Necessity might be the mother of success

They are creative and charismatic, most importantly they are determined. Their apps are quite simple in usage, however there is always room for improvement. Booking.com has revolutionized the hotel industry, but will a new system of booking appointments called Booksy.net shake up the world’s health and beauty market? Well, apparently its inventors will not give up until they do By Alicja Ciszewska   [caption id="attachment_77482" align="alignleft" width="300"] Agnieszka Zembrzycka Image: Booksy[/caption] Four co-founders of Booksy International and Booksy Poland, including Agnieszka Zembrzycka and Stefan Batory, who sat down to speak with WBJ Observer, combined their efforts to create a system of two apps alongside a website to make small service providers’ and their clients’ lives easier. Zembrzycka was a founder and a long-time editor-in-chief at wizaz.pl, one of Poland’s largest e-platforms in the health and beauty sector. Batory is a mathematician and author of the iTaxi mobile app. They met roughly a year and a half ago and it was clear to them, they would launch the Booksy project together. The Warsaw-based company entered the American market nearly a year ago and is launching offices in Kraków, Poznań, the Tri-City and in Silesia. Apart from domestic development, the project is being introduced to new foreign markets. The enterprise is expanding in different geographical locations, but that is not to be their last word. The booking system is constantly being upgraded, it’s to become a comprehensive app dedicated to all needs that a business might have. “Our mission is to give small businesses tools which have not been available to them till now. We want them to be updated with all the global trends and to compete with bigger players,” Batory revealed. Stage one: spot a problem and find the solution Booksy has two apps, Booksy Biz for businesses and Booksy for clients. Booksy Biz allows the business owner to create a business profile and help manage their appointment schedule. Booksy enables a client to view the business’ profile, see their availability, and book an appointment directly from the app. Both of them work in real time. The key factor in developing the platform was a constant rescheduling of appointments at the businesses [caption id="attachment_77483" align="alignright" width="300"] Stefan Batory Image: Booksy[/caption] in question. “Everything began in a pretty prosaic way. I could not make an appointment at my physiotherapist due to the tight schedule. I decided to do something about it,” Batory recalled. He consulted with his business partner Konrad Howard and decided to create an app that’s useful for managing the client’s and the service provider’s time. In their opinion, the American smartphone market was more developed than the Polish one. Data supports their view, as in 2013, 44 percent of Poles owned a smartphone (TNS, 2014), while in the US, smartphone penetration amounted to 66 percent (Nielsen, 2014). Moreover, American consumers spend around 30 hours a month using mobile applications, which accounts for 89 percent of time they spent using the device (Nielsen, 2014). Batory and Howard made several trips to the US to find out if barbers, hairdressers and other service providers were facing the same problems as they were. “We listened to their remarks and complaints. They did not even know what to expect, because there was no such product on the market at that time,” Batory recalled. Zembrzycka and her husband were just starting with the roll out of Golden Salon, a website where the best health and beauty firms would be listed. Unfortunately, the project faltered, so she decided to dust off one of her previous ideas, a smart solution for scheduling appointments online. When Batory and Zembrzycka came across each other, their congruent plans became one. “It was a coincidence, our visions matched,” Zembrzycka said. Stage two: urge others to apply it The software interface is user-friendly and the app itself is quite smart. It found an outlet right around the corner during a test run. The date and time and a particular employee could be chosen. The outlet is notified about the reservation. Everything works just as planned. The apps were launched at the beginning of 2014 in the United States. For the first several months, the firm was struggling on the market. At that time, Booksy’s approach focused on lead generation, i.e. its job was to attract new clients, earning a commission for services rendered. It turned out to be a failure. “It was hard to create demand and supply at the same time. Our selling model was faulty,” Batory admitted. As a consequence, a few months later, they changed the model to a monthly subscription fee. “This model is more client-friendly, it is predictable,” he said. Currently, the fee totals PLN 99 in Poland and in the US, it ranges from USD 24 to 120 US dollars, depending on the size of the business. Globally, the company is trying to communicate with potential clients via social media, but in Poland, it is engaging in co-organizing such events as the Bearded Men Jamboree in Bydgoszcz and sponsoring fashion shows nationwide. Zembrzycka, who is the chief marketing officer at Booksy, said that the firm wants to be present in the health and beauty business as much as possible. Booksy intends to be inside partnering outlets through branded posters, chocolates and aprons. However, most importantly, Booksy is focused on seeking their potential clients by hiring sales reps. “We have to do lots of work, by educating people (about the app). We are the only such service on the market,” Zembrzycka stressed. Zembrzycka and Batory claim that its users have changed their habits and, consequently, their expectations, since the system was launched. Both sides are constantly learning more about the apps and are aware of the need for some improvements. As various businesses are willing to cooperate with Booksy, the firm is trying to fit them to the right category or, in due time, create another one. The users of BooksyBiz have complained of low processing capacity of the app in terms of implementing detailed customization settings. Another issue is that online payments, which would streamline the whole service have not been applied yet. On the other hand, they said the system has improved consulting with their customers and has made their job easier, according to some opinions. When it comes to the Booksy app dedicated to the customers, majority of the opinions are positive. “It had to be easy, otherwise nobody would use it,” Zembrzycka admitted. The users are glad it has helped them save time, however some of them face problems with booking appointments outside Warsaw. Stage three: expand The firm is currently working on introducing the apps in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries in South America, as well as in Germany. The offer has already entered the Swedish and the Finnish market, although, according to Booksy.net the amount of subscribers is very low. Furthermore, Booksy has already launched its project in India, which is one of the world’s fastest growing wellness and beauty markets. The Polish founders are supported by local partners who will be in charge of sales operations in there. “We are providing the know-how and the whole philosophy of the system. We knew we could not do it ourselves, this is a completely different culture,” Zembrzycka said. The long-term plan assumes similar models of expansion in China, South Korea and Japan. Additionally, when the system achieves a wider range, the firm will compliment its marketing communication with suggestions to clients regarding the best health and beauty service providers. Currently, they are focused on selling the app directly to service providers. When Zembrzycka and Batory were asked what they wanted to achieve by the end of this year, they said they would like their system to make its mark in every country it is launched in. With regard to Poland, the firm aims to obtain 1,000 business clients nationwide and 100 cooperating outlets in Warsaw alone. They aim to strengthen their usage in the cities and are now opening their offices, whilst trying to maintain a leading role in the domestic market. The future of the project is challenging, but nothing indicates that Booksy cannot become a worldwide success. Ultimately, Booksy’s authors want to create a comprehensive system which would enable entrepreneurs to manage their firm’s finances, loyalty programs and others. “We dream of Booksy being the only tool that is needed to run a business,” Zembrzycka explained and said that the product would be developed for tablets. According to a survey carried out by Salesforce (2014), 65 percent of users who download business-specific apps are owners of both tablets and smartphones (The remainder owns only the latter). This indicates, that Booksy may have chosen the right device for its new offer.