Music:
Speaker1: Hello and welcome, everyone. This is Joe from StartupRate.io,
Speaker1: your go-to source for all things startups, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Speaker1: Today, we're driving into this game-changing startup that's redefining how businesses
Speaker1: manage their time, Timify.
Speaker1: Join us, which is Emmanuel Simon, to share the story behind the company,
Speaker1: its vision for the future, and how it's tackling one of the biggest pain points
Speaker1: in schedule and workforce management.
Speaker1: So, if you've struggled with double bookings, no-shows, or inefficiencies in
Speaker1: managing appointments, this episode is for you.
Speaker1: Stay tuned. You don't want to miss a thing.
Speaker1: Emmanuel, hello and welcome!
Speaker0: Hi, Joe, and thank you for having me.
Speaker1: Totally my pleasure. We may add up front that we worked in the past together,
Speaker1: which is, I do believe, something like 15 years ago? must
Speaker0: Be that long ago.
Speaker1: Yes oh we are we are really getting old um
Speaker1: Welcome to Startup Radio. Today, we're diving into your world of Timify.
Speaker1: And in 60 seconds, can you give us an idea what you did before and how you got involved into Timify?
Speaker0: Yes, for sure. Basically, I am a banking baby.
Speaker0: I grew up my whole business life in banking, in a management consulting company,
Speaker0: working for many banks in the IT environment.
Speaker0: And then I joined Unicredit in various managerial roles.
Speaker0: I was an assistant to a board member in the corporate and investment banking.
Speaker0: And I also run a huge project in
Speaker0: Unicredit globally to transform the bank within a 13 billion euro capital increase
Speaker0: on the cost and the IT side before I had the pleasure to join Timeify in a position
Speaker0: where basically Timeify was growing out of the startup into the scale-up,
Speaker0: although I don't like the terminology scale-up a lot.
Speaker0: For me, Timeify is like a raw but strong teenage boy, you know,
Speaker0: became quite tall in height, big muscles, but also still a bit foolish and childish.
Speaker0: And now my goal is to professionalize Timeify, to make it profitable,
Speaker0: have some very clear organization and also processes, not over-engineered, not like in a bank.
Speaker0: So we have to still be agile, fast and speedy and overall very client-driven.
Speaker0: That is basically my goal was for the last two and a half years and will be
Speaker0: for the next, hopefully, quite some time.
Speaker1: Ah, Timeify. Yeah, that actually makes more sense for our audience.
Speaker1: I would be curious, leave us a comment. what do you think is the biggest problem Timeify is solving?
Speaker0: There are actually two. Number one, the,
Speaker0: Enterprise and corporate companies, they like to hide behind the big castles
Speaker0: because they're behind their nice glass walls of their offices.
Speaker0: So the client is sometimes standing in front of that. And we are basically dismantling,
Speaker0: destructing those walls where our clients build in relation to their customers.
Speaker0: That's number one. We connect our clients with their customers.
Speaker0: Number two, our clients do have scarce resources.
Speaker0: Whatever that be, rooms, machines, human beings, salespeople,
Speaker0: sellers in a department store, whatever the resource of our client is,
Speaker0: we make sure and guarantee that these expensive and scarce resources like salespeople
Speaker0: are allocated very efficient to the services our client provide.
Speaker0: And then interact with their customers to make sure that the customers of our
Speaker0: client do have a seamless and very straightforward customer journey to increase
Speaker0: revenues and make sure that the customer of our client is a happy customer.
Speaker1: You are, as always, a pretty fast guy. You've always been pretty sporty and
Speaker1: you're way ahead of us here.
Speaker1: Let's go a little bit back. We can already tell you're not one of the founders,
Speaker1: but you were hired for this position.
Speaker1: Can you take us back to the moment you said, aha, let's join this company. Let's try it out.
Speaker1: I'm a little bit bored of consulting and banking.
Speaker0: Yeah, that was quite interesting. Because if you would have asked me like three,
Speaker0: four years ago, I would have never skipped my nice, well-paid and very secure job in banking.
Speaker0: I had a very interesting environment there, a lot of sea level and senior attention,
Speaker0: big figures, big projects.
Speaker0: But in the end, I had the opportunity to take over Timeify.
Speaker0: And I strongly believe and I have the deepest respect for the decision that
Speaker0: especially founders who grew a little baby, their own baby from scratch.
Speaker0: One employee, two employees, maybe two, three founders. And you have a couple
Speaker0: of first clients. You have 10 colleagues working with you. But there comes a
Speaker0: point where you need some kind of different management style, right?
Speaker0: So people who are able to found a company from scratch might not be the right
Speaker0: person and might not have the right skill set to grow a company from 50 up to 200 employees.
Speaker0: On the other side, I clearly have to admit I would have not been able to found
Speaker0: a company like Timeify or any other company that's simply not my home turf, right?
Speaker0: But managing 50, 60, 70, 80 people, giving them a clear strategy,
Speaker0: supporting this strategy with a clear vision and mission based on a clear foundation
Speaker0: in terms of organization,
Speaker0: company organization, supported once again by a healthy amount of processes.
Speaker0: Still keeping flexibility, taking also sometimes hard decisions, right?
