Dutch SaaS Founder Explains Why He Worked 2 Months for Free to Become Co-Founder

Yannick Veys [00:00:00] The first place Google will look is, is there any search volume on this brand name? So if nobody searches for your brand name, then you're probably not very relevant. Then second thing is that's, that's been true for years is, you know, how many people link to this website? Is this a a normal way? How do people talk about this brand? Do they own a podcast? Do they, do they have a, a YouTube presence? I am Caleb Zi, a precision ag specialist living in Aurora, South Dakota, and you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:31] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, today we are going from where we were last week with a commercial sex worker onto this week, Amsterdam, where we are gonna talk with a guy that is running a company that helps you interact with Twitter in more and interesting ways. I actually use the company that he works for, hype Fury, and his name is Yanique Vase. I really had no idea what we were gonna talk about. I didn't know him. It was actually just a suggestion from Ben Anderson, the guy that's the executive producer on this show, and I really didn't know where it would go, but I'm coming to the conclusion that as long as somebody is interested and open in talking with you, you can have a conversation with them that will always create value. And I've been doing a lot of these private interviews as, as a way to spend my time and make money while I'm not doing speeches and traveling for that, although that's actually coming back now. But I've been doing these private interviews and talking with people that are 80 years old and grew up in schools with one room and didn't have electricity and running water, and I'm hearing their stories and I'm recording them for their families to pass on. And the experience that I had during the holiday season of sending these on to the people that recorded them, or to the people that bought them as a gift for their grandparents or their children or their wife. And it is one of the most fulfilling things I've done before. It's an experience where people get to record the wisdom that they earned, and they do it by me asking them questions that help them think about things, strike up ideas, recall, and feel comfortable telling stories that they maybe haven't thought about because nobody's asked.

Vance Crowe [00:02:18] So, if you're interested in doing one of these private interviews, I highly recommend you go to store Articulate Ventures, and click on the private interviews link and see if this is right for you, recording a message to your family or to your future generation. Or maybe it's a gift that you want to give to a child or a parent so that that way you can remember who they were at this particular time in history. So we are gonna head back to the interview with Yanique VAEs. I hope you really enjoy this. It's all about how the internet and Twitter works and SEO and how do you find ideas out in the world. Enjoy it, and I'm glad you're here. Yanique Vase, welcome to the podcast.

Yannick Veys [00:03:00] Thank you, Vance. Thanks for having me.

Vance Crowe [00:03:02] So, I actually know almost nothing about you. The way that I decided to do an interview with you is that I've seen you out in the world. I'm not sure if it's associated with Jack Butcher content, visualize value, or just, just that you're in that melu. And the other day I was having a meeting with Ben Anderson, who's become my business partner in the last year, and he said, you know who I think you ought to interview Yanique. And I was like, okay. And we didn't like sit down and write out notes or what was I gonna ask you about? So I'm flying a little bit blind here, but you use a product or you sell a product that I actually buy, and it's not cheap. Like, it's actually like a significant investment called Hype Fury. And the, I started to use it because I wanted to say, how can I make the things that people have interacted with a lot, something that's more available to people that missed it, but would wanna see it without being intrusive, without just, you know, randomly doing it. It like chaotically and your product lets me do that. So why in the world do you have this company Hype Fury, and how did you construct this? And let's just have a good conversation. That's

Yannick Veys [00:04:13] A good question. I, I'm happy by the way that you didn't prep a lot because I listened to one of your shows and those were some deep questions. So

Vance Crowe [00:04:21] Which one did you listen to?

Yannick Veys [00:04:23] Ella?

Vance Crowe [00:04:24] Oh yeah.

Yannick Veys [00:04:26] Suitable for Work one. 'cause she's a really interesting woman, and I, I actually also want to do an interview on her, so that's why I listen to her. Yeah. But

Vance Crowe [00:04:37] To come back.

Yannick Veys [00:04:37] And so when,

Vance Crowe [00:04:38] When you do your podcast, so you have a podcast, do you interview people like commercial sex workers, or are you just strictly in the Twitter space?

Yannick Veys [00:04:45] No, just strictly, strictly Twitter space. Yeah. But she's also on Twitter. She's mostly on OnlyFans of course, but yeah, she, she's interesting. And we're also looking a bit into the OnlyFans world with our product, so that's also why she's interesting for us to, to talk to.

Vance Crowe [00:05:02] So what is your product? Explain Hype Fury?

Yannick Veys [00:05:04] Yeah, so it's, if you, if you, you know, say it in a couple words, it's, it's scheduling and automation for people on Twitter. So we go an inch wide, but a mile deep in the Twitter sphere where Buffer and Hootsuite, they go broad on like all social platforms. We go really deep into Twitter. And so basically you start off with just scheduling, but then you could say, okay, I want to have this tweet retweeted after a couple of hours, or, you know, when this tweet does well, I want to attach a tweet to it, you know, create a thread. So you also already mentioned it, you know, if, if, if you wanna plug something, you know, your show or something you're selling, you wanna do that on a tweet that does really, really well, instead of doing it to every tweet and not getting noticed. And so, you know, we have this auto plug function, we have, you know, evergreen stuff where you can just say, okay, every day at 9:00 AM I want to tweet something from my list of best tweets. So yeah, we, we go really, really deep into the Twitter sphere.

Vance Crowe [00:06:09] Why did you choose Twitter to, to build your empire on?

Yannick Veys [00:06:13] Yeah, that's a good question. I, so I actually didn't start High Fury. I came across the founder, Sammy, on the Any Hackers forum. He was looking for a, a guy who could or go who could do marketing. And, you know, I reached out to him and yeah, we, we chatted a bit on WhatsApp and Telegram, and then, you know, we got on the phone and he spoke to a couple of people and one guy was like, yeah, we're gonna raise money and we're gonna blow it up and it's gonna be great. And the other one is, is was promising Oh, oh yeah, the American Dream. And I was like, I'm from the Netherlands, Europe, I'm a little bit more, you know, let's stay real. We're gonna grow the business, we're gonna have a lot of fun, but you have to stay real. And yeah, that story resonated the most with him. So then I flew to Paris to meet him. It's just an hour by plane, so it's not that far from me. But yeah, so we had a chat, we had dinner, we just had had fun. And then, yeah, we just decided to, you know, I I jokingly always say I did like an internship for him just to prove that I wasn't full of shit and, and I could do growth. And so for two months I worked on High Pure for free just to show, you know, that I could grow the company, which I did.

