0:20

Hello and welcome, everyone. This is Joe from StartupRate.io,

0:23

your go-to source for all things startups, innovation and entrepreneurship.

0:27

Today, we're driving into this game-changing startup that's redefining how businesses

0:33

manage their time, Timify.

0:36

Join us, which is Emmanuel Simon, to share the story behind the company,

0:42

its vision for the future, and how it's tackling one of the biggest pain points

0:47

in schedule and workforce management. So, if you've struggled with double bookings, no-shows, or inefficiencies in

0:54

managing appointments, this episode is for you.

0:57

Stay tuned. You don't want to miss a thing.

1:01

Emmanuel, hello and welcome!

1:04

Hi, Joe, and thank you for having me.

1:07

Totally my pleasure. We may add up front that we worked in the past together,

1:13

which is, I do believe, something like 15 years ago? must

1:18

Be that long ago.

1:20

Yes oh we are we are really getting old um

1:28

Welcome to Startup Radio. Today, we're diving into your world of Timify.

1:33

And in 60 seconds, can you give us an idea what you did before and how you got involved into Timify?

1:44

Yes, for sure. Basically, I am a banking baby.

1:48

I grew up my whole business life in banking, in a management consulting company,

1:53

working for many banks in the IT environment.

1:56

And then I joined Unicredit in various managerial roles.

1:59

I was an assistant to a board member in the corporate and investment banking.

2:05

And I also run a huge project in

2:08

Unicredit globally to transform the bank within a 13 billion euro capital increase

2:14

on the cost and the IT side before I had the pleasure to join Timeify in a position

2:23

where basically Timeify was growing out of the startup into the scale-up,

2:28

although I don't like the terminology scale-up a lot.

2:33

For me, Timeify is like a raw but strong teenage boy, you know,

2:40

became quite tall in height, big muscles, but also still a bit foolish and childish.

2:46

And now my goal is to professionalize Timeify, to make it profitable,

2:51

have some very clear organization and also processes, not over-engineered, not like in a bank.

2:58

So we have to still be agile, fast and speedy and overall very client-driven.

3:05

That is basically my goal was for the last two and a half years and will be

3:09

for the next, hopefully, quite some time.

3:12

Ah, Timeify. Yeah, that actually makes more sense for our audience.

3:19

I would be curious, leave us a comment. what do you think is the biggest problem Timeify is solving?

3:26

There are actually two. Number one, the,

3:33

Enterprise and corporate companies, they like to hide behind the big castles

3:38

because they're behind their nice glass walls of their offices.

3:43

So the client is sometimes standing in front of that. And we are basically dismantling,

3:48

destructing those walls where our clients build in relation to their customers.

3:55

That's number one. We connect our clients with their customers.

3:58

Number two, our clients do have scarce resources.

4:03

Whatever that be, rooms, machines, human beings, salespeople,

4:09

sellers in a department store, whatever the resource of our client is,

4:14

we make sure and guarantee that these expensive and scarce resources like salespeople

4:22

are allocated very efficient to the services our client provide.

4:28

And then interact with their customers to make sure that the customers of our

4:33

client do have a seamless and very straightforward customer journey to increase

4:40

revenues and make sure that the customer of our client is a happy customer.

4:45

You are, as always, a pretty fast guy. You've always been pretty sporty and

4:51

you're way ahead of us here. Let's go a little bit back. We can already tell you're not one of the founders,

4:58

but you were hired for this position.

5:01

Can you take us back to the moment you said, aha, let's join this company. Let's try it out.

5:08

I'm a little bit bored of consulting and banking.

5:12

Yeah, that was quite interesting. Because if you would have asked me like three,

5:17

four years ago, I would have never skipped my nice, well-paid and very secure job in banking.

5:25

I had a very interesting environment there, a lot of sea level and senior attention,

5:32

big figures, big projects.

5:37

But in the end, I had the opportunity to take over Timeify.

5:44

And I strongly believe and I have the deepest respect for the decision that

5:51

especially founders who grew a little baby, their own baby from scratch.

5:56

One employee, two employees, maybe two, three founders. And you have a couple

5:59

of first clients. You have 10 colleagues working with you. But there comes a

6:06

point where you need some kind of different management style, right?

6:11

So people who are able to found a company from scratch might not be the right

6:16

person and might not have the right skill set to grow a company from 50 up to 200 employees.

6:24

On the other side, I clearly have to admit I would have not been able to found

6:30

a company like Timeify or any other company that's simply not my home turf, right?