Speaker0: That's what you also have to do. It's not always sunshine every day.
Speaker0: That is a bit more my sweet spot.
Speaker0: And if you look back at most likely many founders, sometimes you cannot play
Speaker0: business as you want to because you need a favor left, a favor right.
Speaker0: You're happy for the first client.
Speaker0: You give to this client maybe more than you wanted to provide in terms of services or support.
Speaker0: And then how do you get back from this very personal interaction and lift and
Speaker0: come to the next professional level, which is simply a more professionalized setup?
Speaker0: The downside is you might lose a bit of your spirit. Yes, that's right.
Speaker0: But it's sometimes simply required. As I said, scale-up is, I think, not a right term.
Speaker0: But if you look at companies like Tamify after a couple of years,
Speaker0: like a teenage boy, I mean, there's a lot of potential, right?
Speaker0: There's a lot of power. There's a lot of energy.
Speaker0: But it has to be centralized and streamlined.
Speaker0: And that is, as I said, pretty much my sweet spot.
Speaker0: And so far, this is running, I would say, good.
Speaker1: You
Speaker1: Hmm. People can already tell you that.
Speaker0: I am.
Speaker1: Yes, there is a difference in skill set from founding a company to leading a growing company.
Speaker1: And I actually realized some of the entrepreneurs, they just stagnate,
Speaker1: but the company stagnates together with them.
Speaker1: They stay on a certain level, maybe 50 employees, and then it doesn't grow anymore.
Speaker0: There is a reason, right? If you look at big corporates and big enterprise companies,
Speaker0: why managers move from different departments,
Speaker0: different teams, different managerial roles every three to, I would say, six years.
Speaker0: There is simply a reason. It does make sense.
Speaker0: If you work for a long time with the same people in the same environment.
Speaker0: You don't see new opportunities. you see old issues, right?
Speaker0: So sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes, a fresh mindset.
Speaker0: It doesn't mean that you're doing a bad job, not at all.
Speaker0: But if you sometimes have a new input, a little job rotation, it helps, right?
Speaker0: It simply helps to increase understanding for the other side.
Speaker0: If I change job completely in a big enterprise company from department A to department B, You know,
Speaker0: I take my knowledge with me and then I can try to connect and bring people together
Speaker0: and increase understanding for both sides.
Speaker0: It's like with traveling and understanding different cultures.
Speaker0: That's the same model in a big enterprise.
Speaker0: And that's also for small companies. You simply have to see,
Speaker0: is the leadership that was able to start a company.
Speaker0: Also able to run a company that is growing in whatever size.
Speaker0: I have to clearly admit I have the deepest, really, respect of funding a company.
Speaker0: I tell you honestly, I would be, I think, even too scared and I would not be in a position to do that.
Speaker0: But then taking over from a certain point in terms of development and also growth
Speaker0: is pretty much my sweet spot.
Speaker0: And that's where I can really see with a corporate or enterprise know-how and
Speaker0: experience, you can create big value add to smaller companies. Is that always the case?
Speaker0: No. I'm pretty sure that there are many founders who can go all the way and
Speaker0: who are also developing in that way, but not all.
Speaker0: And hence then realizing that it might be time for a change also is something
Speaker0: that I have to admire and clearly have to express my respect.
Speaker1: Yes, I see. So you're in favor of moving management roles every few years.
Speaker1: So I'll avoid asking you what you're planning to do in five years.
Speaker0: Honestly, I do not know. Hopefully, Temify is growing very well.
Speaker0: But five years, I don't know.
Speaker1: What was the major challenge you faced when you joined Temify in your early days as CEO?
Speaker0: Well, number one, as I said, is really professionalizing the whole structure,
Speaker0: making sure everybody knows his, her role and position, how to interact.
Speaker0: That is number one.
Speaker0: Number two, I joined Timeify recently.
Speaker0: At an, I would say, economically changing time, right?
Speaker0: In the last, I would say, 10, 12 years, the macroeconomic environment was in favor of startups.
Speaker0: I think with this zero interest policy in the last couple years,
Speaker0: growth at all costs was simply the mantra of the market. You had to show growth.
Speaker0: Was growth profitable was not the important question, right?
Speaker0: When I joined Tamify, the macroeconomic situation was different.
Speaker0: Basically, interest rates rose. Money was worth something again.
Speaker0: So I clearly had the task to make Tamify profitable.
Speaker0: We had to grow, but we also had to look at cost.
Speaker0: There are two sides of a balance sheet. One is top line, but there's also a
Speaker0: bottom line. And in between, you somehow have to manage your cost and make sure
Speaker0: that your margin is somewhere there.
Speaker0: So this was the second big challenge,
Speaker0: making clear that we have to become profitable, which you can influence by top-line
Speaker0: growth, number one, but also becoming more efficient, right?
Speaker0: If you produce new features, but, for example, your hosting costs are outrageous
Speaker0: and never, never will be covered by the license fees you earn from your clients,
Speaker0: well, you have to rethink the whole thing, I would say, right?
Speaker0: In the past, the feature was everything, make it fancy, make it shiny, as long as it's there.