Vance Crowe [00:07:30] Man, that's balls. That is Balls man. That is saying, I, I trust what you're doing.

Yannick Veys [00:07:37] Yeah, right on. So, yeah, yeah. So there were a couple of things I I was thinking, Hey, should I put, so there's a, there's, I can either I go all in, but, you know, if I lose, I, I didn't say, Hey, I want X amount of money if you say no anyway, I was like, I'm just gonna, I, I know I can do this. I, I I'm gonna prove myself and there's no way in hell he's gonna say no. So that, that was basically my attitude and that's, yeah. How I landed a partnership with him and yeah, we're now, well, I'm the co-founder, the founder, and yeah, we have a, a nice structure going. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:08:12] You know, when I think about the American dream, right, we are kind of told that the dream is that you can decide whatever you wanna be and go out and get it. And that's the joy of America and freedom. So it's really interesting to me that this is the mentality that you have as a person from the Netherlands. So are we mistaken in believing that that is somehow, you know, American-centric value? Or is that also a European, or is it a new generational thing?

Yannick Veys [00:08:40] Yeah, I don't know the, the, the, it's funny that you're asking this because I was thinking about your Peter Thiel question that might come up later, I dunno. But I think a lot of people are coasting through life, you know, and if you ask them, they'll say, no, I'm not coasting through life because this or that. I, they give excuses or, you know, they're just coasting through life for real. Yeah. So I've only worked for a little over two years as an employee and the rest of my life, well, working life, which yeah, it's like, I don't know, 15 years now or something like that, has been like working for myself, you know, as a contractor, as owning my own business. And I've had, you know, real business before besides just contracting, which is, you know, a, a different type I guess. But yeah, so for me it's pretty, pretty normal. But I don't see a lot of people having the same mentality here in the Netherlands, Europe versus, you know, if you go to San Francisco or, or neighborhoods like that. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:09:37] Yeah. It's something about like the hustle culture, right? And like, there's a weird if,

Yannick Veys [00:09:42] If you're not

Vance Crowe [00:09:43] Involved in it, I think Jack Butcher is probably at the peak of one of these mountains, but it's this concept of not necessarily working just as hard as you possibly can, unrelenting, you know, don't take breaks and stay up all night. But more of this, like, what is the joy of becoming a craftsman that you can show up to work, deliver your best, which is hard work, and then set it down, but also have an enriched other life so that that way your work is better.

Yannick Veys [00:10:13] Yeah, yeah. True. Yeah. So this, this mindset, I guess that came from, I, I did like a management traineeship at a big Dutch bank, like one of the biggest, and I hated it. So I had a, I had a fixed term contract for one and a half years, and I quit after nine months. But, and I, I had to pay a big tuition fee to leave, you know, court shit was really a lot of hassle. But I was still like, yeah, do I wanna stay here for nine more months and avoid a fee or, and but would also be stay miserable or just say, fuck it, I'm gonna gotta go and I'm gonna do something else. And I choose the latter. And yeah, ever since that I, I, I've just seen that if you take the plunge, take the risk, then, you know, within I think six months I had repaid the tuition fee. I was, I jumped into a new thing, you know, it was just, yeah, for me it was mind opening. And that's, I think the reason that I'm, so, yeah, I just jump into new things and that's, it's not a threat to me, it's just, it's something, yeah. It's, I see everything as an opportunity.

Vance Crowe [00:11:17] Well, the observation that you made about the other companies, like Hootsuite and these other things that are saying, we're gonna help you with your branding and your marketing, we're gonna help you in all of the areas. I had never even considered the fact that you could become an expert in one domain. That focus is really important. It's like, I think one of my greatest temptations in life is to not be focused. It's like an indulgence that I have that I'm gonna go explore something new. So did you, like, how did you guys come to the conclusion that Twitter was the thing you were gonna focus on?

Yannick Veys [00:11:50] Yeah, so Sammy asked a question on Twitter. He just asked, Hey, is there a scheduler where you can schedule threats? So, and there, there were none. And that's when he thought, Hey man, this is something I need to build. And I actually wasn't very active on Twitter back then. I had like, I don't know, six, 700 followers or something that's, that's a year back. I have now almost 8,000. He was, he was very active on Twitter. He, he knew quite a few, you know, people with a lot of followers on Twitter. And they responded to that and that resonated. And he was like, man, if this little thing, which just building a threat schedule, that's not a big thing you can do that. He literally build that in a couple of days, I think, and launched it. And then, you know, all these people jumped on the band bandwagon and they wanted to be in the beta. They wanted to, you know, give their feedback. And that's how ultimately the, the, the small product grew into a bigger thing. And yeah, we don't want to compete with Buffer and Hootsuite because one, they have a lot more money than we. And two, I think, yeah, you have to carve out your own space in, in a market. And I think that's, that's what we're good at. And yeah, I think there's a lot of people on Twitter that want a product like this. They're focused solely on Twitter or you know, they do Twitter and maybe one or two other things. But Twitter is such a big market for us is that, you know, we can double down on that and, and we can build new stuff for years to come.

Vance Crowe [00:13:20] You know, the thought that I have, like, so I checked out Hootsuite and these other things over the years I've worked in marketing and, you know, I'm always thinking about how to have the most natural experience for the, for the person I'm trying to interact with. But the, when you go to Hootsuite or something like that, it's like looking at a remote that an engineer built, you know, the, the remote that your grandma has where she tapes off all the buttons except for the two that you're wondering, you know, only use this one and only use this one. 'cause all these buttons do something, but it'll only screw it up and you won't get it back. And that was the reverse on, on like the Apple remote, right? Where the simplicity and the focus on just move it around this screen. That's what I think of when I look at your product. Like the design of it is sleek enough that I don't actually have to know very much in order that I can use it. And I think that that is where software becomes craftsman work, right? Where, where, where the person puts it on and it already fits.

