After work hours I'm continuing work on my Saas for hairdressers.
There's some big players there but I feel like I can at least still try.
I'm honestly really surprised about how much I get stuck on business logic decisions. I went into this thinking making appointments, basic managing of employees and all that would be simple and relatively similar across salons.
Additionally I'm considering where I should move to. I wish to live in a place where owning substantial land for homesteading in a relatively climate safe area (relatively doing a lot of work there but imagine not already arid or with high storm risk) is not completely out of grasp. My region of Belgium is too densely populated for this.
Even if I'm not moving to a different country even next year I figured it's the kind of thing that takes a stupid amount of preplanning.
My family owned a salon growing up, I’m pretty in tuned with this if you need help. I’d just copy the features of another app for starters. Most the features are common and a core expectation of your user (scheduling, etc). You should signup as a stylist on some of these apps to see what they offer, how they solve, and put your own spin on it. ( https://glossgenius.com/ ).
I’m In the US male hair market as a user these days and i think you could add value by increasing LTV of a customer for the stylists. I always wonder by they don’t offer a discount if you book your next appointment during your visit. Or offer a discount for annual prepayments, etc. The goal would be to have their customer 1) repeat and 2) repeat often. You could move the needle with some good incentives and marketing strategies for the stylist. If their walkins converted to repeats more often and their regulars had better “adherence” coming every 18 days on average instead of 20 days on average then you have a strong value prop for any stylist should use your tool and pay you for it!!
>You should signup as a stylist on some of these apps to see what they offer, how they solve, and put your own spin on it.
I'll discuss some more with local salons who use or have used competitors instead i think.
Perhaps it's dumb but I'm a bit skittish about being obvious when i'm looking at features of a competitor worth hundreds of millions. (I think a stake in treatwell went for 180 million a good while ago.)
> I always wonder by they don’t offer a discount if you book your next appointment during your visit.
This as a pre-configured option in the scheduling UI on the business end of things is something i haven't added yet.
I'm guessing this is not an option glossgenius?
Ps: How can I hit you up once i have an easily shared demo?
I don't.
I hope to go around to discuss stuff at local salons that use competitors next week and hope to garner some first interest along my expected feedback.
I also already know from an insider that a decently sized Belgian chain has people really frustrated with Salonised so I hope to get my foot in the door there.
However before I try that it needs to be a bit more than an MVP.
Even tho I'm a rather smooth talker and potential salesperson it took me a fair bit of courage building initially to actually approach people about my product.
I'm sure that'll get better with experience.
Down the line even if I hope to catch most customers trough unpersonal means such as online advertising, mailing, etc I'll still have to simply try and approach many larger business/chains directly.
It’s scary, but I think most people react rather positively once they understand that you aren’t trying to force them into something, but rather are trying to see if it’s possible to create a positive - sum result for both parties.
I'm honestly really surprised about how much I get stuck on business logic decisions. I went into this thinking making appointments, basic managing of employees and all that would be simple and relatively similar across salons.
Additionally I'm considering where I should move to. I wish to live in a place where owning substantial land for homesteading in a relatively climate safe area (relatively doing a lot of work there but imagine not already arid or with high storm risk) is not completely out of grasp. My region of Belgium is too densely populated for this. Even if I'm not moving to a different country even next year I figured it's the kind of thing that takes a stupid amount of preplanning.