Vev’s Market Entry Strategy: Why Starting with Media Companies Proved to be Their Secret Weapon

Choosing your initial market is often the difference between startup success and failure. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Vev founder Tine Karlsen revealed how their strategic focus on media companies created the foundation for broader enterprise adoption.

The Origin of Market Focus

Vev’s journey began with an observation about enterprise behavior. “When companies were looking for ways to bring their print publication to Web, that tells me that large companies, they are so stuck with their original workflow that they started doing absurd things like converting PDFs to digital publications when that format is definitely not suitable for the web,” Tine explains.

This insight led them to focus specifically on media companies, which faced a unique combination of challenges: high content volume, design requirements, and speed-to-market pressure.

The Perfect First Customer

Their strategy paid off when they landed Shipstead, the largest media house in Northern Europe. The results were dramatic: they “reduced the time to market for these types of sites with over 90% from three weeks down to now being 30 minutes.”

This success wasn’t just about metrics – it proved their platform could handle enterprise-scale demands. Media companies, with their constant need to produce custom content, provided the perfect stress test for Vev’s capabilities.

Building for Scale

From the beginning, Vev designed their platform to handle multiple stakeholders. “We cater to teams, so we have to get through to both the designer, the developer, and other stakeholders on the team. And that makes the task incredibly complex,” Tine shares.

This decision, while initially driven by media company needs, laid the groundwork for expansion into other enterprise verticals. The platform’s ability to balance design control, content updates, and technical extensibility proved valuable across industries.

The Expansion Strategy

As Vev grew, they discovered their solution had broader applications. “Now we see that more and more companies want to produce more content in house. So we also sell to marketing departments and agencies that produce on behalf of these enterprise clients,” Tine notes.

This expansion wasn’t accidental. By solving complex problems for media companies first, Vev built capabilities that would appeal to any enterprise struggling with web content creation.

Communication Evolution

Perhaps the most valuable lesson from their media-first strategy was learning to communicate complex value simply. “Our biggest challenge at the moment is that Vev is so new that we have to sort of compare Vev to very well known platforms for someone to understand what Vev is,” Tine explains.

Working with media companies forced them to refine their message. These organizations, constantly balancing creative and technical needs, helped Vev develop clear value propositions that would resonate across industries.

The Future View

Looking ahead, their media company foundation continues to shape their vision. “When it comes to the product, which I of course love talking about, we want Vev to be the front end builder that you naturally think of no matter what CMS you have chosen,” Tine shares.

For founders choosing their initial market, Vev’s experience offers valuable lessons. Sometimes the best entry point isn’t the largest market, but the one that will push your product to its limits and prove its value in the most demanding conditions. Media companies provided Vev with both a challenging testing ground and a powerful proof point for broader enterprise adoption.