yboo is cutting mobile phone bills while bringing jobs to Holmfirth

Holmfirth-based yboo was launched by Martyn Gould and Paul Doyle in August 2017. Since then the company has grown to 11 staff and attracted investment and takeover bids.

yboo secured a £2m investment from the plc Angelfish Investments earlier this year.

The investment will enable yboo to scale its team, launch new products and expand internationally, Mr Gould said.

However, the firm turned down a price comparison website after it made a takeover approach.

Mr Gould, inset, said: “The offer from the price comparison site meant all of our jobs would move to Wales. We didn’t want the jobs to move to Wales.

“We started this business to bring tech here. We didn’t start this business to bring tech to Wales.”

yboo enables users to download an app on their phone for free. This app then tracks their data usage, number of texts sent, amount of time spent on calls as well as signal strength.

The firm makes money through connection bonuses similar to the likes of Carphone Warehouse.

yboo also sells data insights to mobile network operators, enabling them to tailor their packages to consumer needs.

The data, Mr Gould says, is all anonymised with users not asked for any personal details when downloading the app.

The entrepreneur, who has 20 years of experience in the mobile telecommunications industry, said that the company was founded on four principles: bringing jobs to Holmfirth, giving employees shares in the company, providing honest information about the best deal for them and helping mobile network operators understand consumer requirements better.

Mr Gould said: “Principle one was we’re going to bring training, jobs and opportunities to Holme Valley because it doesn’t make sense for people to get into a car everyday and drive to Leeds or Manchester.

“We’ve got buildings, talent and connectivity in the Holme Valley so why can’t we bring tech here?”

He sees a growth in the number of jobs created as the company is looking to roll out its service across the globe.

It is looking to target Australia first because of its geography and lack of mobile signal, Mr Gould said.

“Obviously because we recommend on price and signal strength,” Mr Gould said, “that value proposition will be appreciated by the Australian consumer.”

He added that yboo is a global solution that can be rolled out anywhere.

Mr Gould said: “It’s like Uber. Uber built a platform that you can deliver anywhere; anywhere where people have a smartphone and need to get a taxi. yboo is for anybody that’s got a smartphone and wants to save money and get the best signal strength. The value proposition is identical whether it’s in Frasi, Egyptian, German, Italian or English.

“If we launch it across the globe it will be supported from the UK, which means we’re creating effectively a valuable technology export for the UK.”

Some providers are notorious for having blackspots in certain parts of the country where signal strength is very poor, according to Mr Gould. He says that yboo is capable of rating the signal by measuring decibels and tracking any changes in the strength.