Meet the App That Revolutionized Book Reading for 2 Million People

 

Caitlin Schiller

 

AGalluppoll conducted in 2015 found that a work week for the average full-time American employee is 47 hours (or nearly 6 days a week), and they usually have only 19 minutes to devote to reading.

 

So, imagine this: What if it were possible to take those 19 minutes of reading time a day and deliver people the kind of knowledge they need to be their best? Could a digital publishing company, by devoting all of its skills and heart to finding a solution, crack this problem?

 

The Blinkist app does exactly that. Founded in 2013, the app offers short versions of bestselling books that can be read in 15 minutes or fewer.

 

Blinkist has high-powered summaries of insights from over 2,000 must-read non-fiction books.

 

2 million people are reading every day with the Blinkist app, and more are discovering it every day.

 

Why are so many people in love with this little reading app? Here are 5 of our favorite reasons.

 

1. Backed by science: the product & the service

 

We filter through the noise to make sure you get knowledge you can trust. We sort through the approximately 2,200,000 books published worldwide to find the best non-fiction books out there.

 

Then, our subject specialists, writers, and editors identify the key ideas from each of these hand-selected books and transform them into smart, useful summaries of insights we lovingly polish and refine until they are nothing but the absolute, most essential elements of the writer’s main ideas.

 

We do the filtering for you, and then we share those ideas with you the way your dream-friend would.

 

Better yet, our content is scientifically formulated with brain-based learning to be memorable and clear. This also means that it’s easy to learn wherever, whenever you have a moment – just pick up where you left off, and use audio to learn if you’re suddenly on the move.

 

 Even Blinkist’s in-app reader was designed to be easy on the eyes and pleasing to the brain. Plus, Blinkist is built to tailor itself to you: As you start reading, favoriting, and highlighting with Blinkist, the app will surface new titles you’ll love.

 

2. The learners

 

We recently reached 2 million in our community of learners, and they amaze us. They’re grandmothers in Northern England and entrepreneurs inBrazil; they’re students inFinlandand HR managers in Southeast Asia; they’re entrepreneurs (and moms!) inNew York Cityand they’re teachers perched on Himalayan mountaintops.

 

All kinds of people use the Blinkist app to become their best selves, so when you sign up for Blinkist, you’re joining an invisible network of people around the world who thirst for knowledge and are committed to making the most of their time and talent by bettering their minds. And you can meet each other, too! We now have a Facebook group of smart, curious Blinkist learners suggesting books, sharing advice, and swapping their success stories and advice for when the going gets tough.

 

3. Audio

 

Do you learn best when someone talks you through it? Turns out that today, most other busy, bright people do, too! During our first two years of making Blinkist, audio versions of our books-in-blinks was the number one most requested feature. And so we made it happen. Now, it’s easy to keep learning in the car, to the beach, on a run, or wherever else you’re going.

 

Audio fits into the day in a way text sometimes can’t, so even if there are times when it seems like those 19 minutes a day you’ve got for reading might slip through your fingers, it’s still possible to fit in a little learning. Lots of our users love audio because of our narrators, all real people from around the world, trained to deliver an intimate audio learning experience.

 

4. Real people

 

Do you wish that you had a super smart friend who’d share the fascinating things they read about with you? Now you do! We come from 21 countries and have a collection of degrees and experience that runs the gamut from former hadron collider operator to literature professor to museum docent to mathematician.

 

We’re people who care deeply about learning and getting to the bottom of the big ideas that matter – in every subject. We read every book ourselves, we write every book-in-blinks, and we edit and record every single pack of key insights.

 

We’re people – not bots – and we like to think that this shows in the care we put into our work and how much our community trusts us.

 

It takes a minimum of 7 people to make a book-in-blinks, which means you never have to question its quality, or whether it’s been carefully vetted.

 

5. The innovation

 

Blinkist makes it possible to discover new thinkers and ideas that matter, keep learning every day, and take some of the pressure off your quest to be an informed citizen and a better you.

 

As the world gets faster and faster, we’ll keep on making it easy and enjoyable to fit reading and learning back into every single day. We’ll go where the best ideas are – whether that’s books, articles, podcasts, or other media – and bring them to you. You can count on it.