, which was founded seven years ago now, publishes and promotes short-format literature.

We currently publish 8,000 authors—all selected by the community—and have 230,000 subscribers. To date, we have 100,000 works available free of charge on short-edition.com and have generated 21.5 million “reads.”

We introduced our Short Story Dispensers on a test basis in Grenoble in October 2015. Since then, 2.5 million stories have been dispensed by our “story machines” in France and around the world (especially the US), read, and shared by users of facilities like train stations, airports, shopping malls, university campuses, schools, city halls, hospitals, and more. We now have more than 150 of the machines dispensing short stories—our way of making our world a little more poetic!

If you haven’t had a chance, I recommend you find the Short Story Dispenser nearest you. You can find a list of locations here!."

What made you decide to join Minalogic ?

CS : "We have always been excited about Grenoble’s innovation ecosystem and wanted to make sure we took full advantage of all it has to offer. Short Edition was incubated at Pétale Innovation (now Linksium), where we were pushed to be more ambitious. The people at Pétale Innovation got us into angel investor network Réseau Entreprendre, which led us to the regional government’s Innoviz program, which in turn put us in touch with Bpifrance and gave us an understanding of how the government-funded investor works. We were invited to Imaginove, where we also got great support, and then we attended a half-day event organized by the Chamber of Commerce’s Ecobiz club where we met Minalogic. Minalogic’s people told us we would be more than welcome to join despite our unusual positioning as a cultural startup.

And when someone rolls out the red carpet for us, we never say no!

Today, Minalogic is supporting us and, because the story is still being written, has introduced us to French Tech in the Alps…  

The extremely dynamic well-oiled machine that is the region’s innovation ecosystem (where we always get the feeling that everyone is playing for the team) has given us reason to believe that our future will be international, in particular thanks to the Chamber of Commerce’s Go Export + program.

I hope that didn’t sound too much like a speech at the Oscars, but I do feel that all of these things are important because we have a long road ahead of us—and because it really is part of my answer to your question! ".

What services have you used since joining Minalogic ?

CS : " Minalogic is a powerfully effective organization staffed by seasoned professionals with a great network. Minalogic’s people are extremely committed and supportive of startups. So far we have benefitted from:

• The French Tech Pass, something we didn’t even know existed before
• The French National Digital Innovation Competition managed by Bpifrance; we had heard of it, but would not have prepared our submission properly if we had done it alone
• Smart City World Summit in Barcelona to do a little business and to warm up for CES
• CES (we got a lot of help making sure we were prepared for the event), CES Unveiled (the media event in the run-up to CES), and an Innovation Award (the cherry on the cake that got people talking about our company and services)."

What kinds of partnerships are you looking for as a Minalogic member? Business? Innovation?

CS : "Our two main priorities are to get our services out to more large corporations in France and to successfully penetrate the US market. Anything that can help us reach those goals—and reach them as quickly as possible—interests us. We are open to all ideas!."