Speaker0: I think we are now with money worth, again,
Speaker0: something, we're in a different world where you have to become profitable,
Speaker0: you have to show a margin, you have to show a solid growth that didn't change.
Speaker0: But I think the focus became a bit or moved a bit away from growth to the overall
Speaker0: picture of a balance sheet.
Speaker1: Going a little bit into the industry and market landscape, I'd like to play a little what-if game.
Speaker1: If Temify becomes a household name, what industry shift made that possible?
Speaker0: Well, number one, Corona was a big boost for us, I have to admit.
Speaker0: There was the lockdown and you were able to only open your stores with click and collect.
Speaker0: That was quite convenient. We onboarded thousands of stores over the weekend.
Speaker0: So that was a big big booster for us um overall also i see that um economic,
Speaker0: issues on the in the german and core european industry are pushing our business in terms of,
Speaker0: making sure that the that the very cost uh sensitive resources like salesperson,
Speaker0: like people who work at a department store have to be, you know,
Speaker0: they have to keep busy, right?
Speaker0: I mean, if you work in banking, you're obliged to have roughly four to five sales meetings per day.
Speaker0: If you only have four versus five and do that every day, at the end of the week,
Speaker0: you have 20% less revenues and your boss will knock on your door saying,
Speaker0: hey, Joe, what's going on? Why did your revenues drop, right?
Speaker0: So we are ensuring that there is a very efficient allocation of these salespeople,
Speaker0: for example, in a bank with the customers of a bank that as soon as somebody is canceling a meeting,
Speaker0: there are other meetings coming in or there's somebody actively contacted who
Speaker0: has a meeting in two weeks' time. Hey, we got a slot early up front.
Speaker0: You want to take the opportunity and we fill up the calendar.
Speaker0: At the same time, we reduce extremely the manual effort, which is a stupid effort,
Speaker0: of aligning meetings, right?
Speaker0: If it's a one-on-one relationship, you and me, we agree on a meeting, that's easy, right?
Speaker0: But just assume there are four or five participants and you're coordinating
Speaker0: that, that's crazy, right? And we send out a booking link and you book it, that's fair.
Speaker1: It really depends how much you know each other, what time zones you are in.
Speaker1: Before I used such a solution, I was actually mailing back and forth five to
Speaker1: ten times just simple emails on availability. And that's where I cut all of that.
Speaker0: Exactly.
Speaker1: People already notice you're a
Speaker1: little bit bigger scheduling solutions than others they are familiar with.
Speaker1: What do people get wrong about scheduling solutions and what are you doing differently
Speaker1: here than many of your competitors?
Speaker0: Well, then let me start with our competitors.
Speaker0: So Timeify is very clear. We are the Calendly for grownups, right?
Speaker0: If you compare us with our competitors, the big ones, Calendly,
Speaker0: Microsoft Bookings, Google Calendar, they're all very good, right?
Speaker0: We can do the same, but they're good in one-to-one relationships.
Speaker0: You open your calendar, I book a meeting, I click on the link, boom, ready, right?
Speaker0: And Tamify then basically starts
Speaker0: where those solutions end for the sophisticated and complex use case.
Speaker0: Or let me describe it in mathematical terms where N stands for a placeholder of a big figure.
Speaker0: And we solve the equation N times four.
Speaker0: N multiplied by N multiplied by N multiplied by N.
Speaker0: First N is our clients to have many locations, stores, departments,
Speaker0: sales hubs, whatever it is.
Speaker0: Number two, our clients to have many, many resources. As I said,
Speaker0: it can be a salesperson, a room, a laptop, a machine, a chair, a table. What do I know?
Speaker1: Can it also be a technician you can send somewhere?
Speaker0: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Software, for example, right? A software version can be our resource.
Speaker0: Then basically, you can make those resources smart, right?
Speaker0: You can give them tags and attributes, e.g.
Speaker0: If you work in banking and you need a special
Speaker0: certification to sell mortgage loans
Speaker0: maybe you need one certification mortgage loans
Speaker0: up to one million and another certification one million
Speaker0: at upwards right or you need another certification
Speaker0: to sell stock options and
Speaker0: derivatives right so we connect the resources with their skill set in any combination
Speaker0: we can combine the resources we say well for this meeting we need resource a
Speaker0: because he has this skill set and resource B for that skill set or you choose
Speaker0: out of a pool of resources.
Speaker0: Colleagues who have the same skills. That's the second N. The third N is the services.
Speaker0: You can then connect any kind of service you want to provide with those different
Speaker0: resources on any date or place you want.
Speaker0: You can say in the morning, our sales guy is only available in that combination
Speaker0: with that skill set in location A and in the afternoon only in location B.
Speaker0: And you see if N becomes a big figure, It's quite a complex equation we solve.
Speaker0: And the fourth N is hopefully a huge amount of customers our clients do have.
Speaker0: And then they're basically going through a very seamless journey.
Speaker0: And hopefully in the end, sign a contract, cut a deal, pay a product,
Speaker0: buy a product, whatever it is, right?
Speaker0: Our clients offer to their customers.
Speaker0: So in a nutshell, basically, excuse me?
Speaker0: No, in a nutshell, if you look at Microsoft, allow me the expression,
Speaker0: Microsoft Google is pretty much the entry drug into scheduling, right?
