Valéry Bourgevin
Founder @ Sumpeek
Timeline
Background Before Sumpeek: Before building Sumpeek, I spent around 11 years at CXG, a customer experience consulting company working with international luxury brands. I held roles in data quality, editorial quality, and team management, including managing a remote team of up to 36 people and overseeing the quality of thousands of customer surveys each month.
I worked in Taiwan before continuing my career in France. That experience taught me how to manage international teams, maintain quality at scale, and turn complex processes into clear operating systems. In 2025, I left the company and began working full-time on Sumpeek.
The Origin Story: The idea came from a recurring frustration with online news. I would open several articles only to discover that they repeated information I already knew, did not answer the question raised by the headline, or were simply not worth the click. I wanted to preview the substance of an article directly from the page I was browsing, then decide whether to open it. That became Sumpeek.
Founder Journey: I started building Sumpeek after years of reading news online and repeatedly opening articles that turned out to be irrelevant, repetitive, or poorly matched to their headlines. I wanted a simple way to know what an article was about before clicking.
As a non-technical solo founder, I worked with developers to turn that idea into a Chrome extension. The product is now live and works on Google News, Yahoo News, and many major French and English-language news websites. I am currently focused on learning from users, improving recurring usage, and finding the right path between individual and professional use cases.
"Founder at Sumpeek"
Sumpeek is a Chrome extension that helps people filter news before clicking. By hovering over a headline, users can preview the article in seconds and decide whether it is worth opening. Sumpeek currently works on Google News, Yahoo News, and major French and English-language news websites.
Timeline
Background Before Sumpeek: Before building Sumpeek, I spent around 11 years at CXG, a customer experience consulting company working with international luxury brands. I held roles in data quality, editorial quality, and team management, including managing a remote team of up to 36 people and overseeing the quality of thousands of customer surveys each month.
I worked in Taiwan before continuing my career in France. That experience taught me how to manage international teams, maintain quality at scale, and turn complex processes into clear operating systems. In 2025, I left the company and began working full-time on Sumpeek.
The Origin Story: The idea came from a recurring frustration with online news. I would open several articles only to discover that they repeated information I already knew, did not answer the question raised by the headline, or were simply not worth the click. I wanted to preview the substance of an article directly from the page I was browsing, then decide whether to open it. That became Sumpeek.
Founder Journey: I started building Sumpeek after years of reading news online and repeatedly opening articles that turned out to be irrelevant, repetitive, or poorly matched to their headlines. I wanted a simple way to know what an article was about before clicking.
As a non-technical solo founder, I worked with developers to turn that idea into a Chrome extension. The product is now live and works on Google News, Yahoo News, and many major French and English-language news websites. I am currently focused on learning from users, improving recurring usage, and finding the right path between individual and professional use cases.
Top Advice
Start with a problem you genuinely experience and speak to potential users as early as possible. A product can make perfect sense to its founder and still be unclear to everyone else. Build a small working version, observe how people actually use it, and be prepared to change your assumptions.
Wish I Knew Earlier
The biggest challenge has been building and growing a technical product as a solo, non-technical founder. Product development, user feedback, marketing, costs, and strategic decisions all compete for the same limited time and budget. Reaching people who regularly consume enough news to immediately understand the value of Sumpeek has also been harder than simply generating installs.