3 Reasons Why I’m Diving Into The Valley To Make Things That Drive Results
I remember the first conversation I had with Ashish, founder of YML.
I was in LA — in a full suit — running between meetings as we all do. Despite the fact that the heat was brutal, the conversation we had about digital products kept me outside and suffering for a full hour, excitedly talking about the changing landscape for digital companies.
Two years later, I’m proud to be joining the amazing story that is YML.
And while change is always hard, there are numerous reasons why I know that I’ve secretly uncovered the next best thing when it comes to digital design, technology, and innovation.
1 / We bring Silicon Valley to everyone.
At first, I gave the idea that YML was bringing “The Valley” to everyone as a big eye roll.
Especially as my first week coincided with the Theranos documentary — the perfect example of a great idea that raises funding, but with no ability to deliver.
However this jaded New Yorker was instantly changed into a believer as I learned more about YML’s history within this ecosystem of innovation, and how being at the heart of it has been transformative for us and our clients.
YML started off as a development-first company, launching the 34th app in the Apple store — an educational app for Montessorium that even caught the eye of Steve Jobs who asked how he could help out.
It was at that moment that YML was born.
And 10 years later we have found that companies all over need the thinking that we have ingrained into us: functional and beautiful experiences like TaxAct and Home Depot, data-first initiatives like our work for Apple Health Kit, and meaningful uses of technology like our Virtual Reality work with DJI’s Drones.
2 / I’m working with the industries best.
Sure, nowadays everyone has a few shiny case studies and reels (we have those!).
But, it is not so frequent that a company has doubled down on bringing leaders from all over to help bring a new level of service to our customers.
In the past few years, YML has snagged AKQA’s Executive Creative Director, Stephen Clements, Marcela Lay from Huge to oversee our ATL office, and Jason Rzutkiewicz a former MD from Razorfish to lead Account Services.
If this wasn’t enough, we have Minela Bjelevac who worked at Baidu and Raina Malik who spent time as a Deloitte Digital Consultant. This is on top of the countless designers, strategists, and engineers from Fjord, Accenture and eBay just to name drop some more.
And while pedigree is not everything (coming from the person who went to a state school!) it is amazing to see this team brings their collective background together in order to craft amazing experiences for our clients with passion and excitement.
3 / We work with the cutting edge.
I talk to so many customers who are trying to figure out how to give their brand an “edge”. Common statements include:
“Personalization is critical to our experience — how can we leverage our data in a meaningful way?”
“We need to find a way to utilize AR or VR — people are talking about it and we don’t want to miss out, but how can it work for our customers?”
“We’ve developed an amazing physical product, but need to make sure the software is equally on par and easy to use.”
There are a lot of agencies out there that can design an amazing website, mobile app, or piece of software…
But not many that can bring in critical technologies and actually launch them into the marketplace.
Our work with Molekule is the perfect example:
A great physical product that needed to be operated easily in-home. Our team not only created the perfect companion app, but worked directly with the hardware team to make recommendations for the physical product that would enhance the experience, such as auto-detecting the type of pollutants in the air.
Then there is our work with StubHub that allowed customers to see exactly where they would be sitting in venues around the world — leading a major disruption in how tickets are sold online.
And then there is Apple’s research kit — which we designed and built and has aggregated tens of thousands of data points to help researchers understand and treat heart disease, Parkinsons, and Type 2 Diabetes.
— —
There is so much more I’m excited to share — work that is changing industries in entertainment, hospitality, the pharma industry, and retail.
And as we keep sharing our story I can’t wait to talk to more of you about what’s next for your business and how we can make an impact together.
Originally published at ymedialabs.com on March 27, 2019.