Speaker0: Once you're not happy anymore with Microsoft scheduling facilities,
Speaker0: which is free of charge as soon as you have a Microsoft license,
Speaker0: which is quite expensive,
Speaker0: basically companies come to us because you don't write Microsoft in email saying,
Speaker0: Hey, I have this edge case here. Can you help me out, please?
Speaker0: You do with us. We support. We have a very clear philosophy of supporting and
Speaker0: listening to our clients, which we do and we don't onboard them and leave them
Speaker0: alone. We are there for our clients, actually.
Speaker1: Mm-hmm. When you painted that mental picture, what I had in mind is that you
Speaker1: can manage a big organization in terms of sales, in terms of customer support,
Speaker1: in terms of technical support across different time zones.
Speaker0: Exactly. Time zone is totally included. That's not a topic we have to deal with.
Speaker0: Also like holidays or national holidays, sick days, a very nice feature we just released.
Speaker0: If you have a sales team of five people, right?
Speaker0: Sales team, they have certain skills. They have meeting slots,
Speaker0: et cetera, pp. then with a connection to the HR tool from our client,
Speaker0: one Zaitz guy calls in sick, right?
Speaker0: Which usually means someone has to call the customers, cancel five appointments,
Speaker0: reschedule for the next week, whatever it is, right?
Speaker0: With our system, the system checks, oh, the customer needed service A.
Speaker0: We have maybe other four resources who can provide the service.
Speaker0: And there's one resource free at exactly that time slot and it's automatically
Speaker0: rescheduling the meeting to avoid that the client is maybe entering a meeting
Speaker0: without having somebody covering from the client side or the meeting has to be postponed.
Speaker0: So we make sure that the calendars is filled up properly and our sales colleagues
Speaker0: are kept busy and then also creating a positive impact on the revenue creation of our client.
Speaker1: Mm-hmm so um
Speaker1: before i get to the to the
Speaker1: next question that i had while you were talking um and
Speaker1: um i was wondering can you get kpis for example for marketing uh how many requests
Speaker1: are coming in and how close you are to capacity in terms of your sales for marketing
Speaker1: do more of this do more of that?
Speaker0: Yeah, you have a huge statistic area where you can see how many bookings,
Speaker0: which day, which time actually the bookings have been scheduled.
Speaker0: So you can, if you see all your bookings have been scheduled,
Speaker0: let's assume in the evening between 7 and 11 p.m. for the next day, okay?
Speaker0: Then you can say, well, I want to increase my paid advertisement on Google because
Speaker0: an hour before that, so you start at six where people start looking for that
Speaker0: kind of service, that kind of slot,
Speaker0: increase your capacity on there,
Speaker0: exactly on that time slot, and then make sure your advertisement is placed at
Speaker0: the right time, right screen.
Speaker1: So were you talking, I also had another question, in how many languages is your solution available?
Speaker0: Well, you have to differentiate from customer point of view.
Speaker0: So the booker who's booking a meeting, pretty much unlimited.
Speaker0: Our system where our client, the end user is using, I think we currently have,
Speaker0: you know, you got me, it's almost 20 languages.
Speaker1: Almost 20 languages, because I had a conversation with one of my consulting clients last night,
Speaker1: and actually I was forced to explain how many upcoming holidays we do have and when they are.
Speaker1: Just looking here at my calendar, for example, that the Friday before Easter
Speaker1: and the Monday after Easter is a public holiday.
Speaker1: And we do have two Thursdays coming up that are public holidays in multiple states of Germany.
Speaker1: And we do have with Monday and so on and so forth.
Speaker1: So there's a lot you need to explain.
Speaker1: Do you also have a solution for that for international clients?
Speaker0: That is the core of Tamify. You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker0: All international holidays are covered. So, for example, if you're trying to
Speaker0: coordinate a meeting on Friday before Easter, it's simply impossible because
Speaker0: it's automatically blocked.
Speaker0: Unless you unblock it manually if you want to work on Easter Friday.
Speaker1: Depends on your relationship with their family, right?
Speaker0: Exactly.
Speaker1: Beyond features, what kind of experience do you want users to have when interacting with Tamify?
Speaker1: First, like your customers and the customers of your customers,
Speaker1: which is the thing your customers are actually buying it for.
Speaker1: OK, and now diagram this sentence in your head.
Speaker0: Well, with our clients, I want them to realize how powerful Timeify is and how
Speaker0: extremely deep are the possibilities of customization, right?
Speaker0: It really reduces the manual effort coordinating meetings for our clients.
Speaker0: On the customer side, which we also call the booker who's booking a meeting,
Speaker0: we can customize also this journey.
Speaker0: Basically, we do have many clients who use us in their HR department. All righty?
Speaker0: If you, for example, look at hiring processes.
Speaker0: I mean, everybody who applied for a job in the last couple of years knows maybe
Speaker0: the first interview is easy, right? But you have to coordinate the meeting.
Speaker0: The second interview, maybe you need a team head and an HR guy.
Speaker0: And then you're playing with meetings. You get an email, three slots.
Speaker0: You say, yes, I want the first slot. Then you get a reply. Ah,
Speaker0: sorry. Now the first slot is not available anymore.
