Don't Blink: You Might Miss This Conversation With Blinkist Co-Founder, Tobias Balling

Apple’s Best Apps of the Year, and acquired by Go1, Blinkist serves over 35M users globally. In this interview, Tobi shares how his Creative Capital helped drive success.

Tobias Balling isn’t just a founder of an edtech success story—he’s a builder, out-of-the box thinker, and Creative Capitalist. As the co-founder of Blinkist, he transformed the way millions consume knowledge, distilling complex ideas into digestible insights. During his leadership, Blinkist grew to serve over 35 million users, was named one of Apple’s Best Apps of the Year, and was ultimately acquired by Go1, a global leader in workplace learning, in a nine-figure deal. Tobias’ entrepreneurial journey didn’t start with a massive vision—it began with a simple desire to solve his own problems, from skipping university lectures to tackling the paradox of unread books. In our conversation, he shares how curiosity, the need for speed, and breaking out of traditional thinking helped him build and scale one of the most influential learning platforms of our time.

What experiences shaped your entrepreneurial journey?

I think what shaped my journey most is that, deep down, I’m quite lazy. In university, I studied information systems but never went to class. That became a problem when exams came around—I didn’t know what the professor had said.

Some friends and I thought, well, we study information systems, so why not build a website where professors can record lectures for students to watch at home? That became our first startup, Podcast University. We were solving our own problem.

That’s how I see entrepreneurship—it’s not about starting a company; it’s about solving a problem. Looking back, what we built in 2006 was essentially Coursera before its time. We failed because we were just students, but that curiosity—seeing problems and solving them—is what led me to startups.

The #1 reason startups fail is lack of product-market fit. How did you and your Blinkist co-founders identify the gap in the market?

I have a wall of books—it looks cool, but I never read them. My co-founders and I realized we were all doing the same thing: buying books out of curiosity, but never getting around to reading them.

That reminded us of university—since we never went to class, we learned from summaries. So we thought, if summaries worked for us in school, why not for lifelong learning?

To me, product-market fit comes from solving a real problem. My dad told me when I was a kid: if you solve a problem for a million people and charge $1, you become a millionaire. It’s not about the company structure or making an IPO; it’s about providing value. If enough people have the problem and your solution is valuable, they’ll pay for it.

At what point did Blinkist shift from a startup to a scalable, widely adopted company?

I’m a software engineer at heart, so I love building products. But my early startups, like Podcast University, failed because nobody used them.

The turning point for Blinkist was when we figured out performance marketing—using Facebook ads (Instagram wasn’t as big then) to get people's attention and drive profitable traffic.

When friends tell me they have a startup idea, I always say: try to sell it before you build it. If you can sell it profitably, you have something. At Blinkist, once we cracked that marketing machine, things took off. Identifying the problem is step one, but then you need to get it in front of millions.

You seem to have the ability to make decisions and build products incredibly fast. What is a common misconception about what it takes to move quickly?

In companies, when someone wants to do something, they often say, “This will take a quarter and involve 20 people.” And I’ll say, “Let’s try doing it today.”

Then they say, “But if we do it in a day, it’ll be bad.”

The misconception is that fast equals bad. However, you can move quickly and still do something well.

Also, perfection is the enemy of good. If you’re an entrepreneur, most things won’t work. If you spend four weeks on something that fails, that’s wasted time. If you spend four hours and fail, you can try again, and again, and again—until something works. Then you go all-in and do it right. At a big company like IBM or SAP, you have to be careful. But in a startup, nothing works at the beginning anyway.

What’s an unconventional habit you credit for your success?

Honestly? Being lazy.

Every morning, I think, If I only had 10 minutes, what’s the most important thing I need to do today? I do that first.

You’ve spent years optimizing how people consume knowledge. If you had to pick one book that every entrepreneur should internalize, what would it be?

The first startup book I read was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. It’s not the best book ever, but it sparked my curiosity.

For later-stage entrepreneurs, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is great.

Outside books, the Airbnb CEO recently talked about Founder Mode and running startups—I found that really insightful.

What’s the biggest unsolved problem in education or professional development?

Everyone knows learning is important, but nobody actually does it. People don’t read books, take courses, or attend seminars enough. Books are great, but people don’t read them, so we made them shorter and put them on your phone. But even then, many still don’t engage. Instead, they scroll on Instagram. The challenge isn’t just providing knowledge—it’s motivating people to learn.

Learning is like a vitamin—you have to do it consistently over time, but there’s no immediate reward, so people avoid it. That’s a big challenge in education.

I’m 20 now. In 10 years, I’ll be 30. What’s the most valuable skill my generation should master?

Take risks while you’re young. Starting something at 35 is much harder than at 20.

You’ve optimized how people consume knowledge. What’s something people should spend more time on?

Mindfulness. Entrepreneurs are always chasing goals—it’s easy to lose yourself in the race and forget to be present.

This column is called The Creative Capitalist. I'm interviewing some of the best creators and builders, asking: what is your Creative Capital—the unique value that drives your success?

I think it’s about being willing to ignore expectations. Most employees have a boss who assigns tasks, so they get busy moving things around, making tickets, creating reports. I was never interested in that.

I’ve always taken a more childlike approach—just sitting at home, programming, seeing what works. Refresh the page—oh, cool, look at that! That curiosity and playfulness in solving business problems have always been my thing.

Who should I interview next?

I think it’s great that you’re asking for recommendations. Everyone you interview should connect you to one more person. I’ll introduce you to a friend in the gaming industry who sold his startup.