It’s recently come to my attention that there are a few things people don’t know about Yena that we’re internally proud of but haven’t marketed well enough to ensure you know too.
Yes, this is because we’re still bootstrapped and on a skeleton team, ‘doing a lot with not a lot’ as we like to say and that will change soon, but I wanted to take this opportunity to clear the muddy waters and tell you a few things that may surprise you about us, our journey so far, and what we do…
1. We have investors
Wrong!
Someone was shocked last week when I explained we don’t have any investors.
They thought that Yena not only had a board of investors but that we weren’t making the primary decisions any more and that was dictating where the company was going.
Not true!
Yena has only ever had £300 of grant funding to get us to where we are today. We have no investors and one shareholder (me!). We’re always transparent about our process and are proud of that.
I’ve made all the required sacrifices possible to ensure I have the flexibility to build what you need & want, whenever it’s needed. Rather than have to bend at the will of an investor to create artificial growth and increase value perception & share value.
We may well take on investment soon, but we’ll be very sure to be fussy – only working with people we like, on our terms, with ‘smart money’.
2. Our Toolbox is an affiliate scheme
Wrong!
I recently realised after a few people had not realised this, that perhaps nobody knew it at all.
Our Toolbox can easily be assumed that it is an affiliate scheme as it looks like it could very well be one and it might even make sense to make it one for revenues sake.
But it’s not.
Why?
Because we want to pass every penny we save on world-leading products & services, onto you, our members.
So whenever any partner offers us a deal on the product and a kick-back on all signed up users, we kindly decline and ask them to bundle that kick-back into your saving to ensure you get the best deal anywhere on the products you want/use/should know about.
This situation literally means we literally saved you double what you could have on Fat Lama, for example.
3. Our membership is just for young entrepreneurs
Wrong!
Yena started out as ‘YENA’ the Young Entrepreneur Networking Association (yeah, bit of a mouthful, eh?!) but we’ve developed and changed over the years.
What we’ve become is a platform dedicated to helping everyone everywhere to start & grow a better business by offering what is essentially Acceleration as a Service (yes, I know that spells ‘AaaS’ and I think that’s great 😂).
The events though, remain as what they always started out to be – a safe space for the next generation to connect.
So, we do have a challenge ahead/right now which is to ensure people know our platform and our events are separate and for different demographics. This means you’re likely to see some brand changes for our events in the very near future to make that much, much clearer!
4. Our meetups are for members only
Wrong!
This one has been a problem for us to clarify from the start of our membership existing.
We’ve been told time and time again that we should make our events only for members, or that people should only be able to come to X number of events before becoming members and I do get that. It may have a better impact on our bottom line but it will limit our impact on people – something that matters to me far more than money.
I have a strong stance on this. Our meetups will remain free forever (as long as we can operate them in the way we do now) and for non-members and members alike.
Members sign up for the benefits including the private community, Toolbox, Vision and exclusiveswe offer. Not for the events.
You can go to any of our events with 8 a year in each of our 15 cities, but if you want 24/7 hour access to ambitious rebels like you, then you’ll need to sign up here.
5. We’re a big team
Wrong!
There’s two of us here currently.
And it. is. mental.
Abby and I run the core Yena experience, membership product. Although we do need to give some special ❤️ to all our truly amazing hosts who run incredible businesses in their own rights, all over the world (we’re working on a website page to showcase all our hosts for you to see currently so stay tuned for that).
I hope we can grow the team soon and will be announcing some big partnerships soon to help us do just that (yay)!
So there you go, a few big myths busted about Yena. 💥
Maybe a few of these were things you didn’t know either? Well, now you do!
P.s. Still thinking about that business idea you want to start? Or feeling lonely running your current side hustle? Maybe the membership is for you? Give it a go – use the code ‘joinforone’ to get on board for just £1 for the first month.