Speaker0: Now we have three different slots. Pick one. And then it goes back and forth
Speaker0: and you have email ping pong.
Speaker0: Terrible. right or how cool would
Speaker0: that be if you apply for a job you simply
Speaker0: click on the booking link you have the meeting scheduled with the
Speaker0: two people or three people you need um after that the hr guy says hey that was
Speaker0: a good interview we continue automatically our system sends out another email
Speaker0: saying hey congratulations you made the next step now you're into you with the
Speaker0: big boss another hr by a team colleague, whatever, again, click here.
Speaker0: And a couple hours or days or an hour before the meeting, you also get a reminder
Speaker0: or SMS to make sure that you do not miss your meeting.
Speaker0: So in that perspective, if I look at the HR case from the applicant point of
Speaker0: view, our clients have two scenarios, right?
Speaker0: If you look for a DevOps developer who is highly skilled, Basically,
Speaker0: companies are happy if those people simply...
Speaker0: Apply right so they need name email
Speaker0: address maybe a phone number that's simply apply right
Speaker0: there are other jobs where you say well i want to
Speaker0: you know make it a bit more tricky to receive
Speaker0: applications so i want to have an upload of your cv
Speaker0: i need a i don't
Speaker0: know your driving license uploaded some comments a free field where you enter
Speaker0: some text about you and i need your residence etc pp so that you avoid that
Speaker0: everybody is applying for the job and you have some kind of criteria as why people apply, right?
Speaker0: So in that perspective, from the booker side, I always want to make it very
Speaker0: easy to book an appointment.
Speaker0: What I want to say is that there are also situations where you can make it a
Speaker0: bit more complicated so people do not book appointments, right?
Speaker0: Nevertheless, from a customer or a booker point of view, It simply has to be
Speaker0: seamless and very clear, right?
Speaker0: You need a couple of clicks, and then you enter into your appointment.
Speaker0: And, of course, we don't have to talk about reminders and synchronization to
Speaker0: your preferred email and Outlook mailbox and calendar system.
Speaker1: I was wondering when you talked about this scheduling with three people from HR,
Speaker1: if somebody from the HR people calls and sick that day, basically,
Speaker1: you two can reassign if there's an exceptional substitute, you can replace this
Speaker1: person in the interview and you don't have to reschedule with a potential employee, right?
Speaker0: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker1: I was wondering, how are you leveraging AI and automation in all of that?
Speaker0: Yeah. So we do have, we released just recently our Timeify Assistant,
Speaker0: which is an additional feature from Timeify.
Speaker0: We can produce and very fast create skills for our client.
Speaker0: As I said, this rescheduling assistant or early slot wait list or the next skill
Speaker0: set will be a birthday or event promotion that you automatically remind people
Speaker0: and send maybe voucher codes or gift cards or,
Speaker0: hey, Joe, happy birthday. We haven't heard for a long time.
Speaker0: Why don't you want to book a meeting with whatever your counterpart at your
Speaker0: trusted bank you're working with or something like that?
Speaker0: These are skill sets AI supported where we basically,
Speaker0: with the intention to reduce once again the manual effort regarding scheduling
Speaker0: and support our clients in optimizing their interaction with their customers.
Speaker0: Our goal is basically quite easy.
Speaker0: This whole back and forth email scheduling should be optimized, right?
Speaker0: That's very easy. You should not worry about, oh, goddammit,
Speaker0: I have to coordinate meetings for groups, for single bookings,
Speaker0: for multiple bookings, for recurring bookings.
Speaker0: You should not. You should press some buttons, best case in our Timeify environment,
Speaker0: and then everything runs automatically.
Speaker1: Plus an automated or partially automated allocation of resources.
Speaker1: I vividly remember how difficult it was back in the days to book a meeting room for any given meeting.
Speaker0: Yeah, that is true. That should simply not be part of our daily business day.
Speaker1: We'll be back after a short ad break where we talk about business model and growth strategy.
Speaker1: Hey guys, welcome back to our interview with Emanuel Simon, CEO of Tamify Next
Speaker1: Generation Scheduling and, I would say, resource allocation tool.
Speaker1: We are talking about your business model and growth strategy here.
Speaker1: What's the revenue engine of Tamify? Can you break it down simply?
Speaker0: Well in terms of verticals we
Speaker0: are widely spread we do have benchmark clients
Speaker0: in the banking environment insurance optician
Speaker0: segment also hearing aid is becoming more and more actually recently bike industry
Speaker0: electric bike industry becomes bigger bigger for us so overall one could say that wherever there is,
Speaker0: more demand on scheduling than an easy one-to-one relationship.
Speaker0: That's where the sweet spot of Timeify is, and that's where our growth perspective
Speaker0: and opportunities jump in.
Speaker0: We're not specialized on any vertical. That's the beauty of Timeify.
Speaker0: If you tomorrow say instead of selling cars or e-bikes, I want to sell red gummy
Speaker0: bears, you sell red gummy bears. we don't stop you to do so.
Speaker0: And tomorrow you offer services selling red gummy bears. You can do it actually
Speaker0: in milliseconds, right?
