Podcast — Julie Hamaïde, Koï Magazine: Going Solo in the Media Adventure (1/6)

Margaux Vulliet: Hello everyone, welcome to Médianes' podcast, where we meet the founders of media outlets so they can share their experiences with you. I'm Margaux Vulliet, journalist at Médianes, and you're listening to Chemins. In this episode, we're meeting Koï Magazine. Koï Magazine is a current affairs publication that tells the stories of Asian cultures and communities, founded in 2017. Julie Hamaïde, the founder, started from an observation: the Asian community is poorly or barely represented in French media. With each issue, Koï covers fashion, sports, sex, cuisine, and even cinema and more. But at the end of 2021, after 24 issues and as many beautiful covers, the print edition stopped. The reason: rising paper costs and a commitment not to increase the magazine's price. Attention is now focused on social media and the website. Julie Hamaïde is first and foremost a journalist, and launching alone into the world of media entrepreneurship is always a challenge—on one side there's the commercial side, and on the other all the important details you don't expect. So, is launching alone a guarantee of freedom or a thorn in your side? How do you get started? What are the main difficulties and how do you overcome them? We'll talk about this with Julie Hamaïde. Julie, hello.

Julie Hamaïde: Hello.

Margaux Vulliet: You're the founder of Koï Magazine. There have been 24 covers, which are really beautiful, with illustrations and photos. If there's one that stands out for you and has left an impression, which would it be?

Julie Hamaïde: It's incredibly challenging. I loved all the covers. Since we're going to talk about the media industry, I'd like to discuss the one featuring Teddy Riner. We made the choice to have a great Olympic champion on the cover of our magazine about Asian cultures and communities. It happens that he's a Black man, and it's a cover that performed very poorly. Does that mean that in France having a Black man on the cover performs worse, and does that mean our audience didn't see themselves in him? It's a question that remains unanswered, but I do think there's an issue around diversity that the media needs to address, around representation and the fact that print readers aren't always very enthusiastic about that kind of cover.

Margaux Vulliet: And if there is perhaps a second one that would be a bit of a personal favourite of yours, the one you had the most pleasure completing?

Julie Hamaïde: So I was going to say the first one, and then you asked me if I enjoyed wrapping it up, but I cried way too much. I cried far too much for the closure of the first issue. It was a huge source of pride because it was the first issue, we put three unknown French people of Asian origin on the cover of a media outlet. That was something that had never been done before. It was too beautiful, I was too proud. The first one is always something a bit special.

Margaux Vulliet: What did you feel when you held it in your hands for the first time?

Julie Hamaïde: A lot of pride! I also realized just how far we'd come because we'll talk about it again, but creating a media outlet from scratch is a huge undertaking. I quickly checked that the barcode was on the cover because I'd forgotten to order it just before sending it to the printer. Plus we'd done a poster campaign, so afterwards I'd see these people, these faces that looked like my loved ones, my family, in the newsstands in Paris—it was really cool!

Margaux Vulliet: You'd walk past the newsstands and say "Oh, that's me!"?

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, I would stop to take photos of them, I was so proud.

Margaux Vulliet: And did you get feedback from other people, for example with the first issue, people sending you photos of the cover at the newsstand?

Julie Hamaïde: Seriously, everyone was proud. There were those who obviously posed for the cover, who were very happy. And then all my close ones telling me "oh there's Koï and everything outside". Well, it's us who paid for the campaign, but they were there.

Margaux Vulliet: So the first issue came out in 2017. I mentioned it briefly in the introduction, but it's better if you explain it. How did you come up with the idea of launching a magazine about Asian communities? It came from an observation. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

"There's a disconnect between what I see around me, in Asian communities, what seems interesting to me, and what fails to make it into the media."

