Dentists and Beauty Salons go Web2
4th of October 2007 by conor
I attended the very impressive Mid West Entrepreneur Showcase in Limerick Institute Of Technology yesterday. This was a mix of display-stands by start-ups, many from the Enterprise Acceleration Centre and some talks on fund-raising and building businesses. I will never tire of hearing Jerry Kennelly talking about selling Stockbyte for $135m to Getty Images.
The start-ups ranged from hardware guys to Web2 guys and one called You Book In caught my eye. They only launched last week but I've a feeling this is going to take off fast. I talked to Conor O'Neill (seriously, that's now 4 of me I know of, ignoring the pub chain in the US) about this site which is for anyone who wants to provide a web/mobile based appointment booking system for their customers.
The idea is utterly simple but very well executed. Instead of using paper based systems or obscenely priced EPOS bolt-ons and taking up the time of a staff member, professional service providers point their customers to the You Book In site where they can make their own appointments. Confirmation is by email and SMS. You can also set an SMS reminder.
Each market niche has its own custom fields like Preferred Stylist and the system returns the nearest available slots to you if the parameters you set cannot be matched exactly. You can also re-schedule whenever you like and Paypal is integrated for pre-payment if it is appropriate. I wondered if some customers will want their own branded booking site with the service provided as a white label but Conor wants to tap the potential viral effects of e.g. beauticians using it to book a dentist and then signing up for the service themselves.
The wide range of businesses that could benefit from such a simple service is enormous and the guys are very ambitious with an office in the US already. The pricing is very aggressive too with the core service only costing €36 a month. They may have some issues with convincing Doctors to use this due to confidentiality. However for most others, as long as they have a broadband connection in their business, it should be an easy sell.