Speaker0: So we don't stop our clients to grow. Actually, we want to partner up with them.
Speaker0: We want to support them to grow. If you want to open a new store tomorrow,
Speaker0: well, don't worry about scheduling and making it possible. We are there.
Speaker0: In terms of product development, next to our Tamify assistant,
Speaker0: We just released queuing will become our next big thing because queuing and scheduling is related.
Speaker0: And my colleagues are working heavily on an extremely outstanding queuing solution
Speaker0: that is then fully integrated into your scheduling where you can prioritize.
Speaker0: You can define VIP clients. You can maybe prioritize even people who,
Speaker0: I don't know, if a mother with two kids and pregnant is coming in,
Speaker0: boom, you prioritize her and she gets the next free slot for the services you
Speaker0: offer or whatever you fancy,
Speaker0: including a hardware support.
Speaker0: We don't do that by ourselves, but we have a partner who is providing a hardware
Speaker0: support in terms of tablets and screens, et cetera, for your point of sales.
Speaker1: I'm wondering queuing, queuing in terms of just simply email,
Speaker1: booking links in terms of phone or even with the chatbot on the website.
Speaker0: Yeah, that's basically everything. So just assume you have scheduling already and let's assume that,
Speaker0: to our recent industry that it grows a lot, to the bike shop,
Speaker0: bike store industry, right?
Speaker0: So you schedule a meeting online for buying a new bike, right?
Speaker0: Basically, with our tool, you can also increase the amount of meetings for high
Speaker0: margin services you offer.
Speaker0: If you say, well, selling a bike brings more cash to my company than having
Speaker0: a service for a bike or just adjusting the wheel of the bike,
Speaker0: it's just two euros, but selling a bike brings you 10,000 euros.
Speaker0: You prioritize and you offer more meetings to sell bikes.
Speaker0: But then a day before the day comes, you say, well, if I don't have enough meetings
Speaker0: for selling bikes, I open the calendar for those service meetings to make sure
Speaker0: that my people are still busy.
Speaker0: And then basically you have people who don't book a meeting,
Speaker0: but they come in your store and say, hey, I want to buy a bike, right?
Speaker0: So either way, you have a big screen in your entrance and they type in their
Speaker0: credentials and you have someone in your store checking who it is.
Speaker0: Or you have somebody with a tablet in your hand typing in the credentials.
Speaker0: And this client says, oh, I want to buy a bike.
Speaker0: You prioritize him. And the next available slot, boom, he gets.
Speaker0: Waiting time, two minutes. Or he says, well, here's my old bike.
Speaker0: Please, can you check if my wheel and my brakes are properly working?
Speaker0: They say, well, that's like a 10-euro job.
Speaker0: This guy has to wait an hour maybe because prioritized is the meeting to sell
Speaker0: a bike, which is from a margin point of view much more attractive than simply
Speaker0: checking the brakes of a bike.
Speaker0: I hope this example was understandable somehow. Yeah.
Speaker0: And you can do that in every industry.
Speaker0: If you look at the high-end retail industry, we're based in Munich.
Speaker0: If you go here, downtown Munich, there are sometimes queues in front of the
Speaker0: high-end companies, the big brands.
Speaker0: So how cool would it be if one of your VIP clients is checking in and you realize,
Speaker0: oh, this guy just checked in, so I prioritize him.
Speaker0: Although there's a big queue outside, this guy shows up and you sent him a QR code.
Speaker0: The guy at the door is scanning it and you prioritized him. And this guy is surpassing the queue.
Speaker0: And just imagine what reaction that is. Everybody in the queue says,
Speaker0: what the hell? Who is that?
Speaker0: How can I become as important as this guy?
Speaker0: How much do I have to buy to skip the queue, right? To skip the line.
Speaker0: So these are the funny things you can do with queuing in connection with scheduling.
Speaker0: And then whether it be for bikes or big fashion brands or for government,
Speaker0: if you go to one of our Kreisverwaltungsreferate or official… Which.
Speaker1: Is the county administration offices, yes.
Speaker0: Thank you. Like that, it doesn't matter.
Speaker0: We don't care what the service is or what the place. you can you can basically
Speaker0: treat that all pretty much the same right.
Speaker1: To our audience i
Speaker1: was wondering how do you guys think timeify can expand its reach um emmanuel
Speaker1: another question because we now realize you have small smes and really big enterprise
Speaker1: customers how do you approach them differently what's your different go-to-market strategy there
Speaker0: Well, the SMB clients, we highly appreciate them, but basically they register
Speaker0: via our homepage, and basically that's a self-registration process.
Speaker0: Corporate enterprise company, we have active outreach.
Speaker0: We spend really human resources on talking to them, interacting with them,
Speaker0: having meetings, providing them proper onboarding.
Speaker0: Sometimes, and I totally understand that,
Speaker0: companies don't even want Tomify to appear,
Speaker0: so they connect us via our very well-defined and structured API,
Speaker0: and we are a white-label solution totally embedded into the IT architecture
Speaker0: and landscape of our clients.
Speaker0: So you don't even realize that you book a meeting, except you read the data
Speaker0: privacy policy. That's where we mentioned.
