A confession: I told a tiny fib back in Snack 2. When I described settling on the name YumTuc and securing the social handles, I didn’t nab them all as Snapchat was already taken.
This was frustrating. It had taken me at least 48 dog walks and 263 attempts to land upon a brand name that was a) short b) relevant and c) quirky. The domain was available, as were the handles on all the other main social platforms. But someone had it on Snapchat. I had to find out who.
This was surprisingly quick and easy, as we can all be amateur Philip Marlowes these days. My initial search led me to LinkedIn which led me to a mortgage broker in Queensland, Australia and a lady called Yumi Tuckett. Not only is she the original YumTuc. She’s also, as far as I could see, the only Yumi Tuckett in the world.
Not sure this needs a caption really but there we go.
I didn’t have her email so I dropped a line to her office.* Subject line: ‘Hello from the UK – and looking for Yumi Tuckett!’† Someone kindly passed it on and, a few days later, I had a friendly reply from Yumi herself.
I told her about the app and explained that, sadly, I wasn’t a zillionaire in a position to offer her a fortune for the handle but instead I’d happily make her ‘our first worldwide ambassador’. She asked, not unreasonably, what this might entail. ‘I’ve no clear idea,’ I wrote, ‘as you’d be the first!’
But I promised, and mean it, that if/when there are any perks I can extend to her** once we spread our wings further, then I’d very much honour them. And she came back, very generously agreeing to change her Snapchat handle.
Without getting too pious or nauseating, founders hear variations of the word ‘No’ many times a day. Startup founders hear them many times an hour. But, occasionally, we’ll get a simple and unqualified ‘Yes’. Which makes all the ‘Nos’ vanish, at least for a moment.
So thank you to the original YumTuc. For replying to some random email from a stranger on the other side of the globe. And for saying ‘Yes’.
Join YumTuc on the App Store/Google Play by clicking here.
* Just noticed from my emails that I seemed to think Yumi was in New Zealand, despite a mind-numbingly obvious clue: her company has ‘Aussie’ in its actual name AND email address. Forget what I said about Philip Marlowe.
† Zero marks for subtlety there.
** Beyond a grateful post on LinkedIn.