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, I'm a journalist by training, I was a freelancer. I regularly pitched stories to lots of different media outlets that were often accepted. Since I'm of Vietnamese origin through my father, I was also always very interested in what was being written in France about Asian cultures and communities, but with one frustration: seeing only articles about prostitution, those "dumpling" apartment buildings, the "Chinese" New Year. I put quotes around Chinese because in fact it's not only celebrated in China. So there was this certain frustration: when I pitched articles about Asian communities in general to the media I worked with, they were rejected, so I didn't really understand. I thought there was a disconnect between what I see around me in Asian communities, what seems interesting to me, and what doesn't manage to make it into the media. So there was already this frustration, and then there was the assault of a Chinese man in Aubervilliers. He was assaulted because he was Chinese, because the attackers thought he had money on him. He died from his injuries. That created quite a bit of uproar. Obviously, in French society, particularly in Asian communities who showed their support at that time. Then Frédéric Chau, the actor from Qu'est ce qu'on a fait au bon Dieu?, and lots of other films, was invited on every platform and they kept asking him: "So, you, as a Chinese person, what do you think about it?".

Margaux Vulliet: And you, as a journalist, how do you analyze the coverage of this particular event, and of the Asian community in general?

Julie Hamaïde: The media didn't really know who to ask, so they'd turn to the only Chinese actor in France who could give his opinion on the matter, and that's when I thought "it's a shame that he's the only one answering and that he doesn't necessarily feel like he's speaking for the entire Asian community at that point."

Margaux Vulliet: And he actually made the cover of issue 4, I believe.

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, and so at that point, I thought to myself, and I discussed it with Frédéric, whom I had interviewed for another media outlet on a different subject, "it's crazy that there aren't more media outlets talking about Asian communities, that we don't know who the representatives of Asian communities are, and that Frédéric Chau is the only guest on air to talk about it".

And non-Asians need to understand these communities better, Asians need to feel represented, and all fans of Asian cultures need to have a reference point that allows them to learn more. At that time, our knowledge of Asian cultures was still quite superficial.

Margaux Vulliet: Did you think to yourself, "Ultimately, there aren't really any magazines that cover Asian communities, so I might as well do it myself and see how it goes"? Did you have that kind of thought?

Julie Hamaïde: It didn't really happen that way. I mean, there was this observation, and then I tried to see what was being done because there are always small initiatives: Le Courrier du Vietnam, Chine Info that exist, well, media like that, scattered around, that often spoke to a community but not necessarily in a global, mainstream way. I looked at everything being done, and I realized it didn't really meet the expectations I had, and I thought "well, we really need to create something." It had to be a print magazine; I didn't want it to be a blog or something like that. In 2017, not everyone had switched to digital yet, so I was just thinking that I didn't want it to be a WordPress.

Margaux Vulliet: But from the start, was it important to you that it be a print magazine?

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, a real media outlet, something tangible, something that Asian communities could be proud of and feel represented in, you know, on glossy paper. You see, really the thing, they'd have it in their hands and think "Wow cool, this is our media!" That's how it happened, and then I thought "okay so I have all the editorial ideas, I need to find someone fresh out of business school who can help me build the company, we're going to do this."

"I thought to myself, 'why not' "

Margaux Vulliet: So you did start out on your own, but you still sought advice here and there. How did things go at the beginning?

Julie Hamaïde: So I had this idea and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I talked about it to my best friend at the time, who was a graphic designer, and he said "yeah, that's awesome, let's do it, I'll design it for you, let's give it a try". I mentioned it to my father, I talked about it a bit to people around me and I could feel there was something there. I also mentioned it in September 2016 to Myriam Levain from Cheek Magazine, the cofounder, who I was working for. And she said "yes, well you're going to do it". That sentence stuck with me, I remember the restaurant we were in, I remember what we were eating, I'm sure she remembers it too. And actually, by saying that to me, it was as if she was giving me permission to do it, she had confidence in me.

Margaux Vulliet: Was it also a question of legitimacy?

