IdeaSpace backed Philippines startup TimeFree Innovations will save you the trouble of queuing up
We have all stood in line at various points in time – to pay bill, to catch a bus, take admissions into school/college and the latest – to get our Aadhar cards. So normally what would you do if you had to step out for sometime and then come back? Tell the person ahead/ behind you in the line to ‘save your spot’, right? But now you can do the same task with the help of an app developed by Philippines startup TimeFree.TimeFree Innovations is an enterprise software development company specializing in creating software solutions that help enhance customer experience and increase customer engagements. The company’s flagship product is TimeFree, a virtual queuing system for businesses with high face-to-face daily transactions. TimeFree sends an SMS alert to customers if their turn to transact is near, thus allowing them to spend their wait time doing other things.
The origins of the idea is not too different from the illustration we gave you just now. Founder Philip Adrian T. Atilano thought waiting in line for hours in their school’s finance office to pay for their tuition, an ordeal. One of our friends suggested that they make an application that can send SMS alerts if your turn to make a transaction is near. The name of the application was actually just a play on the words “free time”. Thus Philip and his three college classmates got together to start TimeFree. Three in the team are licensed electronics engineers while one is a computer engineer.
“Fast forward to this year, we started to realize one thing. Customers hate waiting in long lines. A customer waiting for a long time for his turn can lead to that customer walking away from the store. Walk-away customers mean lost revenue for a business. Not to mention that this experience of waiting can result in a negative brand perception in the minds of customers. So we saw that there is an opportunity to help businesses improve their customer experience through TimeFree,” explains Philip. In the age of social media, your customers can either be your greatest brand ambassadors or your worst critics. Moreover, the level of customer experience your business provides can be your greatest advantage over your competitors. TimeFree hopes to create a difference to this pain point.
Currently TimeFree has one customer onboard, who liked the idea when they saw a demo of our initial prototype. “They liked the idea enough to sign a deal with us. We have a couple of hot leads at the moment too. Getting our first customer signed up in the first 6 months has been a major boost for us,” says Philip.
One of the biggest challenges for the startup while starting business was the tedious process of having to register their company with the Securities and Exchange Commission and dealing with all the legal requirements of putting up a business. “We have to spend a lot of time in processing all the necessary licenses and permits. It was a good thing IdeaSpace helped us with this.” This bootstrapped venture is now being incubated at IdeaSpace - Philippines’ largest startup incubator and have been helping them with legal help, mentoring, introduction to investors and so on.
The startup has so far raised $25,000 in their seed round, which Philip says will help them survive for next two years. However he does say they may have to raise more money to help scale up faster. Philip claims to have received a lot of product inquiries from companies not just in the Philippines but also in the Southeast Asia region. The startup is currently working on a major enhancement to their product which they think will help them gain more customers. They are also making strategic alliances that would help address some of their needs in terms of scaling outside the Philippines.
Apart from the legal hassles involved in doing business in Philippines, Philip says it is tricky to get market share for your product. “Filipinos don’t easily spend on things that they think they can get for free. For example, Filipinos love using Facebook and it’s free. So if you will build a social networking site that would require them to pay for it, chances are your company won’t last long. If you have a great product, you should also have a great business model,” he says.
Read more about them http://www.tfinnovations.com/