Yannick Veys [00:14:19] Yeah, that's true. And we've put a lot of time and money into, into building a great ui, I think we can still do better. And yeah, the hard thing about building a great UI is that, you know, you, you build it in a point in time where you just, you just don't know where it's gonna be in a year, in a year's time. And so, yeah, that's, that's one of the things we're really working on and say, okay, hey, we're still gonna build this and this and this, and how is this gonna fit in, you know, our, our dashboard right now. That's a big thing for us. But yeah, I think probably five years ago design wouldn't have been such a big thing, but I think it's probably the most important thing you do when you build a new product is just make it look good, make it look intuitive, and yeah, have people enjoy using your product. You know, that's why we have a focus mode and the, the dark mode and stuff like that, which people wouldn't, probably wouldn't even care about a couple of years ago

Vance Crowe [00:15:14] When, when I was working in corporate America and you see them trying to be like, Hey, let's put a website together to tell people everything we want them to know. And then everyone that comes to the table says, I get a page or I get my own section. Right? And so you end up having this thing where maybe everybody comes with the best intentions 'cause they wanna think that what they're working on is important, but it has nothing to do with, I am a person that has a question that your answer is better for than all the other answers. And instead they just keep throwing more and more stuff in there. And so you see the internet like not being valued for the sleekness that it has, but the fact that it could just be a giant repository to throw all kinds of stuff that no one will ever read.

Yannick Veys [00:15:59] Yeah, yeah. And I've, I've been a, a contractor for years and I've, I've seen this at big Dutch banks where they're fighting for homepage spots while they're not looking at, okay, what value are we bringing? How much money does this versus that bring in? And I've seen the same happen to like, you know, the Dutch Costco, it's the same thing. Everybody wants to be on the homepage, everybody wants a page, but they're not thinking of what does a user want? What does he, he want to see instead of, you know, we wanna look at the website as something internal. Everybody wants to spot on it. And yeah, it's a, it's a real pain. Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:16:36] So with you working on Twitter, do you have any concerns about, I mean, like Twitter right now is in an era where they knock people out or they may become something different than what they are. And so your business model, all of your real estate being built on a place where they could make a decision about how their API interfaces or anything, and you're knocked out, what's the, what do you think in there?

Yannick Veys [00:16:58] Yeah, I'm not really worried. I think they need us, well, not necessarily us, but people use the A PII think we just, yeah, allow more people to use Twitter. And it's a bit the same with, you know, tools that help with SEO, like HS and Sach and stuff like that. They actually go a hundred percent against Google's terms of service, but they still, you know, scrape Google and do stuff like that. So even for businesses like that, they don't get shut down because they also know the Googles and the Bings of this world. They just know that we need those businesses to help us, you know, stay relevant in the, in the, in the search marketing world.

Vance Crowe [00:17:37] So the internet is a funny thing because the way it's constructed is what information gets brought up when somebody asks a question. And I think that we can lose the idea that just because Google says this is the number one answer doesn't necessarily mean that is actually the best answer on the internet. It just means that it was the easiest one for the system to find. Tell us about SEO in this modern age. 'cause the last time I checked in on SEO it was like five years ago, and I'm sure it has radically shifted since then.

Yannick Veys [00:18:10] Yeah, that's a really good question. So what I've been seeing and what, what the search wheel has been seeing is that, you know, like five or six years ago, you could still rank on, you know, pretty high volume keywords with a small brand, but these days it's not so much about, you know, all the nitty gritty things you can, you can do to rank higher. It's, it's far more about, you know, how big is your brand? And they look at so much more as in authority and trustworthiness instead of, you know, this website is totally optimized for this keyword, it has, you know, the keyword in the domain name and in url, blah, blah, blah. So it's, it's way more about being a brand and then a ranking versus having the best optimized page and ranking.

Vance Crowe [00:19:00] What does it mean to have a brand that like Google can see? 'cause it's, it's different than having a brand where you put it up on a billboard and people drive by it. It's, it's something altogether written for a different being almost.

Yannick Veys [00:19:14] Yeah, I, yeah, I think how to be a brand is just look at, you know, the biggest businesses out there and see where are they. So they're everywhere. So the, the first place Google will look is, is there any search volume on this brand name? So if nobody searches for your brand name, then you're probably not very relevant. Then second thing is that's, that's been true for years is, you know, how many people link to this website? Is this a a normal way? How do people talk about this brand? Do they own a podcast? Do they, do they have a, a YouTube presence? Where are they, what are they doing?

Vance Crowe [00:19:48] Those get factored together.

Yannick Veys [00:19:50] Well, I I'm not, I'm not saying that, well, let's start off. I I don't have any proof of that, but I, I do think that Google is smart enough to factor stuff like that into, you know, how important is a brand and how trustworthiness, how, how trust Trustful is a brand. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:20:10] So if you're focused on Twitter and you've been really kind of thinking about how people use it in order that you can design a system for them to use, what is it that you have learned about Twitter that even heavy users don't, don't realize is the way the thing works?

Yannick Veys [00:20:28] Yeah, that's a good question. Hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. I think, well, you can have heavy users with lots of followers with a million plus followers, but they have shit engagement. And so there's a difference between being a brand on Twitter and understanding what resonates on Twitter. I think that's the most important thing. You know, I have okay-ish engagement versus, you know, I know a lot of brands that really have shit engagement. So they, they are more in the, and that's something you talked about before is, you know, they just wanna broadcast, you know, this department wants to say this on Twitter, that department wants to say that on Twitter, and I think that's Yeah. The wrong way to go about. And I think, yeah, every time you share something on Twitter, you have to realize, am I adding value to the conversation or am I taking something? And that's, yeah, I, I sometimes use the term brand bank, you know, am I putting something in my brand bank as in delivering value to people, or am I detracting something from my brand bank as in taking people's time with just a broadcast message with, you know, buy my product, stuff like that. Which, you know, it just doesn't work on Twitter.