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, it's a bit like that. So that's kind of how it happened. I said to myself, "why not. Okay, so wait, how do you make a paper magazine? Well, first we think about the sections, what would I want to put in it? Okay, I see a bit of this, a bit of that. Oh that, what could I call that?" So I had a little notebook.

Margaux Vulliet: Practically speaking, how did you build the magazine at the start—did you brainstorm with yourself?

Julie Hamaïde: Exactly. I figured I wanted to interview well-known, interesting, and inspiring people. I also wanted to do some reporting: “We’ll travel to different regions all over France to try to meet with local communities, find out how they settled there, and so on.” We could also do a fashion section because people really like that. Hey, let’s call it that—it’s funny. Oh, and we’ll do a word game with a “Chinese portrait” twist—it’ll be pretty simple. I come up with stuff like that after a while—that could make, say, eight pages.” But at first, it’s really just a slapdash affair. “Interview, six pages. Because eight is a bit long. “This feature, eight pages, because there are some great photos. There could be a nice double-page spread in the middle—I like stuff like that, and so on,” so it’s kind of like that: I jot down my first ideas in a notebook very loosely, really just off the top of my head. And then I’d think to myself, “Okay, so that comes out to 50, 62, 26. Well, maybe 100 pages—something like that wouldn’t be bad. Okay, I’ll see,” and then I’d start talking about it with people around me and other media founders. I talked to the founder of “13 du mois”—which became “Soixante-Quinze”—who shut it down right when I was getting started; he gave me some advice. I also talked to the founder of Socialter.

« Don't go into paper »

Margaux Vulliet: So, what are the most valuable pieces of advice you still remember today?

Julie Hamaïde: David Even from Soixante-Quinze. He told me, “Don’t get into the newspaper business.” 

Margaux Vulliet: You really listened to him.

Julie Hamaïde: Yes! I don’t know which pieces of advice were the most valuable—they were all super interesting. Myriam, from Cheek—who hadn’t launched a print publication but had still launched a fairly major media outlet—told me: “You don’t realize just how hard it’s going to be, and that’s great because when you actually get there, every time a problem comes up, you tell yourself, ‘Well, I just have this one problem to solve.’ Except that, in reality, after that there’s another one, and another, and another, and another”—there are 1,200 of them. So it was also good to take things one at a time.

Next, there’s advice or contacts. “Here, call this printer for me, go see that company that handles distribution to newsstands”—that’s what’s really valuable. It’s also about the contacts. “Here, I have an accountant who knows how to handle the press”—that’s super important. That’s actually the most valuable thing: the contacts of reliable people who have helped us.

Margaux Vulliet: And was that a network you already had on your own, or did people introduce you to people along the way?

Julie Hamaïde: Oh, I went to see the others.

Margaux Vulliet: You wrote to them saying, “I’m launching my magazine, and I need your advice.”

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, yes, I also went to see Marie Kirschen from Well Well Well. And I asked her what her legal status was: a nonprofit, an SASU, an SAS, an SARL—how does it work? I asked Olivier from Socialter the same thing. And every time, actually, everyone tells me, “I started out as a volunteer. Then I set up this kind of organization, and then a friend came to help me. In the end, we got into a fight, so never go into business with anyone,”—all sorts of things like that. Then I also applied to a StreetPress incubator. That also gave me a chance to see other media outlets, meet other people in the media, and get a little insight into how to write a business plan. When you’re a journalist—whether you’ve done a traditional high school track, gone to law school, or attended journalism school—you don’t know what a business plan is, so that’s another thing you discover.

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, you discovered all of that little by little, as time went on.

Julie Hamaïde: Absolutely, one problem after another. Sometimes there are a lot of them all at once, so you need to stay calm to get back to the “one at a time” mindset. I think that’s the same for all entrepreneurs—even someone opening a café faces the same challenge.

"Darn! The barcode!"

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, you were talking about the first issue earlier. As for the behind-the-scenes details, there was the barcode, the paper types—details you don’t necessarily pay attention to, but which are actually super important. For the first issue, how did you handle all those aspects?

