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We sat down with Yannic Verlinden, founder and business manager of Unik. We meet her at home, at the computer, hearing her 2 dogs playing in the background. Yannic talks about how she has had a busy week with some long car journeys. Fortunately, she enjoys listening to engaging podcasts in the car to fill the time meaningfully. Her favourite podcast? 100% Inspiration by Thijs Lindhout. For Yannic, a perfect combination of personal development with an inward-looking approach to business owners and managers.
PARTNER IN THE SPOTLIGHT, WHAT DOES UNIK STAND FOR?
Unik want resources offering more comfort and look beautiful at the same time! There is often still some kind of taboo or stigmatisation surrounding aids, which Yannic wants to break with her webshop Unik. Thanks to the trendy designs With his offer, Unik wants the lowering threshold to comfort.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Before Yannic started Unik, she felt that there were not many cute and certainly no trendy-looking aids on the market. Growing up with a sister who has a disability, Yannic mostly saw her parents coming up with innovative and out-of-the-box ideas to make her sister more comfortable. When her grandfather, due to age, also became more needy, in Yannic's eyes the need for fun tools pressing.
The first idea was to start developing trendy tools himself. However, Yannic soon discovered that some nice aids existed, but they were very fragmented in the market. On top of that, these trendy products were often located next to highly stigmatising aids, which again creates a barrier.
This is how Unik, bringing together and offering numerous fun, non-stigmatising products to lower the threshold to comfort. All "Unik products" have the same characteristics:
- provide more comfort
- trendy and beautiful design
THE START
Yannic started Unik in November 2018 with a fun pop-up shop in Mortsel. She used this experience as a test to see if her idea was well-founded and to immediately hear from the customers themselves what they think.
It turned out to be a shot in the arm! Unik was a reality. The pop-up was transformed into a webshop and has been operating since March 2019.
MORE THAN JUST A WEBSHOP
Unik is more than just a webshop. Besides offering comfortable, trendy aids, Yannic also keeps looking for other "classic" products that can also fill a particular need. She has always seen this out-of-the box thinking at home as well. Unik therefore stands for personal assistance to customers. In case of specific questions, Yannic will look for the right solution himself.
Interaction and cooperation with partners and suppliers is therefore very important to Unik. In this way, Unik is really building a community of partners. This works best with small companies, such as My Add On, Yannic adds. The strength of small companies lies in their flexibility and personal contact.
Yannic also organises, together with partners, workshops for social workers. In these workshops, they elaborate on the role of the caregiver in resource acceptance.
CORONA & POST-CORONA?
Corona did not hurt Unik's bottom line. As more needy people also found their way online during the corona crisis, sales could further increase in 2020.
What has been somewhat stagnant is Unik@Home, in this concept, they are going to introduce products in people's homes themselves to remove the barrier to acceptance again.
Personal contact and interaction is also somewhat lost with corona. But Yannic is mainly looking ahead. Next challenges? Expanding the workshops further and creating a B2B platform set up targeted to social workers & residential care centres.
COLLABORATION WITH MY ADD ON
Yannic first came into contact with My Add On and the MySleeve at a trade fair in Dusseldorf. She was immediately sold on the idea : simple and yet so much extra comfort, a truly "unik" product!
Although she has not yet had to use the MySleeve herself, the feedback from her customers is very positive.
In addition to the MySleeve, Yannic already offers the MyBedMaker to the Unik range and already had one of her customers test it. This customer, with a one-arm limitation, was immediately enthusiastic as she otherwise needs the help of her partner every time.
Yannic also got a sneek peak of our new products, in her opinion, one by one very cool products. Beautiful design, simple yet effective solutions to comfort. At the same time, many products also give you the opportunity to further personalise your mobility aid.
"Joining forces is the way forward. It is not only more sociable, but also more dynamic and you learn a lot from each other," said Yannic.
