Five years ago I was working as a freelance Java Developer in what was the most fun assignment I had had in years. I was approaching the magic age of 40 and thoughts started to pop up in my head about what would be next. I had enjoyed my freedom while being self-employed, but being in the great team that I was, I started to realise I would have to leave them behind eventually. That sparked the idea to look ahead and rethink what the future would look like for me. Looking back, I would have never thought I would be here already, celebrating this major milestone. Before we get to that, let’s move forward from five years ago and build up to it.

The seed that sprouted

I remember talking to several people about options for the future, some concrete, some a bit more far-fetched. Bitcoin was booming, so maybe jump on that bandwagon? Mobile app-development seemed like a great field to do some work in. All of these options had one shared drawback: I would be building something on my own, with no team. Then came along the option of starting a new consultancy agency. While the idea of employing people was scary at first, I saw how it would create possibilities in the future to do a lot of different things, but always with a team. On March 1st 2020, Yoink sprouted into existence and welcomed its first employee. After a challenging summer, the second employee started and from there the team kept growing and growing.

A new and exciting phase

As a startup, the founder’s tasks are all over the place: recruitment, sales, HR, coaching, taxes, finances, organising fun events and every other thing that needs to be done to make sure the company is providing for its employees and customers. With just one employee, this is not much of a problem, but as the numbers grow, so do the number of these tasks. This summer Yoink has passed the milestone of 10 employees and I am proud of every single Yoinkee working with us. We now have Java and Kotlin developers with a variety of different levels of experience in different fields and technologies. Each working on their own exciting assignments and ready to coach colleagues and help each other grow. The thing that makes me the proudest? Every person working at Yoink is eager to improve themselves, improve the company and through all of that also improve the world in which we live as a whole.

What’s next?

With the arrival of our dedicated Office Manager, we are ready to leave the label of Startup behind and be the very best company we can be. This transition will again bring a time of change for me personally as I work on maintaining the flexible and friendly culture of Yoink while continuing to expand the services Yoink offers and the professionals we have available. Some of the things to look out for are our focus on sustainability and the impact this will have on IT, making energy profiles of applications and libraries relevant to decision makers and continuing to provide a training ground for the next generations of Software Developers, both within and beyond Yoink. I am looking forward to what the future holds, I am available to help your company look into sustainable IT options and I welcome anyone interested in working at Yoink. Last but not least, I thank you for reading this story and join me in applauding the efforts of everyone at Yoink!

–JH