6:35

But managing 50, 60, 70, 80 people, giving them a clear strategy,

6:42

supporting this strategy with a clear vision and mission based on a clear foundation

6:49

in terms of organization, company organization, supported once again by a healthy amount of processes.

6:58

Still keeping flexibility, taking also sometimes hard decisions, right?

7:04

That's what you also have to do. It's not always sunshine every day.

7:09

That is a bit more my sweet spot.

7:12

And if you look back at most likely many founders, sometimes you cannot play

7:20

business as you want to because you need a favor left, a favor right.

7:25

You're happy for the first client. You give to this client maybe more than you wanted to provide in terms of services or support.

7:34

And then how do you get back from this very personal interaction and lift and

7:40

come to the next professional level, which is simply a more professionalized setup?

7:46

The downside is you might lose a bit of your spirit. Yes, that's right.

7:55

But it's sometimes simply required. As I said, scale-up is, I think, not a right term.

8:03

But if you look at companies like Tamify after a couple of years,

8:08

like a teenage boy, I mean, there's a lot of potential, right?

8:13

There's a lot of power. There's a lot of energy.

8:16

But it has to be centralized and streamlined.

8:19

And that is, as I said, pretty much my sweet spot.

8:23

And so far, this is running, I would say, good.

8:26

You Hmm. People can already tell you that.

8:35

I am.

8:37

Yes, there is a difference in skill set from founding a company to leading a growing company.

8:42

And I actually realized some of the entrepreneurs, they just stagnate,

8:48

but the company stagnates together with them. They stay on a certain level, maybe 50 employees, and then it doesn't grow anymore.

8:56

There is a reason, right? If you look at big corporates and big enterprise companies,

9:02

why managers move from different departments,

9:07

different teams, different managerial roles every three to, I would say, six years.

9:12

There is simply a reason. It does make sense.

9:16

If you work for a long time with the same people in the same environment.

9:23

You don't see new opportunities. you see old issues, right?

9:30

So sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes, a fresh mindset.

9:34

It doesn't mean that you're doing a bad job, not at all.

9:36

But if you sometimes have a new input, a little job rotation, it helps, right?

9:44

It simply helps to increase understanding for the other side.

9:49

If I change job completely in a big enterprise company from department A to department B, You know,

9:56

I take my knowledge with me and then I can try to connect and bring people together

10:01

and increase understanding for both sides.

10:05

It's like with traveling and understanding different cultures.

10:09

That's the same model in a big enterprise.

10:14

And that's also for small companies. You simply have to see,

10:19

is the leadership that was able to start a company.

10:27

Also able to run a company that is growing in whatever size.

10:32

I have to clearly admit I have the deepest, really, respect of funding a company.

10:43

I tell you honestly, I would be, I think, even too scared and I would not be in a position to do that.

10:51

But then taking over from a certain point in terms of development and also growth

10:58

is pretty much my sweet spot.

11:02

And that's where I can really see with a corporate or enterprise know-how and

11:07

experience, you can create big value add to smaller companies. Is that always the case?

11:14

No. I'm pretty sure that there are many founders who can go all the way and

11:20

who are also developing in that way, but not all.

11:24

And hence then realizing that it might be time for a change also is something

11:32

that I have to admire and clearly have to express my respect.

11:41

Yes, I see. So you're in favor of moving management roles every few years.

11:48

So I'll avoid asking you what you're planning to do in five years.

11:54

Honestly, I do not know. Hopefully, Temify is growing very well.

11:58

But five years, I don't know.

12:02

What was the major challenge you faced when you joined Temify in your early days as CEO?

12:10

Well, number one, as I said, is really professionalizing the whole structure,

12:14

making sure everybody knows his, her role and position, how to interact.

12:20

That is number one.

12:24

Number two, I joined Timeify recently.

12:28

At an, I would say, economically changing time, right?

12:33

In the last, I would say, 10, 12 years, the macroeconomic environment was in favor of startups.

12:40

I think with this zero interest policy in the last couple years,

12:46

growth at all costs was simply the mantra of the market. You had to show growth.

12:51

Was growth profitable was not the important question, right?

12:55

When I joined Tamify, the macroeconomic situation was different.

13:02

Basically, interest rates rose. Money was worth something again.

13:09

So I clearly had the task to make Tamify profitable.

13:16

We had to grow, but we also had to look at cost.

