One of yibb’s founders, Harm van Deuren, treated his son and his buddies on a Yibb session at Snowworld Zoetermeer for his 8th birthday (the son, not Harm). The kids loved it. and so did the teacher: “Normally I am completely beat after a lesson like this. I have to lift the kids up, guide them down the hill, and then run back up again for the next in line. The yibb session is a lot more relaxed: the kids manage themselves very well. And in the meantime they have a lot of fun learning the basics of snowboarding.”

Here’s a photographic impression:

Erik was interviewed for dutch news program Editie.nl on RTL 4 (1.000.000 viewers)
Watch the interview here.

on Friday morning february 5th 2010 the Yibb will be featured in a full page article in Dutch newspaper Spits, on the occasion of the official worldwide Yibb launch on the ISPO sports tradefair in München. Download the article here (in dutch).

And Erik was interviewed for the Dutch Radio 2 program ‘de heer ontwaakt’. Listen to the interview here (in Dutch)

Earlier, the yibb was featured in the Dutch entrepreneurship magazine Bizz. Download a pdf of that article here. Things are picking up! Definitely!

For more press information, please check out our press page.

check it out!

copyright 2010 atomic gmbh

While here in the Dutch mountains winter slowly moves upon us, the Yibb team is keeping warm: we are busy busy busy! Here’s what we’ve been up to:

First of all we took a big hurdle by signing a deal with Kurtis Graham. Kurtis is the holder of a U.S. Yibb related patent, and we needed his cooperation to enter the U.S. market. Our deal-makers pur-sang Harm and Ronald crafted a wonderful contract for us, which will allow our licensing partners to enter the U.S. market and benefit from all the great reactions we are getting there. So we are now a truly global venture!

Then we are helping our licence partner Atomic to market the Yibb in the Netherlands, working closely with the dutch Atomic team and Snowworld Zoetermeer. We will be part of the Dutch Yibb promo team, so beware.

Snowworld will be using the Yibb this winter in special snowboard lessons for kids under 8.

the first 300 Yibbs are on their way to Europe, to be tested end tried by snowboard schools and Atomic subsidiaries all over Europe.

The Yibb will be featured in some of the on-snow Family Jam events this winter. And we are planning some demonstrations around the Dutch Snowboard Championships.

Lastly, the Yibb is getting quite some on-line press. We are fascinated by the discussion the Yibb seems to trigger: the opinions vary from great enthusiasm, to healthy curiosity, to downright smirking. Especially those who rule the slopes on their boards seem to dislike the Yibb. Don’t worry guys. It will take a while before the kids who are now learning to ride on Yibbs will kick your ass in the snow. There’s plenty of time left to be cool

Here are some links, some of which will make more sense if you use Google Translator.

getoutdoors.com

thegearcaster.com

ex3m.su

extreme-sports.lt

homeboyski.com

yoltica.com

Last thursday may 14th, in Nijmegen’s Goffert Stadium, the Yibb was voted number 61 out of 300 in the Dutch SME innovation ranking, an event organized by Syntens and Bizz Magazine. We were extremely happy with this result. As a matter of fact, it was the exact place we were hoping for: in Samoan numerology, 61 is the number for long life, prosperity and snowboarding without bindings.

Next to the ranking, we were given a small booth on the sports innovation fair that flanked the event. It gave us the opportunity to test reactions and polish our sales pitch. We were overwhelmed with the positive reactions. A small photographic impression:

ronald does things with the yibb no man thought possible

we are so proud!! look at this:

(oh by the way: the little dude is Erik’s son, Marin. Yibber since his 3rd, now 6 years old)

We have signed a licensing deal with Atomic! Atomic is well respected in the snowboarding arena for their innovative approach to snowboading equipment, especially in the rental and learn to ride markets. Their PIQ binding fixation system allows for quick adjustment and change of bindings, and it perfectly fits our Yibb. Atomic will launch the yibb in the fall of 2009 in rental and school markets. So be on the look out! We congratulate Atomic and ourselves with this deal. The future looks bright!

here are some of the design sketches Zeug design made for us.

here are some images we received from our austrian design partner Zeug design. Zeug is very experienced in designing products for the snowsports industry, and they proved to be of great help for the final styling and engineering of the Yibb.