Vance Crowe [00:21:41] Yeah. I am ruthless about unfollowing people as soon as they start talking about things that are, that cloud my thinking, right? Like, I think of opening Twitter as like, I'm taking the most valuable thing in the world that I own my attention and I'm putting it at this box. So show me things that are gonna make it so I make better decisions. I think about things better. And so when somebody's sitting there being like, look at these bagels I ate today. I'm like, get that shit outta here. I don't, I don't wanna see any of that. And that's why I think almost new corporate, I, I follow almost new corporate accounts because they don't actually care about the engagement or the interaction that, that I have on there. So why would I follow name the corporation? It just doesn't, it doesn't fit for the way I use Twitter.

Yannick Veys [00:22:31] Yeah, same here. I don't think I follow many brands. I, I, it's more like a, I follow like the Google webmaster notification, stuff like that because, you know, I, I I want to know it's, yeah, it's part of, you know, what I do. But besides that, I, yeah, I don't even, I, I don't, I don't even follow Nike, but I, I think they're probably one of the better Yeah. Brands on Twitter. But yeah, I'm very selective on on, on who I follow.

Vance Crowe [00:23:00] I also think that there, like, so, so how, how do you get your news? How do you decide who you follow? How do you decide what's worth your attention?

Yannick Veys [00:23:08] Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I, I do two things. So I'm also a little bit selfish, as in I look at, you know, how many followers does another person has, you know, and, but I also look at, you know, you have a lot of people that just reply to your tweet, wow, this is great, fantastic, blah, blah, blah. And then I think, well, that's, thank you for the compliment, but yeah, you can also just like my tweet and yeah, so I'm, I'm looking for people that also add value to the conversation, you know, I, I also don't know everything and if I can learn something from somebody else, you know, that's, that's, yeah. If people put out great threads that I, that I love, I retweet and usually follow those people because I think, yeah, you have something worthwhile to say. Do

Vance Crowe [00:23:53] You ever put content out that you find some people disagree with?

Yannick Veys [00:23:58] Yeah, so, yes. And I have an interesting example that I, I, I tweeted something once, what exactly did I tweet? Something like, huh, don't, don't, but don't quit, like a little girl. And the little girl part that was, you know, I got, I got a lot of dms from that tweet, they were saying, no, it was, it was really about a gender thing, you know? And so I got a lot of replies under that tweet saying, man, what are you doing? You, you're effing up your, your, how do you say that? You know, your, your brand, your personal brand, I guess. Wow.

Vance Crowe [00:24:39] Yeah.

Yannick Veys [00:24:39] People DMing me and yeah. So yeah, you sometimes have to be a little bit careful about what you tweet. I think, you know, you can be a little bit controversial because that also, you know, gets you engagement on Twitter, but on that account, and I've, I've had people messaging me before saying what you're saying, but on this account, I decide to actually delete that tweet, even though I have a 6-year-old daughter. It wasn't about boy or girl, you know, it was more about, you know Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:25:07] A turn of phrase

Yannick Veys [00:25:08] Yeah, turn of phrase. But yeah, somehow the, the replies and the dms, yeah, they hit me. So I, I decided, well, okay, let's, let's just remove it and, and move on.

Vance Crowe [00:25:20] Oh, man, you gotta be able to take the heat. Yeah, you gotta be the other day, I, I was really annoyed because I put out this blog and I used Hype Fury to take a couple of clips of that blog and run a short thread of it. I would never have done that if I was sitting there and had to do it right at the moment, I was doing it, but that way I could set it up in advance. And, and because I put it out there, I got a bunch of like, really good engagement. A bunch of people read the blog, like people wrote me about it. It, it prompted good conversation that I appreciated. And then I like this woman that I think is just like a nice person showed up and was like, I was shaking my head the whole time, this is, you know, ridiculous. And then like, the cascading on effect of being like, this is clearly just a click bait for a podcast. And I'm like, wait, wait a second, I'm totally down for you, giving me a response for what you don't like. Like just tell me what you don't like about this. And the responses are all just like, this is so dumb. And I'm like, why are you who takes their time to go around to other people's things and be like, nuh. Like, so for me, I want people to disagree with me. I don't have a problem in the world with, but just articulate the disagreement, that's all I care about. If you're not gonna articulate the disagreement, then you're worthy of blocking because you're, you're, you're just throwing noise, like you had said earlier, I don't, I don't, I don't want people to show up and bark at me. I want people to show up and be like, this is why you're wrong. You idiot.

Yannick Veys [00:26:48] Yeah, no, true, true. That's, and that's a good nuance. And yeah, I dunno, I dunno what the reason was I removed that tweet. Normally I don't. That was, I think that the, the only, yeah, that was probably the only tweet I ever removed because people were, I don't know. Yeah. Something just to tick. But,

Vance Crowe [00:27:04] But I've been there. You also say something that is a cultural turn of phrase, and we look at our parents and we say, Hey, like, you know, those are some phrases that just, they just don't work. And I'm definitely not above thinking like, Hey, there are some cultural nuances that evolve over time. So I I, that's not me giving you crap over removing that tweet. Like, I remember I did a podcast with a good friend of mine, and I opened it by talking about her homosexuality because it was like a joke, right? It was like a joke between me and her that we've had all the time. And right after it happened, people were like, why did you make that the focus of your interview? Why was that the big? And I was like, that was like a throwaway line. I didn't even, I didn't even mean it, like, this is something clearly that doesn't matter between us, but you're like, I don't know why I did that. IW if I could have removed it without removing the whole podcast, I would've.

Yannick Veys [00:27:55] Yeah, yeah. I understand. I understand. Yeah. So in your

Vance Crowe [00:28:00] Stuff, you, in your Twitter, I was scrolling through there and

Yannick Veys [00:28:04] You had this whole

Vance Crowe [00:28:05] Thing on gossip, which I thought was an interesting way to approach people talking about you.