13:20

There are two sides of a balance sheet. One is top line, but there's also a

13:24

bottom line. And in between, you somehow have to manage your cost and make sure

13:28

that your margin is somewhere there. So this was the second big challenge,

13:35

making clear that we have to become profitable, which you can influence by top-line

13:43

growth, number one, but also becoming more efficient, right?

13:48

If you produce new features, but, for example, your hosting costs are outrageous

13:54

and never, never will be covered by the license fees you earn from your clients,

14:01

well, you have to rethink the whole thing, I would say, right?

14:05

In the past, the feature was everything, make it fancy, make it shiny, as long as it's there.

14:12

I think we are now with money worth, again,

14:17

something, we're in a different world where you have to become profitable,

14:21

you have to show a margin, you have to show a solid growth that didn't change.

14:27

But I think the focus became a bit or moved a bit away from growth to the overall

14:36

picture of a balance sheet.

14:42

Going a little bit into the industry and market landscape, I'd like to play a little what-if game.

14:50

If Temify becomes a household name, what industry shift made that possible?

14:58

Well, number one, Corona was a big boost for us, I have to admit.

15:03

There was the lockdown and you were able to only open your stores with click and collect.

15:11

That was quite convenient. We onboarded thousands of stores over the weekend.

15:22

So that was a big big booster for us um overall also i see that um economic,

15:31

issues on the in the german and core european industry are pushing our business in terms of,

15:40

making sure that the that the very cost uh sensitive resources like salesperson,

15:48

like people who work at a department store have to be, you know,

15:54

they have to keep busy, right?

15:57

I mean, if you work in banking, you're obliged to have roughly four to five sales meetings per day.

16:06

If you only have four versus five and do that every day, at the end of the week,

16:10

you have 20% less revenues and your boss will knock on your door saying,

16:14

hey, Joe, what's going on? Why did your revenues drop, right?

16:19

So we are ensuring that there is a very efficient allocation of these salespeople,

16:25

for example, in a bank with the customers of a bank that as soon as somebody is canceling a meeting,

16:32

there are other meetings coming in or there's somebody actively contacted who

16:36

has a meeting in two weeks' time. Hey, we got a slot early up front.

16:40

You want to take the opportunity and we fill up the calendar.

16:44

At the same time, we reduce extremely the manual effort, which is a stupid effort,

16:51

of aligning meetings, right? If it's a one-on-one relationship, you and me, we agree on a meeting, that's easy, right?

16:59

But just assume there are four or five participants and you're coordinating

17:02

that, that's crazy, right? And we send out a booking link and you book it, that's fair.

17:07

It really depends how much you know each other, what time zones you are in.

17:13

Before I used such a solution, I was actually mailing back and forth five to

17:19

ten times just simple emails on availability. And that's where I cut all of that.

17:26

Exactly.

17:27

People already notice you're a

17:29

little bit bigger scheduling solutions than others they are familiar with.

17:34

What do people get wrong about scheduling solutions and what are you doing differently

17:41

here than many of your competitors?

17:44

Well, then let me start with our competitors.

17:49

So Timeify is very clear. We are the Calendly for grownups, right?

17:55

If you compare us with our competitors, the big ones, Calendly,

18:00

Microsoft Bookings, Google Calendar, they're all very good, right?

18:04

We can do the same, but they're good in one-to-one relationships.

18:09

You open your calendar, I book a meeting, I click on the link, boom, ready, right?

18:14

And Tamify then basically starts

18:17

where those solutions end for the sophisticated and complex use case.

18:22

Or let me describe it in mathematical terms where N stands for a placeholder of a big figure.

18:30

And we solve the equation N times four.

18:34

N multiplied by N multiplied by N multiplied by N.

18:37

First N is our clients to have many locations, stores, departments,

18:43

sales hubs, whatever it is. Number two, our clients to have many, many resources. As I said,

18:51

it can be a salesperson, a room, a laptop, a machine, a chair, a table. What do I know?

18:56

Can it also be a technician you can send somewhere?

18:59

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Software, for example, right? A software version can be our resource.

19:07

Then basically, you can make those resources smart, right?

19:11

You can give them tags and attributes, e.g.

19:14

If you work in banking and you need a special

19:17

certification to sell mortgage loans

19:20

maybe you need one certification mortgage loans

19:23

up to one million and another certification one million

19:26

at upwards right or you need another certification

19:30

to sell stock options and

19:32

derivatives right so we connect the resources with their skill set in any combination

19:40

we can combine the resources we say well for this meeting we need resource a

19:45

because he has this skill set and resource B for that skill set or you choose

19:50

out of a pool of resources. Colleagues who have the same skills. That's the second N. The third N is the services.

