Anyone can place a ping-pong table in the canteen: An Ynvolve 15-year anniversary interview with Trent Torrence

Trent Torrence
Centrics IT – Business relation

‘When you have to choose, don’t you go to the people who really care?’

Trent Torrence

They were sitting in the rooftop bar of a Singapore hotel. Which hotel Trent Torrence has forgotten, but he does remember it was very late. He and Martijn Niessen, the man with whom he’d been doing business for some years, took a nightcap. Something they often did after a successful meeting. This time it turned out differently – they suddenly heard a gunshot. And another one, and again. That was strange.

Especially in Singapore, where everything runs like clockwork. Further inspection proved that a civil servant was walking down the street, shooting a shotgun to scare birds away. So that the citizens of Singapore would not have to be irritated by the bird poop on the pavement. Trent Torrence doesn’t know how this happens, but whenever he remembers the time when he did business with Ynvolve, such stories resurface.

There was always something strange, something hysterically funny. That wasn’t the reason his company was in business with Ynvolve, but it did grow a bond between him and Martijn that surpassed a mere working relationship. It did not get in the way of doing business, however. It may be for the greater part about people at Ynvolve, but they also realize damn well how this business works. Trent: ‘Take Martijn. A common guy. I can talk with him about football, food, movies, booze. Anything. He is a great storyteller and very authentic. He doesn’t sell bullshit, because he knows his clients will eventually see through it. So it is genuine. I’ve attended meetings with him in which we were just grinning as if we were two guys in a bar, but when work has to be done, he switches gears instantly. In no time he can explain very complex matters – about hardware, about the flow of processes in an organization. The first time I heard him do that, I could not believe my ears. I knew: this guy is legit. And the same applies to all employees in the company. I sometimes make an analogy with a supermarket. One will treat you as just a customer, without any depth or genuine attention. At another one it feels more like a family company. That’s where they ask what you are planning for dinner that night, which vegetables you want to use and how your wife is doing. When you have to choose, don’t you go to the people who really care? That type of supermarket, that is Ynvolve. And there are not many of those. It’s nice when there is an arcade game and a ping-pong table in your canteen, but that’s not what counts, almost every company has those nowadays. You need more. At Ynvolve they know that.’