Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels

Yambla provides a solution for companies to maximize Generation Y talent. Generation Y employees want to be involved with the company they work for, push it forward and do meaningful work. To support this new mindset, Yambla connects the leaders of thecompany with the creativity of their employees. The core of Yambla is crowdsourcing of ideas in a simple and social way. Yamblacollects short, tweet-like ideas and then supports in growing theseideas into mature projects by involving the right people. Byconnecting people from all levels of the company, Yambla breaksdown the company walls and supports in growing a creative culture.

Started a few months ago by Yoeri Roels and Jordan Vermeir, Yambla is their answer to a pain they felt themselves while working as consultants in the IT industry.

“As consultants in the IT industry, we’ve had the chance to look inside a lot of companies. What’s striking is how most of them all share the same behavior. At the coffee vending machine, people are sharing ideas, while the management is working their asses of to find such ideas. It’s not that management is doing a bad job, it’s just that there are so much more employees than there are managers. Key is to capture ideas on all levels and get them to the right people.”

In today’s competitive world, collaboration is the new normal. It is however a big challenge to make collaboration work.

“You can organize meetings and business games, but creativity really doesn’t work that way. It can not be forced. The best ideas aren’t born in meeting rooms, they are born at the coffee vending machine, in the shower, and other places where our mind is open for inspiration. So we built Yambla, allowing employees to share their ideas when inspiration strikes, and to maximize their value in the company.”

At the moment, Yambla is operating at Bull BeLux with amazing results, and as more and more companies sign up every day, Yambla is set for success. However, the journey from idea to promising startup has been fierce.

“It all starts with an idea, right. But that’s just the start of a hard - but amazing - journey. What it all comes down to is execution: turning the idea into a business model, working hard, and getting out of the building. I still remember the first weeks of work. We locked ourselves up in a room, and started coding on our dream. It took us a while to realize that we needed to get out of the building to make things happen.”

Yambla won the MIC Brussels Boostcamp Grand Prize, a reward for months of hard work to get the business to the next level. The prize was awarded by the Minister of Economy of Brussels Capital Region Celine Fremault.

“The MIC Brussels Boostcamp was a real eye-opener. We were coached and challenged in a way that really pushed us into redefining the business model until it made sense. It helped us a lot in making the dream a reality. I could list the things we’ve learned, but they won’t make sense if you aren’t faced with them at the right time. The MIC Brussels Boostcamp did a great job facing us with the right challenges at the right time.”

This is just the beginning of what could become a real success story. Yambla is nominated as Belgian Startup Of The Year by the leading IT magazine Datanews, and was selected by iMinds to take part in the Go West program to explore the U.S. market.

To be continued..

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Yoeri Roels, +32 472 84 31 79