The Birth of BookWith

My story began on a tennis court several years ago, when I was working as a self-employed tennis professional. After a career spanning more than two decades in sports management business, it became apparent that I was spending too much time managing my client’s bookings.

The Problem

As with any self-employed business, customer relationship is at the heart of your operation. I was going back and forth with text messages when scheduling appointments. Responding to client’s messages and booking requests efficiently became a juggling act of switching between WhatsApp, SMS, Viber, Messenger, email etc for different clients. Clients expect a speedy and professional response, so scheduling lessons or attending to client’s needs was often done on the move, or in between other appointments. What should have been relatively simple tasks became very time consuming, not just for my business but also my personal life.

At the same time, I faced challenges of getting paid on time as clients increasingly started asking to make payments via bank transfer. While this option was seemingly easier, I soon ended up having to keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t. Once again, more time was consumed in my daily work life, with the need to regularly remind clients that they need to pay for my services. It was always a bit awkward for me, having to write the message in a way that doesn’t sound rude or abrupt, yet my income and ability to manage my outgoings was dependent on clients paying in a timely manner.

Late cancellations was also a problem, where not only I had lost income, but valuable time that would have otherwise been effectively used. It was a whole new level of customer relationship management. More often than not, I wouldn’t ask for the payment unless the client kindly offered to compensate me for the lost time slot that they booked in my diary. Preserving the client relationship would mean I am making allowances for the loss of income. Even though it would leave a bitter taste in my mouth, I found myself letting it happen.

As a self-employed business without an efficient digital solution for my daily work-life integration, I was getting increasingly frustrated with this work dilemma. Talking to other freelance service providers, I quickly realised that I was not alone. Having painfully endured the PROBLEM, I decided to do something about it!

The Solution

In today’s fast paced life, we are moving away from traditional desktop web bookings and choosing to use more easily accessible mobile devices to manage all our digital needs. On the other hand, there are simply too many apps, for too many services, with varied and limiting user experiences that simply do not adequately address the problem that small freelance and self-employed service providers are facing nowadays.

My SOLUTION was to develop a single app for multiple services with same UX every time, anytime! In creating BookWith, I was led by several key principles — to create a simple, intuitive and easy to use platform. Yet, it would have to look clean, feel good to use and be pleasing on the eye.

BookWith was born from a vision to change how people provide and book services digitally in a simple to use format, and in real-time.

Ultimately, the main goal was to empower users to book and transact in real-time with the same, easy and convenient experience for all their daily activities and services. As a mobile only dual app, key benefits for providers are to reduce their time spent on admin, and in doing so, helps them to earn more money and grow their business on a trusted and FREE platform.

The Journey

Turning the idea into a fully functional Book — Pay — Connect platform is anything but plain sailing. Pursuing my ambitious long-term vision soon turned into endless hours of research, product mapping, prototyping, product development, sourcing coding expertise, and more. Creating and developing a product of any kind takes patience, commitment and sacrifice.

The initial results of this simple idea and a mountainous task were two prototype versions of the app which the industry would refer to as the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Diving deeper into the digital tech development, with self-financing whilst keeping my coaching day job and nurturing a young family with two kids is definitely not for the faint-hearted. This is an ongoing challenge which requires agility and ability to adjust to changing circumstances all the time. Keeping to a high level of quality and focus, adopting and maintaining the best practices and continuous problem solving is a team effort.

Today, we are a small team of greatly committed individuals who are highly experienced in their fields of expertise from software development and code, to commercial and strategic aspects of our start up.

The First Launch

Our early plans to release the first version of the app were delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but we used this time to extensively test the platform in-house. As we were all adapting to living with the “new normal”, we accelerated our developments with the release of new video and online features to meet the needs for “the future of working” remotely.

BookWith platform is also supported by the latest technology in location mapping. What3words places your activity provider into 3m square grid, with unique combination of 3 words and takes you precisely to the location. what3words.com

Together with other two co-founders Dylan and Adis, we at BookWith are creating a trusting community who aspire to make living for people a lot more pleasant than it was before, while saving them time and allowing them “to do more with less”

Be Part Of Our Community

Today, BookWith is the easiest way to book, pay and connect all your lifestyle activities and services in real time…a mobile-first booking platform allowing Service Providers to manage their bookings and clients at their fingertips while late cancellations become a thing of the past.

We are now on the mission of bringing this vision to life and we’d love for you to join us on this journey, download the app, be part of our community and share your story with us. BookWith App is available in iOS and Android version.

Slaven Ovuka, BookWith CEO and Co-founder