Yannick Veys [00:28:11] Yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah. So yeah, so I have some people around me who gossip a lot. I don't really gossip at all. So I, I have some, I guess some kind of allergic reaction when people gossip, because then I think, you know, I always ask, have you told that person? And then, you know, 99% of the time they say no. And I'm like, why? Why? So you, you know, for

Vance Crowe [00:28:36] The

Yannick Veys [00:28:36] One thing is, is it our problem or is it their problem? That's the first thing. So do you wanna upset yourself about somebody else? That's I think, the first important question you have to ask yourself. And then the second thing is if you, you know, you have just a little bit of yeah, what you say, love for that person, tell it to him or her, and, and it'll, it'll help him, you know? So that's, yeah, that's why I'm, I'm, yeah, about that gossiping thing, I think, yeah, just, just be, be open and help people. I'm, I'm, yeah, just I get Do you

Vance Crowe [00:29:12] Come from a culture of, of directness? I mean, because what you're basically saying is directness pays dividends and you know, don't, don't, don't wait around for it.

Yannick Veys [00:29:21] Do

Vance Crowe [00:29:22] You, do you yourself have that level of directness or you just don't have that many opinions about other people?

Yannick Veys [00:29:27] I have that level of directness. Yeah. And that's also a cultural thing. I, I don't think in the US you'll have a lot of people that do that, but that's, I only have a limited amount of knowledge of, of the US culture, of course. But that's just, yeah. So I am pretty open about what I think of other people and you know, I, I tell them as in not, you know, you're shit at this. I'm saying, Hey, this is what I see. So I'm just trying to be also gentle in the way I bring it. But yeah, not everybody likes that, but I, I prefer telling it anyway, you know, it's just, I always see feedback as like a present, you know, you get the present, you can either just put it in a closet, don't look at it, you can open it up and really dig in deep and see, okay, what can I do with that? But not everybody agrees with me on that, so, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:17] Well, so in international, so I studied diplomacy and one of the ways that you can cut across different societies to, to make comparisons to say, what are you, what should you expect in this environment? And one of them is high context versus low context. So high context cultures are the honor cultures of like Asia, right? So you say a few words, but you really have to learn what is the context that those words are being said in, and oftentimes is extremely indirect. Like, so that there's, because in an honor culture, you have to really avoid besmirching, somebody making them exposed to ridicule, because you only have your reputation. That's what things are built on. But the, the western world predominantly has a much low con, lower context where you say what you mean, and you can be direct because it's more of a meritocracy. You're, you're trying to base your decisions based on, you know, what are you producing, what are you, what are you doing? For me right now is one of the trade-offs is that people want to hear what you have to say, but they wanna know, you know, what's your value right now? And that doesn't really happen in the eastern cultures. Does that strike you as accurate, like Germany, the Nordic countries being more low context? Yeah,

Yannick Veys [00:31:28] It does, it does. And there's like a famous story about a Dutch, I dunno if he, I think he was CEO back then of Philip, so a pretty big business also in the us. And he had lunch or dinner with a Chinese business partner, and they both went to the bathroom at the same time. And you know, they, they were there. He, the Dutch guy washed his hands, but the Chinese man didn't. So the Dutch guy said something about that. He said, why don't, why don't you wash your hands? And, you know, that was the end of their yeah. Partnership because you know, that Chinese man, he was just like, what the f are you, are you saying? He, he still replied something like, you know, Chinese men don't pee over their hands, something like that. But still, you know, the tone was set and the, the, the deal was over, you know? So yeah, that's the difference. And yeah, as a, as a Dutch guy, you could probably make a joke about that. So, Hey, why didn't you wash your hands? Or we don't even think about not washing our hands, I guess, but Chinese, they just have, yeah. One, they're, they're different about washing hands and, and, and I guess hygiene maybe in general. And they're, yeah, as you say, you know, yeah, you have to really be careful about what you, what you say to them. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:32:43] Yeah. And I think that if you've never lived in a culture that has a different context than you, then you're not really fully aware of it. Like the first time I ever went to Germany and or interacted a lot with Germans, and they just say exactly what they're thinking, like, you, you do not look like you slept last night. You know? Like, whoa, that's true. I just don't know that I would've ever thought to say that. And they're like, Hey, I'm trying to let you know, you don't look very good. You should probably be better rested. And so, like those first experiences that you have in that cross-cultural misconception, man, they are jarring. And I'll tell you that one of the hardest ones for me is the different cultural concepts of time. So, you know, we have monoclonic time in the western world, the, the, you know, the world starts at eight, the markets close at three, you know, these types of ideas. Whereas in a, in a, like an African country, a polychronic time, they are way more value relationships than they do are things going according to order. And so when I was living in Africa, people would show up two hours late to, to something, and it would be as though they came up to me and spit in my eye, you know, like, why would you wait so long? And that is, time is an interesting cultural concept.

Yannick Veys [00:33:54] Yeah, yeah. It's true. It's funny, I, I had a couple of conversations with a, a woman from India, and she was late every time, and I said something about that, but yeah, I don't think she's, yeah, it is definitely a cultural thing. She was 15 minutes late twice, and I was like, yeah, but our meeting started that too. So if you, if you're late, just, I don't mind, just, you know, send me a message, which just, it was a, a little bit of a mismatch. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:34:22] But this is how the world goes round. And I think that that's one of the things about Twitter being a predominantly literal context, right? You really only have the, the letters that you read. Now you can have photographs and emojis, but for the most part, we've stripped down communication so that it is completely unadorned. But the weird thing is Twitter is also an honor culture. So we've got way low context, people are saying what they think or as direct as they can, but you're living in a world where your reputation is the reason people follow you or, or leave you behind. So it's almost like the worst of both worlds.

