Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 3)

Stefan Batory: At the same time, I was preparing for a Marathon race on the Sands. It’s a marathon across the Sahara desert. You have to carry a backpack with all your food and supplies to survive in the desert.

I started having some aches and pains in my legs, so I had to see a physiotherapist. Being a father of two, I wanted to spend some time with my children after I got back home from work. I used to do my workouts at 9PM or 10PM.

When I got back from my workout, my legs were sore and I wanted to see my physiotherapist. There was no way I could schedule that appointment with him at midnight. The next day, I took my kids to school and then I went to work. I had back-to-back meetings. I went back home late in the evening. I forgot to call my physiotherapist.

I couldn’t do my workout the next day. I put something on my backpack for me to remember him the next day. I called him the next day, but he didn’t answer my call because he was busy. He tried to call me back a couple of hours later, but I was already in a meeting. Then we just kept calling each other for a couple of hours.

Then I started texting him. The next day, I texted him that I needed an appointment. A couple of hours later, he said, “You can come at 1PM.” But by the time I saw the message, it was already after 1PM. I texted him back that I can be there at 3PM. He texted me back that somebody else already confirmed.

I found out that this is a common problem for all service professionals. They are busy and they are not supposed to take calls while doing the service. After they are done, they want to go home and spend time with family and friends. They don’t want to take these phone calls but they have no other way of running a business. They were all working 24 hours, 7 days a week.

That was the initial idea that triggered me to start thinking about Booksy. I saw the similarity to the taxi business. That was a perfect vertical to be in because we were solving real-life problems that most service providers have, so we are helping both sides to schedule appointments.

They are missing on the opportunity to get new clients who found them on social media, but are not able to answer the calls. That’s how I decided to launch this project. I had that small division of the software development house.

At that time, Conrad Howard joined me to manage that software development house as I was still focusing on the taxi business. Conrad is a friend of mine. We had worked together for a couple of years before.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy
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