19:58

You can then connect any kind of service you want to provide with those different

20:02

resources on any date or place you want.

20:06

You can say in the morning, our sales guy is only available in that combination

20:12

with that skill set in location A and in the afternoon only in location B.

20:17

And you see if N becomes a big figure, It's quite a complex equation we solve.

20:22

And the fourth N is hopefully a huge amount of customers our clients do have.

20:27

And then they're basically going through a very seamless journey.

20:33

And hopefully in the end, sign a contract, cut a deal, pay a product,

20:38

buy a product, whatever it is, right? Our clients offer to their customers.

20:43

So in a nutshell, basically, excuse me?

20:48

No, in a nutshell, if you look at Microsoft, allow me the expression,

20:52

Microsoft Google is pretty much the entry drug into scheduling, right?

20:58

Once you're not happy anymore with Microsoft scheduling facilities,

21:05

which is free of charge as soon as you have a Microsoft license,

21:08

which is quite expensive, basically companies come to us because you don't write Microsoft in email saying,

21:14

Hey, I have this edge case here. Can you help me out, please?

21:18

You do with us. We support. We have a very clear philosophy of supporting and

21:24

listening to our clients, which we do and we don't onboard them and leave them

21:29

alone. We are there for our clients, actually.

21:32

Mm-hmm. When you painted that mental picture, what I had in mind is that you

21:41

can manage a big organization in terms of sales, in terms of customer support,

21:47

in terms of technical support across different time zones.

21:53

Exactly. Time zone is totally included. That's not a topic we have to deal with.

21:58

Also like holidays or national holidays, sick days, a very nice feature we just released.

22:07

If you have a sales team of five people, right?

22:12

Sales team, they have certain skills. They have meeting slots,

22:15

et cetera, pp. then with a connection to the HR tool from our client,

22:21

one Zaitz guy calls in sick, right?

22:23

Which usually means someone has to call the customers, cancel five appointments,

22:30

reschedule for the next week, whatever it is, right?

22:34

With our system, the system checks, oh, the customer needed service A.

22:40

We have maybe other four resources who can provide the service.

22:44

And there's one resource free at exactly that time slot and it's automatically

22:49

rescheduling the meeting to avoid that the client is maybe entering a meeting

22:55

without having somebody covering from the client side or the meeting has to be postponed.

23:01

So we make sure that the calendars is filled up properly and our sales colleagues

23:07

are kept busy and then also creating a positive impact on the revenue creation of our client.

23:14

Mm-hmm so um

23:17

before i get to the to the

23:21

next question that i had while you were talking um and

23:25

um i was wondering can you get kpis for example for marketing uh how many requests

23:34

are coming in and how close you are to capacity in terms of your sales for marketing

23:41

do more of this do more of that?

23:42

Yeah, you have a huge statistic area where you can see how many bookings,

23:48

which day, which time actually the bookings have been scheduled.

23:53

So you can, if you see all your bookings have been scheduled,

23:57

let's assume in the evening between 7 and 11 p.m. for the next day, okay?

24:03

Then you can say, well, I want to increase my paid advertisement on Google because

24:12

an hour before that, so you start at six where people start looking for that

24:16

kind of service, that kind of slot, increase your capacity on there,

24:22

exactly on that time slot, and then make sure your advertisement is placed at

24:26

the right time, right screen.

24:29

So were you talking, I also had another question, in how many languages is your solution available?

24:36

Well, you have to differentiate from customer point of view.

24:42

So the booker who's booking a meeting, pretty much unlimited.

24:45

Our system where our client, the end user is using, I think we currently have,

24:52

you know, you got me, it's almost 20 languages.

24:55

Almost 20 languages, because I had a conversation with one of my consulting clients last night,

25:02

and actually I was forced to explain how many upcoming holidays we do have and when they are.

25:11

Just looking here at my calendar, for example, that the Friday before Easter

25:15

and the Monday after Easter is a public holiday.

25:18

And we do have two Thursdays coming up that are public holidays in multiple states of Germany.

25:24

And we do have with Monday and so on and so forth.

25:27

So there's a lot you need to explain.

25:30

Do you also have a solution for that for international clients?

25:34

That is the core of Tamify. You don't have to worry about that.

25:38

All international holidays are covered. So, for example, if you're trying to

25:47

coordinate a meeting on Friday before Easter, it's simply impossible because

25:51

it's automatically blocked. Unless you unblock it manually if you want to work on Easter Friday.

