We had a chance to have a conversation with Mr. Pieter de Bruyn whose ambitions to solve global unemployment are highly inspirational. To give a quick idea, Pieter de Bruyn is the Co-Founder of Wing.Studio. Wing.Studio is a social media platform created to help people build their online portfolios, showcase their skills and get their ideal jobs.
We loved the initiatives that Pieter de Bruyn put forward with his co-founders, Willie Maritz and Sana Choyakh, at Wing.Studio. He’s always been a person who wants to solve problems and can never sit still knowing he can do something for people. That’s how the idea of Wing.Studio came into existence. The company/platform also has an active LinkedIn page.
Pieter de Bruyn is an optimistic person who believes that today’s GenZ has exceptional potential to achieve success. Hence, he focuses on bringing out their true potential with the help of Wing.Studio.
Get more insights about Wing.Studio and Pieter De Bruyn through our interview below.
Explain the background of you and the company in detail.
From the start of my life, I’ve always had a lot of ideas, and have been looking for ways to solve problems all the time. However, when I had to decide on qualification, there was no such degree as BSc in Solving Problems. Hence, I had to choose something else. I ended up with 3 degrees (including a Law degree). This path led me to be bound to an office desk in the corporate world.
I saw the need to help others, especially the youth with so much potential and became frustrated in my role because my reach to help them was limited.
I often saw GenZs coming into the office environment with a lot of enthusiasm. However, after a while, their flame of excitement was gone as I realized, just like me, they ended up in an environment not constructive for their potential—the idea of Wing.Studio was born.
My vision was to help young people match their skills with the right job. I didn’t exactly know how to execute this idea and was fortunate and blessed that my path crossed with my now business partner Willie Maritz who has a lot of experience in both startups and online learning. With the input of Willie, we shaped the idea to be a workable venture. We started with product development. At the point when we were looking for a strong marketing person we contracted Sana Choyakh from Flair&Vision.
Sana’s service impressed us so much that we decided to pull her in as a Co-Founder. We registered Wing.Studio in the UAE and believe that Wing.Studio can alter the way GenZs are using social media. We want to change the concept of a CV and alleviate youth unemployment in addition to the original idea – to help young people pursue careers that match their unique skill set.
What is your company doing/Describe your company?
Wing.Studio is an online social media platform where young people can post their skills, building a credible portfolio replacing the old-style CV. We link the user with opportunities based on their posts, helping them to build a credible portfolio. These opportunities can be jobs, volunteering, learning, internships, training, coaching etc.
What are your goals?
Wing.Studio must be the “Go-to” place for any GenZ looking for opportunities to up skill themselves, showcasing their unique abilities,
Wing.Studio must also be the “Go-to” place for Companies, NGOs, Youth Organizations etc. when they look for GenZs with specific skills. Our goal is to link skills to opportunities. In doing this, alleviate youth unemployment.
What do you feel is your biggest strength of yourself right now?
My heart is set to help young people find their place in the world. I see any young person as a ball of potential, and our job is to help them extract it. I realized that one of the companies’ frustrations is the onboarding and integration of GenZs in the workplace. This goes hand in hand with the youth’s frustration in their new jobs as they feel they have so much to give, but companies don’t always know how to guide and extract this potential.
I feel blessed with the ability to be the bridge between the GenZ and companies in identifying theses skills and facilitating the onboarding and integration process.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your company right now?
We realized that the old-style CV just doesn’t do the trick anymore. We also realized that companies nowadays look for more than only qualifications. They also look at the transferable skills of candidates. A CV cannot show transferable skills. Wing.Studio managed to develop a platform where a company or organization can get a holistic picture of the candidate, including their formal skills but also their transferable skills. This alleviates the HR personnel from the mammoth task of going through piles of CVs as we automate the process, saving them time and effort.
What was the path you/your company took to get to where you are today?
Just by pure dedication, hard work and confidence in our vision, we formalized the idea and executed it.
Why did you start this company?
I realized that you could be the most talented person in the world, but if you are in the wrong environment, you will never thrive. If we ask Elon Musk (who is famous for tech innovations) to just for one match stand in for Cristiano Ronaldo and vice versa, both will seem to be a total failure. But put them in the right environment, and you see two of the most talented men in the world. You can train, exercise, and study as much as you like, if it is not the environment that you are supposed to be in, you will never really reach your full potential.
I believe we are all blessed with skills and abilities. It is our task to find out what those skills and abilities are and in which environment you can live out those skills to reach your full potential. Why did I start this company? To help other people, especially GenZs, taking cognisance of their skills and abilities, to find the best environment to flourish.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As a dreamer frequently coming up with new ideas, it is sometimes difficult to stick to one idea and realize it before you move on to the next idea.
Give us one word that describes you the best.
Optimist
What makes you excited about Mondays?
I try to stay away from social media and my emails during the weekend. On Mondays, I look forward to seeing any progress on Wing.Studio, new clients or institutions who made contact for collaboration or exciting new projects that Wing.Studio will be getting involved to make a difference in people’s lives.
What do you value most about your culture and vision?
Changing lives, helping young people realize that they can make a mind shift and start to get economically active with the skills and experience they currently have.
What are the strategies of your company, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
Our platform is evidence-based. On our platform, you cannot claim any skill without proof, and that is what makes us different.
What are the key values which helped you to overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career?
I refuse to give up. When I set my mind on a goal, I will not give up until I achieve it. It was the same with Wing.Studio. We faced a lot of challenges to get the platform up and running, especially with regard to software development. The software took much longer to develop than we anticipated.
How do you see the company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
We have a whole parking lot of features that we earmarked to roll out over the next few months. Some of the features will make Wing.Studio even more user-friendly, and some will include significantly more use of AI to increase the user experience.
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your company in this competitive world?
Wing.Studio users can truly show potential employers who they are how they can contribute and add value to the company. On the employer’s side, we save them time in the selection process and reduce the risk in hiring as Wing.Studio showcase the candidate’s capabilities.
What are the services/solutions or products offered by your company on par with the current industry standards? Tell us something about your upcoming products or services?
Wing.Studio changes the whole idea of a CV, as Wing.Studio is a real-time portfolio where the user makes posts like any social media with the advantage that our platform automatically creates your portfolio for you. We extract the skills from your portfolio and link them up with opportunities.
As you learn more skills from these opportunities, you can post it and continue the upskilling process. We revolutionize the sourcing of candidates, not only for companies, but also for government projects, youth projects, tertiary institutions etc. as we source based on evidence-based skills and not on a paper/online CV where a candidate can claim anything without any evidence.
Connect with Pieter De Bruyn on LinkedIn.