Speaker0: But operational, you don't realize that it's time to find. And we do not have
Speaker0: an ego saying, well, but we need our logo on your landing page.
Speaker0: As long as it works for you, I am a happy service provider, right?
Speaker0: In the enterprise segment, I clearly have to say the coverage of clients is important, right?
Speaker0: It is very, very important. I think...
Speaker0: Not being for ages now part of the SaaS industry,
Speaker0: I think many companies underestimated the effort and the requirements needed to keep clients,
Speaker0: to basically not only sign a client, but also keep clients as happy clients for quite a long term.
Speaker0: Because you need to interact, you have to schedule your fixes weekly,
Speaker0: monthly, by yearly, whatever it is, right?
Speaker0: But you need a counterpart. You need somebody you can play with on the other
Speaker0: side in a big corporation. Those people change.
Speaker0: They move on to new jobs, et cetera, pp.
Speaker0: So you need a good coverage not only before you sign a contract,
Speaker0: but also after you sign a contract.
Speaker0: And then it always sounds easy to connect and implement new IT.
Speaker0: But in the end, that is many, many times still people business to make sure
Speaker0: that everything runs smoothly and your software is properly used on the client side.
Speaker1: I was thinking about a question. I should write them down and pay not so much
Speaker1: attention to what you're saying because I completely forgot.
Speaker1: Let us go a little bit into the finances just a tiny bit.
Speaker1: Last time you raced, according to Crunchbase, funding was in 2020.
Speaker1: And so far, you've raced, according to them, 11.5 million euros.
Speaker1: I was wondering, how do you balance rapid growth with financial sustainability,
Speaker1: given the current environment of higher interest rate?
Speaker1: Plus, just recently, much more insecure world with the Trump tariff introduction
Speaker1: here, which may or may not wreak havoc on the global economy.
Speaker0: Well, I think I have a big advantage coming out of the banking industry,
Speaker0: being a bit more old school.
Speaker0: I learned the hard way that you should earn first money before you spend it, right?
Speaker0: So that's pretty much my own personal DNA, first earning the money.
Speaker0: And then defining how to spend it.
Speaker0: Nevertheless, growth, it's still a growth game, right? So you have to always be on the edge.
Speaker0: So cash on the bank account is nice for all CEOs, let you sleep well,
Speaker0: but it's unproductive liquidity, right?
Speaker0: So you have to invest it in terms of more sales, more product,
Speaker0: whatever you currently need.
Speaker0: So honestly, I can't give you an all-answering and all-solving answer.
Speaker0: It's simply a trade-off, right? Sometimes you have to be a bit more on the risky
Speaker0: side. Sometimes you have to be a bit more on the safe side.
Speaker0: Nevertheless, as we touched it before, profitability is key these days,
Speaker0: and at the same time, you have to grow. So you have to find a proper balance
Speaker0: that I think depends on your shareholder structure.
Speaker0: Are they willing to provide more cash? Then you can be more aggressive.
Speaker0: Are they not? Then you should be more restrictive. So there is no right or wrong.
Speaker0: I think every company has to find its own way based on the very clear requirements.
Speaker0: Become profitable. Become self-sustaining.
Speaker0: But you also have to grow.
Speaker0: And somewhere in between there, you have to find your own way.
Speaker1: That's right. And I remember what I was wanting to ask you before that question
Speaker1: because the simple per return principle, 80-20,
Speaker1: I've realized a lot of companies make 80% of the revenue and they're for profit with 20% of the clients.
Speaker1: That goes into what you've been telling about, keeping your most important clients happy.
Speaker0: Yeah, true. But at the same time, it's easier to say than than really to do.
Speaker0: You should not be dependent on a couple of big clients, right?
Speaker0: Even from investor point of view, they don't like to see the bulk risk in your top line.
Speaker1: Going a little bit into team and leadership values, what are the core values
Speaker1: that define the Tamify culture?
Speaker0: Well, I do have a big history in sports.
Speaker0: Besides working and playing and spending time with my family,
Speaker0: I'm totally into sports.
Speaker0: I played semi-professional baseball in Germany, which is not common at all.
Speaker0: But it was fun back in the days so I do know what teamwork is all about,
Speaker0: so the core principles basically for me is number one speak up culture I need
Speaker0: people independent from their role and responsibility to speak up I need to
Speaker0: know what's good what's bad, what they like, what they don't like.
Speaker0: In the end we find agreement we find a compromise And then I don't care what
Speaker0: happened before or who was on the other side of the discussion.
Speaker0: After we exchanged all critical points, after everybody raised his position
Speaker0: and clearly showed speak up culture, we go in the same direction. That's number one.
Speaker0: Number two is clearly teamwork. And the funny thing is people always ask me,
Speaker0: what do you understand by teamwork?
Speaker0: And the reality is on a daily basis, it's different. On a daily base,
Speaker0: you work in different teams, different groups, different colleagues.
Speaker0: So your position, your role, and what is required to make this team a well-performing
Speaker0: team is different, right?
Speaker0: So just ask yourself, what can I do to make this project, this sprint, this team a good one?
Speaker0: If it means that nobody's taking notes and I, as the CEO, should do that, well, hell, I do.