Yannick Veys [00:34:58] Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But then I still think, you know, you, you don't have to follow people if you don't agree with them. You know? I, yeah. I just be honest with them. Don't just say, Hey, you, you know, I, I disagree, but, you know, keep an honest conversation going and you know, if you really don't like it, just follow the, don't follow 'em anymore or block them. And yeah, in the end, I think, yeah, if you keep spreading value and choose and I guess choose what kind of people you want to attract, I think that's also an important part of Twitter. And you can't be friend of everybody. So choosing a niche, I guess, or yeah, a slice of the pie, I think that's important.

Vance Crowe [00:35:39] Yeah, almost by default, if you're gonna provide value to someone, there's going that that's because you have an idea that they didn't have. And that often means that they're going to somehow come in contrave with other people's thinking.

Yannick Veys [00:35:51] Yeah, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:35:52] In your tweet about gossip, you used a word that I use often, which is transcend, like, you should transcend gossip. What does that word mean to you?

Yannick Veys [00:36:04] Yeah, that's a good question. So I think it also goes, goes back to that I think that a lot of people coast through life and that you can, you know, be amazed about what you can accomplish. Maybe not in a year, but in a couple of years. And so, yeah, I always like to pressure myself into, you know, getting better every day. I do the, I do the same thing to my girlfriend. She doesn't really like it, but, you know, after I actually, my dad passed away and I bought her a business. Why? Because she wasn't a, she wasn't a shitty job. And she was like, yeah, well, okay, I'll, I'll do this. But it was more like, because the job she was doing, she hated it. So it was more like, anything is better than this. But it took her, it took her like four years to really sell into like the entrepreneurship. And only starting this year, we actually started renting an office. We were running her business from our house with the kids and stuff. It was just, you know, hard. And now we started renting an office, and this year it finally, I don't know, it, it's, it struck her that she can actually, you know, she makes more money than you know, and, and she'll only has to work like one hour a day, but she makes more money than, you know, most people her age and her, you know, so, and yeah, I think that's, she, she never expected to do something like that.

Yannick Veys [00:37:40] So, and yeah, it took four years. I don't know, I, I, I'm, I'd say I pressed her for four years, you know, go, go, go. But finally after years you realized that, hey, this is so much better than what I did, and I can really create something great out of this. And I think everybody can do that. You know, if you just look around in, at, at, at, at things you enjoy doing, start a small business in that, you know, there is, there are, there's so much opportunity these days, and I think that's one of the simplest things you can do to transcend yourself. You know, you can still be in your comfy life with your comfy salary and job, but you can still, you know, do something else and, and just try, try, try stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:38:20] You know, I, I did the same thing where I left a job that was very lucrative, but I realized like they were not gonna let me do the things that I wanted to do. And one of the cautions that I have for people of jumping out of one thing and jumping into another is you won't magically be a different person because you did it. The thing that will change is that now you have to survive, right? So you are jumping in the water and there are things that you can do to have yourself mentally be prepared to have the energy to swim. Do you have good habits that let you, like, keep this attitude going?

Yannick Veys [00:38:58] I think I have to work on my habits. Yeah. So I have, I have pretty good habits, but I, I do think that, for instance, eating wise, I think my habits are pretty shit. So I, I need to improve on that. But like, work ethics, habits wise, I think I have a pretty, I've, you know, pretty decent, you know, I don't have a lot of systems, so that's something I need to work on. Yeah. So planning and stuff like that, that's not really a good thing. And that's also, you know, once you plan, you get into habits. So that's one thing.

Vance Crowe [00:39:35] Oh, that's an interesting idea, that once you make a plan, you get into habits that it almost is like, if you start executing on the plan, the habit will come.

Yannick Veys [00:39:43] Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's, you can't just, you know, if you do something once, you know, that's not a habit. That's just, yeah, you just, and so, and I, I work too much from my head, so I have to put down stuff. So yeah, that's, we, we started using something with High Fury, so I can finally jot down everything I have in my head and create a plan and, you know, assign other people to it. So I just, it's, it's an accelerator for our business, but also for me to get things outta my, my head and into like a plan that we can execute on.

Vance Crowe [00:40:14] How has Hype Fury grown since you did your two months of working as an intern?

Yannick Veys [00:40:19] Yeah, so yeah, we, we started at like one KMRR, something like that when I just started. And we're now at about 12, so in a year time where, well, yeah, we've, yeah, went times 12, I guess. Yeah. So that're pretty, pretty decent. So overall, we, we grow about 10% month over month, so, and we're, we're self-funded semi, and I don't take any salary yet, so we put everything back into the business.

Vance Crowe [00:40:44] You're growing by 10% every month. Yep. Man, that has to be exciting around there. Like, that's still at the level of like, we're hitting the bell every time we get a sale, but it's starting to get a little loud in here, so we may not hit the bell every single time.

Yannick Veys [00:40:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we're really, we we're happy. We, we set a little bit higher goal and then we actually reach, we want 15 K at the end of the year, but yeah, we're still, we're still pretty happy. And yeah, our, our, our product has also matured enough that we can really go and yeah, and, and, and get some more people. Right now it's more of a organic growth. We do a lot of, you know, sales through word of mouth. People see, you know, when you click on a tweet from High Fury, you, you can actually see that it was tweeted through High Fury. We did a lot through affiliate marketing. And I think 2021 is gonna be a year where we can really capitalize on the fact that we have a pretty decent product, you know, more than decent products. And I think, yeah, we have a bit more firepower marketing wise, so that's gonna be an exciting year for us.

Vance Crowe [00:41:46] And when you think about what 2021 will have in it, like, you know, last year, if we were sitting here at, at the end of 2019 saying, I think there's gonna be an epic pandemic and I think these things are gonna happen, how do you think the waves in 2021 will be as large as the ones in 2020 were?

