Jamie Stephens’ page illustrates the ability of Book’d to facilitate scheduling for a variety of appointments.
The genesis of Book’d, an online booking and scheduling engine, revolved around one simple theme, which it aims to remedy: Wasted time.
“We recognized that too much time was wasted. Period. Whether it was wasted trying to match schedules or an hour of time was left without a purpose, the problem existed,” said Emily Eldridge, the CEO of the Columbia, Mo.-based startup. “Our goal in creating Book’d is to create more time for people by removing the complexities of scheduling it.”
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Founded by Jamie Stephens, Book’d targets service-based small businesses and sole proprietorships that work with customers on an appointment basis — think hair salons, chiropractors, personal trainers, tattoo artists and event venues.
Scheduling can be done via a standalone website, a landing page or an embeddable widget. The landing page and website options use responsive web design, allowing customers to view the page from any device.
Book’d was designed with the tech-averse user in mind. Anyone using Book’d can manage their web presence, multiple users, events, invoices and gift codes through the administrative page and back-end calendar that can be integrated with iCal and Google Calendar .
Users can also accept payments via Paypal and Stripe, with additional payment processing options coming in the future, Eldridge (left) said.
Basic functionality with a landing page or widget is free, Eldridge said, but Book’d will offer tiered, flat-fee monthly pricing for advanced features.
The company will enter private beta on Sept. 10, and users will be able to start claiming their landing pages. Registration for private beta users will end Sept. 12, Eldridge said. The embeddable widget and booking websites will be available post-beta. “We want to do this very slowly to ensure that all system components are working and that we can offer the proper amount of support to each individual user,” Eldridge said.
Book’d has four employees working under Eldridge, with two others who are contracted and work remotely.
There is a long list of competitors in the online booking market, including Appointment-plus and Schedulicity. Others, like Groupon Scheduler, StyleSeat and Checkfront, a WordPress plugin, compete with some aspects of Book’d, Eldridge said. The company also plans to compete with personal scheduling services such as Tungle.me.
Eldridge said the company has taken on a small amount of seed capital from local investors, including a recent round from AdVentures.
Credits: Top screenshot from beta.bookd.com. Phot of Eldridge from twitter.com.
