JAM

In this Student Entrepreneur, Ruud Schippers speaks about his company: JAM. He describes the foundation of his company and what is like to combine everything as a student entrepreneur. The interview is made in collaboration with Starterslift Tilburg, which is the center of Tilburg University for entrepreneurial students with great talent and ambition.

Could you describe what the company is trying to reach?
JAM is an online working platform especially for youth between 15 and 25 years old. In fact, it is some kind of AirBnB for hiring extra people. The youngsters and students are able to register their availability to work online. Consequently, companies can check the online agenda-overview to see which youngsters are available per category. And then they can invite someone to work within thirty seconds for one or multiple days. By putting the supply of youngsters online instead of the demand of companies, Jam turns the employment around. So through JAM, youngsters get the opportunity to gain experience in a lot of companies in their direct neighbourhood and in a lot of diverse industries. Furthermore, for companies it a very easy way to hire extra personnel during busy periods. Additionally, they can scout young talents in the area, without hiring them. Youngsters are being guided from the moment they start at the labour market to search for extra work, holiday tasks, and eventually a qualified starters position.

When did you get the idea to start your own company?
My brother, sister and I used to work at a company during holidays and on Saturdays. Sometimes there were too many youngsters and other times too little. Shortly, supply and demand were never geared to one another. Then we had the idea: what if we could authorize youngsters from the community to indicate their availability online. Then, companies can hire them when they need them and do not have to worry about it anymore. This was the idea we started with about four years ago.

What made you make the first step to start for yourself?
We noticed there was a lot of demand and the expenses to start an online platform are relatively low compared to starting a physical company. The three of us put our savings together to take the change, since nothing ventured, nothing gained.

What do you hope to accomplish with JAM?
Our ambition is to spread the JAM-concept to all village communities in Noord-Brabant with an ambitious and young team. We want to accomplish this before December 31^st 2017. Because we believe in the proven JAM-concept and feel like youngsters should get the opportunity to gain experience in their own environment at a young age. By gaining experience youngsters get a better representation of the regional business, which results in a broader orientation and a more deliberated choice of study. To do this we are looking for regional managers who are entrepreneurial and commercial oriented and want to start this in their own region.

What is the most important thing you have learned while working for JAM and cannot be learned during an education?
I started the company with my brother and sister in my first year of my bachelor. Because we operate in the business-to-business industry, you start to ‘think’ as a business, which provides you with new insights. Furthermore, I learned a lot from the mistakes we made. The first website online was a huge failure. Companies did not use the website, but called us instead to hire the youngsters. Why did this go wrong? That is easy. Instead of listening to the customer we made a website, we thought was good. Now you, of course, think: “Well, it is logical to test the website with your customers before going online?” That is true, but those things seem so logical in the books of university, but must be experienced before doing it right.

Do you have advice for starters or students who want to start their own company?
Doing business is not something you can learn in my opinion. It sounds cliché, but it is a matter of just doing things and a lot of decisions we take are based on ‘gut feelings’. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, since those are the things you learn most from. Now you are still young and people grant you things. Use that, since doing business and starting your own company is the best school you will ever have. Do not just brainstorm for an afternoon and expect to have an idea to start your own company by the end of the day. You have to run into something. Try to look at something in the market that frustrates you and where you feel like you can do it better.

General information
Founders: Miranda, Martijn and Ruud Schippers
Study: Miranda: International Business & Management studies
Martijn: HBO MER
Ruud: MSc Business Information Management
Company name: JAM B.V.
Location: Bladel
Furthermore active 12 communities: Eersel, Bergeijk, Bladel, Reusel-de Mierden, Hilvarenbeek, Goirle, Oirschot, Best, Oisterwijk, Boxtel, Valkenswaard en Waalre.
Employees: 3 founders, 5 region managers, 1 HR-employee, 1 intern HRM and over 700 employees freely employable
Activities: online ‘hiring’ of young employees in the neighbourhood for one or more days/weeks to do supporting activities
Website: www.JAMwerkt.nl