Speaker0: If it helps, I do, no matter what, right? I can ask somebody or I make sure
Speaker0: that somebody's taking notes just as a stupid example.
Speaker0: But every team has to make sure that it's professional, it's working and to
Speaker0: simply enter into a different role.
Speaker0: So teamwork for me is super important. I don't like finger pointing culture. I hate that. Okay.
Speaker0: And number three is clearly ownership and responsibility.
Speaker0: I worked long enough in big corporates and I'm always exploding if I hear the
Speaker0: sentence, somebody should do something.
Speaker0: Well, I worked in companies with over 100,000 employees and I never had a colleague
Speaker0: whose name was somebody and I never saw the somebody doing something, right?
Speaker0: So take ownership and responsibility. If you want something to be done,
Speaker0: ask this person, ask this team very clearly.
Speaker0: And if you realize a spot, I could hire 100 more people in Tamifar, right?
Speaker0: But currently, that's not the time to do so.
Speaker0: So I have more jobs to allocate than people I can ask for, right?
Speaker0: And that means just take ownership and responsibility. Do things.
Speaker0: I'd rather have people do 1,000 things and do 100 errors rather than doing 10
Speaker0: things and one error, right? I don't care about errors, do errors.
Speaker0: If you do things, even if it's in relation to clients, we can talk about that.
Speaker0: But not doing things, not answering to clients, not picking up a ball,
Speaker0: not picking up a loose end.
Speaker0: Sometimes we simply have to accept, okay, after we talked about it, nobody's taking care.
Speaker0: Let's leave it there until we hire somebody who is taking care.
Speaker0: But at least we should tackle that topic. We should pick it up.
Speaker0: We should not be afraid of picking up things. We might not be an expert.
Speaker0: That happens, then we look at it.
Speaker0: We push it as far as we can. If we make an error, we learn.
Speaker0: But we get up the next day. So take ownership and responsibility is the third.
Speaker0: Speak up culture, teamwork, ownership, and responsibility. That are my three core values.
Speaker1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker1: Lessons for future entrepreneurs, maybe even actionable.
Speaker1: What's the one piece of advice you wish you had received before starting at Temify?
Speaker0: There's one thing I underestimated, I have to admit, that although we are progressing
Speaker0: on a daily basis and our development is really going upwards,
Speaker0: I underestimated that it's going upwards, but in high waves,
Speaker0: right? It's going up and down.
Speaker0: The trend is going in the right direction.
Speaker0: But I underestimated that it's really going in ways.
Speaker0: One week, you overachieve all your goals, everything runs smooth, and you're super happy.
Speaker0: And the next week, everything turns around totally the opposite,
Speaker0: right? So honestly, I underestimated how wavy the journey is to grow.
Speaker0: It's not, you know, every day a little step.
Speaker0: It's sometimes a big step forward and then also a big step in the negative way.
Speaker0: And I think as long as the trend is in the right direction and this wave is
Speaker0: going upwards, you're on a good track. but simply accept that there are also
Speaker0: times and challenges that hit you hard, right?
Speaker1: You're totally right. I'd like to go a little bit with the last few questions,
Speaker1: looking ahead for Timeify.
Speaker1: Two questions are now coming, typical standards, and I assume you have to say
Speaker1: twice, yes. Are you open to talk to new investors?
Speaker0: Always.
Speaker1: Are you looking for talented people to join your team?
Speaker0: As well. See?
Speaker1: Yves, what's your long-term vision for Timeify and what's next?
Speaker0: Well, basically, our strategy is to really become the global leader in sophisticated
Speaker0: enterprise scheduling solutions.
Speaker0: We reached EBITDA break-even last year, November, December.
Speaker0: It's a little more to be cash flow positive. And then basically,
Speaker0: I want to grow, grow, grow.
Speaker0: Product-wise, I already said, next to new skills in our AI-based Tamify assistant,
Speaker0: queuing or line management becomes our next topic we want to deploy this year.
Speaker0: Many clients from us already asked. It creates a lot of traffic and tension
Speaker0: and basically having a great and powerful scheduling tool.
Speaker0: It's just, you know, we don't start from scratch for queuing.
Speaker0: It's just a little add-on we produce.
Speaker0: Honestly, I want to see many happy clients using Timeify and people using online
Speaker0: appointments. That would be my dream.
Speaker1: That is pretty great. Emmanuel, it was such a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker1: Thank you very much. Only one question left.
Speaker1: Where can people connect to you and learn about Tamify? We'll,
Speaker1: as always, link down your LinkedIn profile here.
Speaker1: I assume everybody who's interested in investing in the company,
Speaker1: they can reach out straight there.
Speaker1: And there would be an HR link for Tamify where people can apply.
Speaker0: So people can directly apply on our homepage. You can directly reach me over
Speaker0: LinkedIn and I send you a booking link, of course, so you can directly book
Speaker0: your slot with me, my calendar.
Speaker1: Via Timeify.
Speaker0: Via Timeify, of course.
Speaker1: Yes. To our audience, the closing question. What's the one question you would ask Emmanuel?
Speaker1: Drop it in the comments below. Emmanuel, thank you very much.
Speaker0: Thank you very much for having me. Have a great day.
Speaker1: YouTube, bye-bye
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