Julie Hamaïde: It took much longer than the others. It took almost a year instead of less than three months. And now that you’re talking to me about it, I feel a lot of tenderness; I look back on those memories with a lot of emotion and warmth. At the time, it was awful—I couldn’t stop crying. Honestly, with the first issue, I cried the whole time, and I also argued a lot with my best friend about the layout. I come from a journalism background; I’ve never sold a product in my life. For example, I’d completely forgotten about the barcode—the day before we were supposed to send the cover to the printer. I sent it to my distribution manager, who’s in charge of telling me how many magazines I’m distributing and to how many newsstands. I sent her the cover so she could give me her opinion. She said, “Great, did you think about the barcodes?” Darn! Barcodes—it’s true that if you sell a product in France, you need a barcode so people can scan it, so we can track inventory, and so on. And I’d completely forgotten. In the end, I had to ask MLP (Messageries Lyonnaises de Presse), and it didn’t take very long. There are lots of things I’ve learned. For example, hiring someone as a full-time employee: you have to get an occupational health exam—I didn’t know that. Anyway, lots of things like that.

As for the choice of paper, that was more enjoyable for me, because I’ve always loved print media—I used to love lots of magazines—and I started meeting with printers and picking out magazines that I really liked. I’d tell him, “Here, the cover of Vanity Fair—I like the thickness. On the other hand, it’s a little too glossy; I don’t really like that. On the other hand, *Welcome to the Jungle* is a bit matte—it’s pretty—but it has a slight texture, a bit grainy, that I don’t like. Oh, right, so that effect costs more.” 

That’s some advice I was given. You pick something you like, and then you ask for samples of what the printer usually does. So basically, you do it this way—you experiment a bit more—and after a while, you’ll find the one you like.

Margaux Vulliet: It was a long, tedious process. You’ve cleared the first hurdle, at least—that was probably the hardest part. As the episodes went on, I imagine it got a little easier. How did you build a support system around yourself as the episodes went on? How did you gain confidence? How did that all go?

Julie Hamaïde: It all happened pretty naturally—I mean, for the first issue, we were all volunteers. Honestly, I didn’t even know if it was going to work out, or if it would even get published. I’d written almost half the magazine all by myself. That was the gamble. And then you have people who recommend other people to you. Like Myriam Levain, who told me, “Well, I had this intern; I think she’s great—she’s reliable. You should ask her if she’s interested,” so I asked her, she wrote an article for me, and it went well. Then I managed to pay her a little bit for the next issue. Then for the issue after that, I paid her differently again. And finally, I ended up hiring her full-time. That’s how it works. You end up meeting people. There are advertisers who tell us, “You should ask so-and-so advertiser—maybe you’d be interested.” You have subscribers who tell their friends, “You should subscribe.” It all happens little by little.

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, and actually, in the beginning, the goal was also to get our name out there. Who did you turn to help build this community? You put up the posters yourself in the 13th arrondissement. How did it go at first in terms of getting the word out? You have to build a business model; you have to be profitable. How did you go about it?

"The first thing was the crowdfunding campaign. Quite simply, I didn't have enough money."

Julie Hamaïde: The first step was launching a crowdfunding campaign. Quite simply, I didn’t have enough money to print enough magazines and get this project off the ground. And it was also a way to test the idea. Are there people willing to pay—to chip in a little money—to help this project take off? So, in May—I think it was 2017—I launched a crowdfunding campaign with an organization that focuses on issues related to Asian communities in France. The idea was to try to bring people together around this initiative, and it was really cool because it worked out well. Now, looking back, I realize—I already realized it at the time, but even more so now—that we actually raised 18,000 euros; that’s huge!

Margaux Vulliet: Was that the original goal?

Julie Hamaïde: It was €16,000, so we went a little over budget. I’ve already asked all my friends and family for help. Crowdfunding is tough, isn’t it? We can talk about it in more detail.

