Weink founder Anaïs Garnier joins Amandine Guilbault on the Chapitres podcast to share how her journey as an author led to the creation of Weink. In this conversation in French, they discuss testing the idea, building a community, finding the right cofounders, and creating a business that supports both readers and writers.
Weink began with a question Anaïs knew firsthand as an author: why should writers have to choose between reaching readers and earning from their work? Released on 6 November 2026, the episode explores how that question grew into Weink and what it takes to turn a mission into a sustainable business.
From Writing Stories to Building Weink
Before founding Weink, Anaïs was an author sharing her stories online and trying to find the right place for them. That experience showed her the power of online reading communities. Authors could connect with readers around the world, build an audience, and see their stories reach people they might never otherwise have met. But visibility did not always translate into fair compensation. That tension became the question behind Weink: could books remain accessible to readers while the people writing them were properly rewarded? In the episode, Anaïs traces her journey from sharing her first stories online to building a platform around that idea.
Inside the Chapitres Podcast Conversation
The conversation goes beyond the original idea for Weink. Anaïs and Amandine discuss the practical and often less visible work involved in building a company with a social mission. They talk about testing an idea before fully committing to it, building an engaged community, finding cofounders with complementary skills, and balancing purpose with financial reality.
Want to start with a particular topic? Here are a few moments to listen for:
- 18:05: How Anaïs’s experience as an author led to Weink
- 21:00: Testing the market and validating the idea
- 26:35: Building an engaged community
- 39:15: Finding complementary cofounders
- 47:45: Balancing social purpose with economic reality
The full episode lasts just over an hour.
Building a Fairer Space for Readers and Authors
Today, Weink is working to answer the question that first inspired the platform. Readers can discover and enjoy books for free, while their reading helps support the authors behind those stories. Writers retain ownership of their work, publish without exclusivity, and earn through the platform. For readers, this makes it easier to try a new or unfamiliar author. For writers, it offers another way to reach people without giving up control of their stories.
Building that model takes more than a good idea. It requires listening to the community, testing assumptions, finding the right people, and creating something that can remain both purposeful and financially sustainable. This conversation offers an honest look at both sides of that journey: why Weink exists and what it takes to turn that purpose into a sustainable platform.
Listen to Anaïs on Chapitres
If you already spend time on Weink, this episode is an opportunity to hear the story behind the platform and learn more about the decisions that shaped it. If you are discovering Weink for the first time, welcome. There are plenty of stories waiting for you.
Listen to “Quand une autrice décide de repenser l’édition : la naissance de Weink” on Chapitres
Thank you to Amandine Guilbault for the thoughtful conversation and for making space for the parts of entrepreneurship that do not always fit into a pitch.