Yannick Veys [00:42:07] Yeah, that's a good question. So yeah, so the entire world's getting vaccinated right now, except our country. I guess we're only starting in a couple of weeks. But, so I think

Vance Crowe [00:42:22] That, wait, you guys are waiting, why are you waiting? Well,

Yannick Veys [00:42:24] Not, not necessarily waiting, but we don't have our shit in order. So somehow we wanted to va vaccinate everybody in tiny spots. But the Pfizer vaccine, they come in boxes of a thousand doses. And so, you know, if you go to like a elderly home where, I don't know, 50, a hundred, probably not more than that, people are, and it's, yeah, it's a bit crazy to go there with your thousand dose box. And they didn't, they didn't think about that. So now they're,

Vance Crowe [00:42:55] And because of the freezing requirements, it's like, if you open that thing up, then you gotta inject it right now.

Yannick Veys [00:43:01] Yeah, something like that. So just, they just thought, hey, we we're gonna, we'll, we'll create, you know, smaller boxes and stuff like that, but that didn't work out. So right now they're, they're actually ramping up like bigger facilities. So yeah, I think the new date is now the 11th or the 18th of January or something like that. So yeah. And we top five who,

Vance Crowe [00:43:20] Who knows if there's a hiccup with it, then maybe you guys will be the ones that get to watch it happen, but, okay. So the, the, if the vaccine comes, does that mean the waves get smaller or does that mean the waves get bigger? 'cause people rush outta their houses and we see something?

Yannick Veys [00:43:34] Yeah, so I don't think a lot is gonna change, as in it's already happened. As in people, you know, you can, you can name any, any number of examples what happened to, to Amazon probably, you know, the, the, the, the Costcos and stuff like that. It same happened here in the Netherlands, you know, app use of, you know, traditional businesses. It's tripled. So I think the wave already happened. And I think, yeah, besides the fact that we can, you know, eat out and go to the gym again and stuff like that, I think the, the change, like the, the big wave has already happened and that's, we're we're gonna ride. I think the internet in general is gonna ride that wave for probably years to come. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:44:15] Oh, that's very interesting that, that the wave is already there. We're surfing on it right now, but that we don't really know what the full effects are. That, that's interesting. I mean, I had had a, had a philosophy a long time ago that grocery stores would eventually go away, or at least the large parking lots of them. Because right, right now in the US for every square foot you have of, of grocery space, you generally have to have X amount of parking. And the parking isn't for all of the time, it's for like the, the rush times, like right after work or right after church or something like that, where a bunch of people are there. But if you take out a huge percentage of that, let's say 20% of that by online grocery shopping, which I think is probably a lot higher than that. 'cause I almost never go to the grocery store now, then the physical space that we're living in will start changing and whoever leverages that or spots that the quickest is gonna have opportunities to do things with physical space that we haven't done in the past.

Yannick Veys [00:45:15] Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting, I think, you know, I, I'm, I'm still seeing a lot of office buildings being built and I'm like, well, that's not gonna happen. I think they, they better start remodeling for, you know, residential space instead of just trying to sell that stuff or rent it, because I don't think it's gonna happen. You know? You

Vance Crowe [00:45:33] Think people will keep working from home?

Yannick Veys [00:45:35] Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think traffic wise it's better health wise, it's better. It's just, you know, who doesn't wanna work at home, at least when your kids can also go to daycare or, or school or whatever, you know, I, I, I don't think there are many people who, who disagree with that. And I also think that, you know, the bosses quote unquote just have seen that, hey, this works as well. You know, you don't have to see each other every day. You don't have to be physically in the building. You can, you know, work at home.

Vance Crowe [00:46:06] You got a lot of, lot less sexual, sexual assault or what, like you got a lot less, what is it, sexual harassment in the workplace. You got a lot less arguments among people in a certain context. The ones where people are coming in contact with one another, all that is out the window.

Yannick Veys [00:46:23] Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:46:24] What do you think is lost by a society that stops interacting at work like that? Is there, is there any danger here?

Yannick Veys [00:46:31] Yeah, that's a good question there. Well, so I I, I, I wouldn't say, Hey, don't, don't go to the office at all. Because I think if, if you don't literally meet your coworkers and if you just, you know, if everything is on the screen, I think, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say that poses a danger, but I think you still need the interaction. You know, when, when, when actually started, I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm keep I'll, I'll keep going through the office, I'll keep going. And now I'm like, well, I don't know man, I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm talking to everybody through Zoom or through whatever. So I don't see a big threat. I do think that, you know, you should, you shouldn't stay at home all the time.

Vance Crowe [00:47:15] Yeah, I, I work from home. The, I work out at home. I have like a basic gym I've built here. So my friends come to work out. I hold, not not a lot of meetings here 'cause I don't want a bunch of people in my house, but the, so I have adapted it, but I also see like the, the willpower it takes to keep, you know, like one of the big things I think about the holidays is that the holidays mark time for you, right? You like wake up and you're like, oh, it's not just 40 degrees out now it's cold. It's, it's below zero and we're happy about it and we're doing things, it marks time, it brings people together. But when you work from home and you're seeing only the same things every day, I think you run the real danger of having it be like Groundhog's Day and that, and that is actually a form of, of hell. I think, you know, to have so little change in your life that you're not seeing how the world around you is changing.

Yannick Veys [00:48:08] Yeah, I think so too. And I think that's, that's also what happened to my girlfriend a little bit, that she was always at home. Either she was, you know, trying to work in between the kids or she was, you know, with the kids and, and her, her world, which is so small. So yeah, I, I think it's very important to keep going out and, and, you know, not, not feel like you're chained to your house, which, you know, we we're on lockdown now for, well hopefully only another two, three weeks, but it, it already, you know, it, it closes your world off so much, you know, we're, we're gonna our grandparents to, to take care of our kids as well, because otherwise, you know, we, we, we literally go crazy, you know, we're not used to having our kids around for, you know, six weeks at a time. Full, full, full, full time. So it's really, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a heavy burden somehow. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:48:58] So you have a 6-year-old daughter? I have a four month old daughter, so I'm a new dad. That happened during Coronavirus. Yes. As you think about the distance between four months to six years, what, what's one piece of advice you have from one dad to another about something I should be observing or watching for?