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, you mainly turned to your inner circle at the beginning, so they were your main ambassadors and advocates.

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, with crowdfunding, at first you talk to your friends and family about it. You tell them, “Go ahead and put in 20 euros, please—just to get the campaign going. Don’t get me anything for my birthday; just put it in the fund. “Grandma, please put in 20 €, even if you don’t know how to use the Internet—just ask my sister to do it for you.” So you really wear out your loved ones. Next, it’s friends of friends, so then you reach out to your loved ones again and say, “Can you post this on your Facebook? Go ahead, tell your friends about it—do you have a friend who’s Thai? Talk to her.” Any means necessary. Then comes the third circle: trying to spread the word around you—for example, through the media. Cheek talked about it, Clique TV covered it, and I wonder if the Bondy Blog mentioned it too.

Margaux Vulliet: I’ve also heard that Benjamin Griveaux mentioned it. Can you tell us about that incredible story?

Julie Hamaïde: There were supposed to be legislative elections coming up, and Benjamin Griveaux went to meet with Chinese business owners in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement, and I raised my hand and said: “I’m putting together a magazine about Asian communities—it would be great to have some support.” Then he promised his audience he’d support it, so he actually posted about it on his social media. And after that, most importantly, I set up Koï’s social media accounts and reached out to all the public figures of Asian descent whom I knew by name but hadn’t met in person. I told them, “Well, here I am—my name is Julie, and I’m putting together a magazine about Asian communities and cultures. Would you be willing to share my crowdfunding campaign, please? ” And actually, people did! So the actor Steve Tran suggested we meet up; he posted Stories about it and kept talking about it nonstop. Pierre Sang, the chef who rose to fame on TV, talked about it too. There were plenty of others like that who took the initiative and spread the word to their friends and family. And that was super cool, especially since nobody knew who I was at the time. I mean, I’m not famous—I really was a nobody, a complete nobody.

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, it was important to have influential contacts—people we follow who have a slightly larger network and a community.

Julie Hamaïde: And they believed me! I mean, I could have been anyone and just run off with the money. They really sensed something was off, and their support was incredibly helpful.

Margaux Vulliet: And that whole process—reaching out to people, selling what we produce—how did you approach it?

Julie Hamaïde: It was awful! It depends on your personality. As for me, I love the media and I love Koï, so I’ll talk to you about it with passion—I’m totally engaged when I talk about it. But otherwise, being in that situation where you have to ask someone for something—that’s something that’s really hard for me; it’s just not in my nature. Even in everyday life! For example, if I’m out on the street and need to blow my nose, I don’t dare ask anyone—oh well, I’ll manage on my own; I’ll just scratch my nose or use my T-shirt. I don’t dare ask people. That’s just who I am. So when you’re running a media outlet or a business and you have to take that step, it’s incredibly complicated. But I’m lucky because some people responded right away. Posting a message on Instagram saying, “Hey, I started a magazine—do you want to talk about it?” wasn’t too risky in the sense that I had nothing to lose, and since it was in writing, maybe that made me less nervous. And then people responded right away. And after that, when the magazine launched, we got a ton of press coverage. France 24, France Inter, *Elle*, *Grazia*—it was crazy, it was so awesome.

“I always felt like I was the little bird, asking others for just a little bit of their kindness.”

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, once you get past that hurdle, it starts to catch on.

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, there was a lot of interest, a lot of kindness, and curiosity from the media, and that’s cool because it helps Koï become part of the scene—we didn’t have to worry about our legitimacy. “Okay, there’s a new media outlet being created—it’s high-quality, it’s beautiful, it’s important. It’s here, it exists, and we’re telling you about it,” so at least I wasn’t afraid to go out and meet people anymore. It was the same on France 2’s *Télématin*—they talked about it a lot.

Margaux Vulliet: So you reached out to these influencers. Did you also approach companies to get them to invest in your media outlet? You must have gone through this process too: “Let me tell you what I do—would you be willing to invest in my product and my media outlet?” 

