Cylex

When Imre Papuscan describes the early days at Cylex, he explains how difficult it was for the founders to get information about businesses while the internet was still in its infancy. It was 1997 and the idea of something as common now as online shopping felt like science fiction.

"Not too many people had a computer at home, you see," reflects Imre, who joined Cylex in 2006 as a young developer.

Founded in Oberhausen, Germany, Cylex’s founders had a bold mission for the company: to become Europe's premier online marketplace. But, as the founders soon discovered, “we were too ahead of our time."

That very marketplace was meant to be a place where businesses could list their products, services, even handle online payments. But again, people simply weren’t ready.

In fact, for most consumers back then, handing over their credit card information to some blackbox website felt way too risky.

Once the founding team realized this, they decided to change direction: build an online business directory instead, essentially a more modern version of the yellow pages for that time.

And this revised concept hit it off with users.

But building a business database at the time was all grunt work. “The team had to buy local papers every day and clip them by hand,” Imre explains. The team also scoured CD-ROMs, phone books, and even worked with telecom companies to get data.

“Nothing was online yet, so we typed everything in ourselves and built our directory from scratch,” he says. That painstaking groundwork would become the backbone of Cylex’s first directory.

But their hard work paid off and soon enough, Cylex became an important online resource, connecting customers with local businesses — all without any fees or paywalls.

"The internet democratized information, so we believed business information should be free,” Imre emphasizes.

Plus, the new directory didn’t just list businesses; it also let customers post reviews about them. That way, small businesses could start to build a reputation for themselves online.

Giving everyday shoppers a voice ended up giving Cylex a big differentiator as well. Because of it, consumers could weigh the reputation of a business before making an appointment or purchasing something.

Today, Cylex runs country-specific sites in 32 markets, from the UK and Germany to the US and Hungary.

Imre also says that the 2006 hiring boom shifted most of the developer work to Oradea, Romania, though the servers and a small team still remain in Germany.

“Ad revenue paid for that whole expansion,” Imre says. “It lets us hire more coders, UX designers, and a support crew. That money keeps the lights on and pays for new features.”

And more listings mean more local shops show up in search, and more visitors still get the info for free — a virtuous cycle.

As Imre looks ahead to Cylex’s roadmap, the mission is clear: understand the evolving needs of SMBs and deliver the features that matter most. That means continuously improving data quality, refining the user experience, integrating AI to make the platform smarter and more intuitive, and creating smarter ad spots and efficient advertising solutions to keep the work funded.

“We keep improving,” he says. “Better data, smoother navigation, intelligent tools, and effective advertising not only help businesses thrive — they ensure Cylex remains a trusted, accessible resource for everyone.”