Yannick Veys [00:49:16] Oh, yeah, that's a good question. So yeah, we have two kids, one six and one 3-year-old. And our daughter, when she was four months old, she got eczema and it was really, really bad. And here in the Netherlands, you have like a system where you go to, well, it's not really a doctor, but it's people, you know, they, they check out how your, how your kid is doing, your young born, you know, how weight wise, height wise, stuff like that, I dunno if they have it in us. But anyway, we, she was having eczema and we asked those people, you know, Hey, what do we do? And they were just like, well just put some, yeah, I don't know what, what the English word is, feline, it's just oil. Just put something on and it will go away. And we were like, okay, well let's, let's do that. But it was months and months and it keep getting worse and, and all of a sudden I was like, well, you know, this ain't gonna fly, man. I'm gonna, I have to do something about it. So I called her GP and I said, I want an appointment in the hospital because it was getting so bad. And at first they were like, but why? And can't you go to, you know, the, the, the people we always see, you know, like the normal, the normal where everybody goes and was like, well, no. So I really, I got mad on the phone and we finally got the, the reference we needed to go to the hospital. And when we came to the hospital with our daughter, that the women who like the, the, the receptionist at the, the department, you know, the, the, the, the skin department, the dermatology, she was, she almost started crying when she saw her daughter.

Yannick Veys [00:50:51] It was that bad. And she said, literally said, if she wasn't looking so clear out of her eyes, I would've taken her in. You know, I, she had to, she had to go to, you know, the, the ICO, whatever, it was that bad. So the advice I'm giving you is, you know, yeah, keep an open mind and don't, don't think that like the, the, the, the general, you know, medicine world knows everything and just, yeah, look out for your kids and if you think, hey, this, there's something fishy about it, there needs to be there, there has to be something else we can do here. Do it. You know, and just, just push through the system and just say, Hey, f you I want, I want something to help. And literally we got, we got a, something to put on our body and in two days time it was all gone, you know? So it's just,

Vance Crowe [00:51:39] Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, that's one of those things that until you have a child seeing them suffer in some way, like it's not the same when you see your sibling or your parent or your best friend when it's like, I am Char, I'm the one that brought this one into this world. I've got to do something. And she literally can't do it herself. It's a, it's a different level of, it probably is some form of trans, like the ability to take out of your mind and feel such a desire to help for something that can't help itself. But it's also a very, very vulnerable feeling. Like the first time I had to give my daughter droplets in her mouth, it was so painful. But once I found out like, oh, this helps now, I'm like, hold her down. Let's get it in there.

Yannick Veys [00:52:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, the medical world, you know, J Jay held us at bay for months and I was like, what do I do? You know, and we, we went to alternative route, even, you know, at some crazy doctor where we had blood, little, little droplets of blood taken from her. It was like, you know, homeopathic stuff, I dunno, what's that called in English? But anyway, like really alternative stuff, because we would just want, want anything. And yeah, of course it didn't work. But yeah, if you're,

Vance Crowe [00:52:53] So you have to have permission to go to the doctor, essentially.

Yannick Veys [00:52:57] Well, not permission to go to the doctor, but you have to get permission to go to the hospital, as in, it's because the insurance system here, you know, we pay 120 euros a month, and, you know, we can, we can go crazy bill wise, but you have to have a, a reference to go. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:53:16] Wow. That's, that's an interesting thing. Like, it's hard for me to compute what that's like. So if you have like a, if you have a gunshot wound, you don't have to go get permission, right?

Yannick Veys [00:53:27] No, no, no, no. So it's, it's for non emergency stuff, you know, you can go to the physical therapist without any, you know, you could, you could just go there. But a lot of stuff in the Dutch healthcare system is restricted, you know, because Yeah, you can, yeah, I've chest pain. I'm gonna call the, the heart surgeon. No, it doesn't work like that. You know, you go to your G gp, he, he checks you out, and then when he says, Hey, yeah, it's, it's, it's time for you to go there, then you can go. That's, that's, that's how it works.

Vance Crowe [00:53:57] Okay. So at the end of 2021, you think the wave will be, we will have ridden for a while. You're like talking about habits. As you think about the end of this year and like what you would wanna remember about it next year, what's something that is important for you to record and say, Hey, don't forget, this is something that happened this year that I, that I think is important to remember in the future?

Yannick Veys [00:54:25] Well, we, we've seen tremendous change. Everybody has probably had some sort of effect on their life to, you know, because of Corona. And I guess, yeah, on the one hand, people are going crazy because they have to stay indoors. On the other hand, you know, 60, 80 years ago when we had World War ii, you know, my, my, my, my grandfather wasn't a bunker here in Europe, you know, in, in, in freezing temperature for weeks. And, you know, he wasn't complaining. So I guess there are, there are a couple of things that, yeah, just I, you know, stay close to your core, but also, yeah, yeah. We are so reli resilient as a species. You, you can say that, you know, find, find a way instead of an excuse. I think that's an important, an important thing. You know, it's, yeah. It's just, you know, in a couple of weeks, it's shit that you have to stay indoors and it'll probably happen again next year. There'll be new waves probably. So, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:55:29] I, I, I like that message and I think it's good. And, you know, the, the right habits or the, the, the things that get you into the right mind space and the right health, those are all the things that make you the most resilient that you can be. So I'm totally in agreement. Well, Janique, it was very interesting talking with you. I had no idea where this would lead, and I feel like I talked to a, a brethren in some way. So it's really nice to meet you and I, I hope to see Hype Fury just keep killing it in the future.

Yannick Veys [00:55:59] Thank you

Vance Crowe [00:55:59] Guys. If people wanted to get ahold of you or to learn more about, you know, what you think about, or how Hype Fury works, how would they get ahold of you?

Yannick Veys [00:56:06] Yeah, so you can go to hype fury.com, H-Y-P-E-F-U-R-Y com, and you can find me on Twitter. That's yuni face. Y-A-N-N-I-K-V, oy s

Vance Crowe [00:56:21] Well, cool man. I'll throw those links in the description. So Yanique, great to see you and have a happy 2021.

Yannick Veys [00:56:30] You too fans. Thanks for having me. It was great fun.