Refresher is extending from Slovakia into the wider world. Why you should invest in this media portal.
21/10/2021
Refresher.sk was created as a graduation project of classmates Gábor Boros and Filip Vajda. Their project didn’t make much sense to people at the beginning, but today their media portal is read by more than 3 million people every month in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It provides young people with information on social issues and topics not normally covered by the mainstream press, and excels at putting difficult subjects into context. It also guides the creation of online content for creators and advertisers. Simply put, Refresher is the place where Generations Y and Z go for information. Now the company is looking for partners and financing for expansion – and you can be part of that as a co-owner.
From fashion to topics rarely discussed elsewhere
From the outset, Refresher concentrated mainly on news from the world of fashion and music. As its creators matured, the content began to change too. At the same time, Gábor and Filip raised the quality of the articles towards full-fledged interviews and reports. Today, Refresher still features lifestyle topics, but the professional editorial staff turns these articles into something much more sophisticated. Moreover, the site no longer concentrates on lifestyle issues, but covers other issues that are of interest to the younger generations. The rights of people with different sexual orientations and preferences, sexual health issues, sustainability, the lives of minorities, and a responsible approach to drugs – everything that young people are interested in today. In addition, the portal often addresses such issues long before they become part of society’s daily conversation. Thanks to this, Refresher is now often cited by the largest Slovak media outlets such as Markíza and SME.
Pioneers of native advertising
Today, you can find native advertising across virtually all media. Native advertising is the promotion of a product or service that at first glance does not look like a typical advertisement, but rather as content typically associated with the given medium. Refresher is a pioneer of this type of promotion in Slovakia and is still setting the trends in it. The portal has been creating content with brands such as Adidas and Jägermeister for more than six years. And young people and advertisers are listening. The server cooperates with practically every bank, operator and brand in Slovakia that needs to address the Generation Y and Z target groups. And this is the generation that is currently studying, establishing itself on the labour market, and moving out into the world to make a change.
“I At the time of our launch, the media wasn’t focusing on our target group, and native advertising, our main source of income, practically did not exist in Slovakia and the Czech Republic,”
Poučení z chyb
After launching the project in 2011, the team worked over three years non-stop on a project that few predicted had much of a future. “In the beginning, without a business plan or industry knowledge, we found ourselves in a market and environment where we simply did not fit in. At the time of our launch, the media wasn’t focusing on our target group, and native advertising, our main source of income, practically did not exist in Slovakia and the Czech Republic,” says Gábor Boros about the company’s beginnings.
In addition to exhaustion, they encountered other problems. “We made mistakes in the past that almost cost us our entire business, such as the often-mistaken copyright and photo/content downloading issues of the past. We had to work on solving these problems for years, until about 2017,” adds Boros.
But the whole team stepped up to solve the issues. Refresher has put internal rules and processes in place so that nothing like this happens again. They have contracts with the largest news agencies and produce much of the photographic content themselves. In 2019, also in cooperation with Lukáš Dika, former editor-in-chief of journalism and news at RTVS, they put together a code of ethics and an advertising code that clearly define the way in which their content and brand value are created.
Expansion to the Czech Republic and out into the world
It took five years from its founding for Refresher to provide its founders a living, and in the following years the company invested everything it earned back into future growth. With its perseverance, however, the refresher team has built a strong base of readers and advertisers. Today, there is also a Czech version of the server, partly populated with content taken from the Slovak site and partly using its own content. But Refresher hasn’t stopped there. It acquired the domain refresher.com a few weeks ago and wants to export its unique approach to creating content and opinion-forming articles for the young generation abroad.
Jakub Bachratý from Crowdberry summarizes the reasons why an investor should consider Refresher:
“The greatest potential of Refresher is its target group, which it has been dedicated to serving since the beginning and who is now very loyal to it. Now this readership group’s purchasing power is growing (and will continue to do so), which is why advertisers are focusing on this population segment.”
The investment opportunity is also interesting from the point of view of expansion. There is practically no direct competition in the Czech Republic, where the market is several times larger. About 10 times more is spent on advertising in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia. When creating content, economies of scale can be achieved; expansion makes sense for advertisers as well, since they can reach multiple local markets within a single content.
The plans and ambitions of this Slovak media portal are gradually growing. Now, you too can contribute to the success of its foreign expansion and greater penetration in the domestic market. Refresher has decided to raise funds and acquire know-how for its further growth on the Crowdberry platform. “We have chosen this path in order to give our long-term partners the opportunity to become part of our future success, and to get as many innovative companies and intelligent people as possible into the team of investors as well as advisors who will take our success seriously,” says Boros.
The goal of the portal is to be the voice of the new generations who don’t perceive the world in black and white and want to change it for the better. All investors have the opportunity to be part of this positive change. Support REFRESHER in its investment campaign.