Julie Hamaïde: Yeah, well, they weren't investors, but advertisers—so that means you're selling them a service: an ad page, an advertorial, or something like that. So yeah, it was really hard for me to do that, especially since I don’t have a sales mindset—in fact, I was even a little against it; it annoys me to do it. So I’d do it with about the same enthusiasm as when I talk about Koï to a friend. But I went through a crisis of legitimacy because I didn’t feel professional enough—or business-minded enough. I’d go up to people and say, “Hey there, so here’s the thing: my name is Julie, and I’ve done this, that, and the other.” I always felt like I was the little bird asking others for a little of their kindness, their help—when in fact I was offering them a service. Since then, I’ve gotten a little more assertive in that regard. I talked about it with Siham from Génération XX. You flex your muscles a bit, and in the end you say, “No, no, wait—I’m selling you a service, which means it benefits you too, not just me.” So I’ve matured a bit in that regard since then, thankfully, but at first it was very, very hard.

Margaux Vulliet: And the business side of things—you were talking about that—do you understand it better now, or is it still difficult?

Julie Hamaïde: Things are looking up on the business side. You also have to treat it a bit like a game—don’t take it too personally. I mean, you send an email with a proposal, the person doesn’t reply; you send another one three days later, and they still don’t reply; you send another one seven days later, and then they finally start replying: “Oh, I didn’t see your previous emails,” and that’s okay. Whereas before, I didn’t dare follow up. But actually, following up is a good thing—and that’s really what sales is all about. I think that’s it—it’s really about following up, maintaining the relationship. You said no to me today; that’s okay. I’ll check in with you in a month. I try to be a little systematic—meaning my process is: I send everything out on Tuesday, I follow up on Friday, and I do my second follow-up the following Monday. But this is very new. It’s happening little by little, but before—I had a sales rep last year—so it wasn’t really my job to do that. Now I’ve taken over that part.

"When you look at the numbers, you can't keep going. So there's this somewhat rational aspect that helps me make the decision."

Margaux Vulliet: That’s right—print publication stopped at the end of 2021 due to rising paper prices. You didn’t want to raise the price of the magazine, so you chose to stop the print edition. Why did you make that decision?

Julie Hamaïde: In 2021, paper prices really started to go up—that is, at the beginning of the year, we took a 5% hit and told ourselves, “It’s no big deal; we’ll absorb this increase; it’ll mean a little less profit, but it’s still okay for us.” Then, in the summer—early summer—there was another increase, this time, I think, 10%. So things were starting to get a little tight. On top of that, COVID hit, so cultural advertisers were becoming increasingly scarce. It was the summer of 2021, and we didn’t know we were about to start turning things around. We had a lot of advertisers from the film and exhibition industries, so they’d stopped buying ad space for months. So, in a way, revenue was falling, and at the same time, expenses—due to rising paper prices—were starting to increase dangerously. And in August, my printer told me, “Prices are going to go up again in October, and definitely in November. I can’t even tell you by how much, but I know they’re going to go up.” I can’t give you a price, or at least if I do, it’ll only be valid for the next two weeks, and even if we get the paper, I’m not sure we’ll get the right amounts on time.” Great! Well, I might be a bit of an anxious person, but I think even someone who isn’t usually anxious would be a little anxious hearing this news. So I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh, no, this is going nowhere—we don’t even know how much this is going to keep costing us. We don’t even know if we’ll have any income because if there’s another crisis, another lockdown, and bars close, we’re really in deep trouble.”

I sought advice from entrepreneurs I knew. Then, when you launch a media outlet, you meet more and more people, so you get more and more help. I was told, “You need to hit the brakes right away. Stop all spending immediately, and make sure you can pay everyone you’ve committed to paying: your journalists, your printer, and your vendors. And that’s where you stop; if you’re not sure you can keep going, you stop.” That’s what I did, and the decision was made in a matter of days.

