The name of your company is Chili Publish. Is that something to do with spicy food?

No. I mean, this question keeps going over and over. I’ll tell you the honest story. It’s basically, our first original name of Chili was Flagyl Torch. Now, Flagyl Torch, nobody knows how to write that. So, three days before we incorporate it, we still didn’t have a proper name. So, we just had the three of us. Okay, by tomorrow you write down three names. One of my colleagues wrote down, you know, ‘Chili’, and we added publish, and the domain name was free, so that’s how Chili Publish was born. What’s important with a brand name is that you can create interesting branding around it that works in different languages, you know. I think that’s the most important if you try to be intentional brand.

What does your company do? And what is Chili Publisher?

So, Chili Publish is the name of a company. Chili Publisher is our first product, which is an online document editor. So, it basically allows you to edit, visualize, restrict any kind of graphical document online in a browser. It’s very integratable, so it’s a very open API, and you can create any kind of solution with it. It could be web2print, it could be marketing collateral system, could be translation workflow, could be integration of your PIM or DAM solution, does not really matter. Anywhere, where you need a high-end graphical document, that’s where Chili Publish can be fitted in. And now, we also have Chili rendro, which is a new product that we announced at Drupa, which is an online pdf viewer of native HTML5, and it’s an SDK that developers can integrate.

Who would be your typical client for Chili Publisher?

This is probably why sometimes it gets hard in the market to understand where we fit, because we fit in so many verticals. Again, the common denominator is the fact that it’s a graphical document. So, as long as you need a graphical document. So, most of the verticals that we work in is commercial printers, brand owners and packaging, sign and display agencies, but even web developers that want to create their own, you know, photo book application or yearbook application, they’re a prime candidate for a solution like Chili.

How is business developing?

Good, good. I mean, over the past six years, we have an average growth of twenty-nine percent, and we’re striving to go do that every year, year-on-year.

Your office is in Brussels?

Well, technically, it’s Aalst, but let’s say it’s Brussels. So, it’s about 10 minutes from Brussels. We have an office in New York, and we also have an office in Singapore.

And is that because you see yourself as a global player?

Yes, we do. I mean, ninety percent of our revenue comes outside of Belgium. About forty percent of our revenue comes out of the States. This year, we’ll be able to produce fifteen percent of our revenue out of Asia, hopefully. We still have six months to go at the end of this year, but it’s looking very good. Yes. And, we’re a true global player. I mean, in the end we’re still in a niche market, you know. We aim for a certain part of the market, so we have to be global to be significant.

Why is choosing Chili Publisher good if you operate with different verticals?

Well, just actually the reason of the verticals – because today a printer, you know, every six months or every year, he has to reinvent themselves. So, I think it’s really hard today to buy a – Look at the presses. Today you buy a press because you know it’s versatile. So, you can do different finishing options with it, you can upscale it, you can, you know, you can put other machines together with it, because you don’t know what you’re going to do tomorrow. It’s the same with Chili Publisher. Today, you might be doing, you know, direct mail pieces, but tomorrow you might want to get into the label business or the packaging business. With Chili Publisher, with the same technology, you could easily do that. So, depending on the type of customers that you’re going to acquire over the next months or years, you can actually still go a different direction with Chili Publisher, as long as there are graphical document in there somewhere.

Graph Expo first time in Florida. Your impressions?

Interesting. I mean, it’s a bit exciting. We had, yesterday, you know, on Sunday we had a decent day for a Sunday. So, I’m really excited to see what Orlando brings. I think it – Hopefully, we’ll attract some South American prospects which would be interesting. But, we’ll see, you know. It’s our first time in Orlando, so – The weather is great.