Toronto startup's booking app attracts barbershops from around the world

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/day-to-day/hamilton-startups-booking-app-attracts-barbershops-from-around-the-world/article19291529/#dashboard/follows/

by chriswoodford • 12 years ago

69 28 12 years ago

theglobeandmail.com

kstop• 12 years ago

I use this (and the services of the Crow's Nest as mentioned). It's a neat little app, built to be mobile-friendly. They're probably charging too little for it. (paging patio11...)

theklub• 12 years ago

Wow, that is a very crowded page to the point of being hard to read.

Here is the link to the actual software, http://resurva.com/

jsamuel• 12 years ago

I love how they narrowed their focus to barbershops. One of the hardest parts of many startups is finding and staying focused on the right niche.

giarc• 12 years ago

Barbershops appear to be their main niche, but they do have a similar focus on others.

From their page.

Resurva for Barbershops

Resurva for Room Booking

Resurva for Conferences

Resurva for Salons

Resurva for Spas

Resurva for Massage Therapists

Kluny• 12 years ago

I hope soon, it will be Resurva for dentists and doctors.

throwwit• 12 years ago

I hope they succeed just for the verb potential :)

pbreit• 12 years ago

Even with that on the home page, not clear how much they are really targeting those businesses. Could be a way to gauge interest in other verticals. The pages are all the same and the testimonials from barbers.

chrislomax• 12 years ago

Interesting, it's probably the type of software I would build and enjoy building.

I never thought the market could be so niche to barbers though, guess that trend hasn't made it t'up North of UK

Ironically the website does not work on mobile.

lucaspiller• 12 years ago

In the UK the main difference to me between a barbershop and a salon is for the former you don't need to book.

Personally I despise making appointments. I'd much rather think at lunch 'oh my hairs getting a bit long', head to the babershop, wait 10 minutes and get it done.

EC1• 12 years ago

I wonder how much they are making. I love going to crows nest, great place.

grigory• 12 years ago

Curious to see this. At my "just failed" startup, our first product was a booking app targeted at tattoo studios. It was a hard niche to crack for a variety of reasons, and in retrospect we've moved on a little too soon without spending enough time exploring alternative applications.

dangliar• 12 years ago

With nearly 3 million in population and an energy in the air not unlike New York City, Toronto should be more of a startup scene than it is.

This is the first T.O. startup I've read about for as long as I can remember.

psobot• 12 years ago

There's a ton of established (and YC) startups in the city: Shopify, Upverter, 500px, Chango, Wattpad, XMG, Uken Games, and PagerDuty are all based here or have offices here, just to name a few.

chriswoodford• 12 years ago

Does Shopify have a Toronto office now? FreshBooks is a Toronto staple as well

Oculus2• 12 years ago

Don't forget about the MaRS Discovery District and all the awesome startups there!

http://www.marsdd.com/

graeme• 12 years ago

I wonder why it isn't. I'm in Montreal, and startups are definitely in the air. The advantages Montreal has I can think of are:

* It's very cheap; good for getting started * A VERY high number of students per capita. At least five major universities, plus many CEGEPs * It's not near Waterloo. I imagine much Toronto talents gets sucked down to Kitchner-Waterloo. * It's the center for French talent. English talent in Toronto has other places to go, if it wants.

nchlswu• 12 years ago

I imagine much Toronto talents gets sucked down to Kitchener-Waterloo.

I'm not sure about the actual numbers, I don't think movement is in any one direction where a reliable conclusion like that can be made. While a lot of talent is attracted and bred there, I'm not sure about the actual retention of talent. A bunch stay, but a lot leave for the US and there's an interesting dynamic between Waterloo and Toronto given that they're so close to each other.

acangiano2• 12 years ago

Capital is virtually non-existent compared to Silicon Valley or even New York City. That's the #1 issue faced by startups in Canada.

Scoundreller• 12 years ago

Does this mean an astute VC could set-up shop in Toronto (or elsewhere in Canada) and make a killing?

Or is there some other structural barrier?

infinitone• 12 years ago

Small world... we're based in Toronto too, and we provide a similar service for cleaning businesses; http://carwashy.com

arms77• 12 years ago

It is interesting to see how a community hardly using computers for reservations uses an app. I wonder if convincing barber shops or other similar businesses to use the app is difficult.

sunir• 12 years ago

If you're in Toronto / Waterloo and aim at the b2b space, please email me: sunir olark.com

We're doing another meet up of the local b2b cloud software folks next month as part of the one and only trade association.

http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com

You can ping me even if you're not in Ontario; I just happen to live in Toronto. We're globe spanning. :) We're doing events in Seattle (next week), Atlanta, Raleigh, Berlin, and Boston in the next few months.

Toronto startup's booking app attracts barbershops from around the world

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