And I know people were surprised—myself included. In early September, when the latest issue—Issue 24—came out, we told people we were shutting it down. Within two weeks, we had to make the decision to shut everything down overnight. When we released Issue 24—and even as we were preparing it—I already had Issue 25 in mind. It was practically already in the works; I knew the theme. I had the deadline for sending it to the printer and everything, so yes, it was pretty sudden. 

"It was obvious, right there in black and white. You look at the numbers, and you just can't keep going."

Margaux Vulliet: How did you experience those fifteen days? How did you make that decision? Was it ultimately more of a matter of necessity?

Julie Hamaïde: Yes, there was that pressure, but it was crystal clear. It was obvious, right there in black and white. You look at the numbers, and you just can’t go on. So there’s that somewhat rational aspect that helps me make the decision. I’d actually just listened to an episode of Génération XX about pushing too hard—when you feel like things can’t go on but you keep pushing anyway—and in this case, no, it just wasn’t possible. You see the numbers—it’s just not possible. Otherwise, it would have put me in stressful situations and made me seriously wonder if I’d be able to pay the people who worked for me. I’m a very rational person; I don’t really like taking risks, so it was impossible for me to launch another issue if I didn’t have enough in the bank to pay people up front. So it was pretty clear, even though what came next was totally up in the air because it was like, “Okay, we’re stopping; we’ll see what we can come up with.” And at that point, we were having team meetings and asking ourselves, “Well, if the print magazine stops, what do we do? Do we publish two issues a year? Do we launch a website? Do we start a newsletter or a podcast?” We really put every possibility on the table. When your goal is to inform and bring people together around Asian cultures and communities, it doesn’t have to be limited to traditional media—it could be a TV series. It could even be a board game, for that matter. So there are plenty of ideas that could still bring your vision to life. And that’s pretty much what we were thinking about together for a few months toward the end of 2021.

Margaux Vulliet: The result is that there’s actually a pretty strong community on social media. Koï has over 7,000 followers on Instagram. You’re really focusing on that account, which is doing well. And then there’s the club you’re working on right now. What will it involve? Can you elaborate a bit on that?

Julie Hamaïde: That’s something we’re still thinking about—even I am. Before, our revenue came from advertisers, single-issue sales at newsstands, and subscribers. There was still a portion of our readers who paid for a subscription to access that information. Today, we have our website where all articles are free—that is, we have advertisers who pay to be featured, but readers get everything for free; there’s no subscription option on the site. 

"We put a lot of hard work and a lot of time into what we do. We go to places no one has ever been before, and I'd also like to feel some support."

Margaux Vulliet: So we need to completely overhaul the business model.

Julie Hamaïde: So right now, the business model is completely up in the air, and we need to find another way—and I also want to build a community. I don’t want everything to be completely free all the time, because we work hard—we put a lot of effort and time into what we do. We’re breaking new ground, and I also want to feel supported. And through the subscription model, we can build that commitment and plan for the long term—when you have subscribers, you know you can keep going for a year or more. Right now, the idea behind the club is to return to a subscription model, where our subscribers will definitely have access to events we’ll host just for them. Conferences, workshops, and roundtables on very specific topics that we already covered in the magazine. But right now, we’re really in the process of building that out. We know there are a lot of advertisers who are willing to support us on these topics as well, but once again, we need to figure out the business model: how much should we charge people? How much are they willing to pay? Is it a three-month subscription or a one-year subscription? If there are different subscription options, that also means more work for us to track who’s subscribed and when. Do we post events on platforms? Do people subscribe directly on our site? Ultimately, all of this involves developing new services and new products. And it’s something we need to shape. We need to set a price, a duration, and the content. So that’s really what I’m focusing on right now.

Margaux Vulliet: And as for the sales side of things—we’ll come back to that—but now you understand it much better, and it feels more natural.

Julie Hamaïde: It’s smoother now, and since it’s been five years, the publication is well-established. The brand is well-established; people know what we do, and we have credibility. Our work is high-quality. When museums put on a new exhibition, they know full well that if we feature it in the magazine, our readers and subscribers will want to go—that we do respectable work. If there’s a brand that wants to reach Asian communities or people who love Asian cuisine, for example, they know that by coming to us, they can be sure of a flawless result. So, in the end, that’s better. It’s still difficult because, on top of that, sales involve negotiation—it can sometimes feel like a minor confrontation, like having to drive prices down or sell yourself short. And when that’s not your personality, it’s true that you have to dig deep to find unexpected resources within yourself.

"I'm talking about people—I love that. Giving them all the attention they deserve." 

Margaux Vulliet: Exactly—there are a lot of constraints, and it’s really exhausting. What keeps you going?

Julie Hamaïde: The feedback from readers, the pride I feel in writing articles that interest me, and in reading interesting stuff. This week, for example, we published a piece about a Chinese artist who moved to France. I find that really fascinating because he’s someone I know and have been a fan of for a very long time—it’s really fascinating to give him a platform and let people learn about his journey, what he does, and show just how compelling his art is and his creative process. Recently, we also wrote another article about Franco-Chinese families who haven’t seen each other for over two years because of COVID, since China is still one of the countries with the strictest restrictions on traveling to France or China. It’s practically impossible—or at least very complicated and very expensive. And I find it interesting to cover these topics and wonder what life is like for them. Actually, I’m talking about people—I love that. Not making them interesting, but giving them all the attention they deserve—that’s what I find interesting. I enjoy it, it makes me proud, and then getting messages—that’s so cool. I’m sure that after this episode, someone will send me a message saying, “I listened to you, I learned something new, and I think it’s great. I’m going to start watching.” That’s it—I’ve succeeded. I mean, I’m so happy about this. We’ve already received messages saying, “It sparked conversations with my family,” and of course, that really touches me deeply. 

Margaux Vulliet: You can sense her journalistic streak, which is always very evident. 

Julie Hamaïde: Yeah, and the human element is part of my personal journey—my grandparents were immigrants to France. Even for me, when I did research on the Vietnamese diaspora in France, it gave me a chance to talk with my aunt, who explained their story to me. And that’s super important because without my article and my research, I might not have talked to her about it. And then, when you publish something, someone reads it and goes to their parents saying, “Oh, but you knew about this place—why didn’t you go there?” “Oh, that’s right, I passed through that refugee center. Wow, that’s crazy—when was that?” And that sparks conversations within families. Basically, you discover your history, and that’s great—it makes me proud. And then there’s France’s history with Asian countries—it’s incredibly rich. You see, I’m not just talking about the colonization of the Vietnamese or the Cambodians living in France, but there’s also, for example, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, which got its first spark in Montargis—that’s really interesting—or the little villages in Alsace where there are lots of Koreans. How did that happen? It was through student exchanges; I think that’s really cool. It’s actually part of France’s history, and it’s a story we don’t hear much about.

Margaux Vulliet: Yes, there are the stories that Koï tells. And there’s the website, which is also set to expand even further. What are the plans for that?

Julie Hamaïde: The goal for the website is really to offer free articles and continue what we were doing in the magazine, posting more and more of that content on the website—at a rate of one or two articles per week. We’re definitely going to revamp the site to make it easier to read, because before, we weren’t really a news website—it was more about selling the magazine—and now we’re in the process of modernizing all of that. And that’s new to me, too, because I’m basically a print media consumer, so I have to learn new things. SEO—search engine optimization—is something you have to learn, and sometimes it’s a pain, sometimes it’s fascinating. It depends on the day! 

Margaux Vulliet Great. Thanks, Julie.

Julie Hamaïde: Thank you.

Margaux Vulliet: Thank you for agreeing to this conversation. Thank you for listening to us and for tuning in to this podcast episode. You can find all the episodes on streaming platforms. Above all, take care of yourselves and take care of your media.

Julie Hamaïde: And create media!