25:58

Depends on your relationship with their family, right?

26:01

Exactly.

26:03

Beyond features, what kind of experience do you want users to have when interacting with Tamify?

26:10

First, like your customers and the customers of your customers,

26:13

which is the thing your customers are actually buying it for.

26:18

OK, and now diagram this sentence in your head.

26:21

Well, with our clients, I want them to realize how powerful Timeify is and how

26:29

extremely deep are the possibilities of customization, right?

26:37

It really reduces the manual effort coordinating meetings for our clients.

26:43

On the customer side, which we also call the booker who's booking a meeting,

26:49

we can customize also this journey.

26:53

Basically, we do have many clients who use us in their HR department. All righty?

27:00

If you, for example, look at hiring processes.

27:04

I mean, everybody who applied for a job in the last couple of years knows maybe

27:10

the first interview is easy, right? But you have to coordinate the meeting.

27:14

The second interview, maybe you need a team head and an HR guy.

27:18

And then you're playing with meetings. You get an email, three slots.

27:21

You say, yes, I want the first slot. Then you get a reply. Ah,

27:25

sorry. Now the first slot is not available anymore.

27:28

Now we have three different slots. Pick one. And then it goes back and forth

27:32

and you have email ping pong. Terrible. right or how cool would

27:37

that be if you apply for a job you simply

27:40

click on the booking link you have the meeting scheduled with the

27:43

two people or three people you need um after that the hr guy says hey that was

27:49

a good interview we continue automatically our system sends out another email

27:53

saying hey congratulations you made the next step now you're into you with the

27:57

big boss another hr by a team colleague, whatever, again, click here.

28:02

And a couple hours or days or an hour before the meeting, you also get a reminder

28:08

or SMS to make sure that you do not miss your meeting.

28:12

So in that perspective, if I look at the HR case from the applicant point of

28:19

view, our clients have two scenarios, right?

28:23

If you look for a DevOps developer who is highly skilled, Basically,

28:29

companies are happy if those people simply...

28:32

Apply right so they need name email

28:35

address maybe a phone number that's simply apply right

28:38

there are other jobs where you say well i want to

28:41

you know make it a bit more tricky to receive

28:44

applications so i want to have an upload of your cv

28:47

i need a i don't

28:50

know your driving license uploaded some comments a free field where you enter

28:55

some text about you and i need your residence etc pp so that you avoid that

29:00

everybody is applying for the job and you have some kind of criteria as why people apply, right?

29:08

So in that perspective, from the booker side, I always want to make it very

29:13

easy to book an appointment. What I want to say is that there are also situations where you can make it a

29:20

bit more complicated so people do not book appointments, right?

29:25

Nevertheless, from a customer or a booker point of view, It simply has to be

29:31

seamless and very clear, right?

29:34

You need a couple of clicks, and then you enter into your appointment.

29:38

And, of course, we don't have to talk about reminders and synchronization to

29:44

your preferred email and Outlook mailbox and calendar system.

29:50

I was wondering when you talked about this scheduling with three people from HR,

29:56

if somebody from the HR people calls and sick that day, basically,

30:01

you two can reassign if there's an exceptional substitute, you can replace this

30:08

person in the interview and you don't have to reschedule with a potential employee, right?

30:13

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

30:16

I was wondering, how are you leveraging AI and automation in all of that?

30:21

Yeah. So we do have, we released just recently our Timeify Assistant,

30:29

which is an additional feature from Timeify.

30:34

We can produce and very fast create skills for our client.

30:40

As I said, this rescheduling assistant or early slot wait list or the next skill

30:47

set will be a birthday or event promotion that you automatically remind people

30:53

and send maybe voucher codes or gift cards or,

30:57

hey, Joe, happy birthday. We haven't heard for a long time.

31:01

Why don't you want to book a meeting with whatever your counterpart at your

31:05

trusted bank you're working with or something like that?

31:08

These are skill sets AI supported where we basically,

31:14

with the intention to reduce once again the manual effort regarding scheduling

31:18

and support our clients in optimizing their interaction with their customers.

31:25

Our goal is basically quite easy.

31:28

This whole back and forth email scheduling should be optimized, right?

31:32

That's very easy. You should not worry about, oh, goddammit,

31:36

I have to coordinate meetings for groups, for single bookings,

31:40

for multiple bookings, for recurring bookings.

31:42

You should not. You should press some buttons, best case in our Timeify environment,

31:49

and then everything runs automatically.

31:52

Plus an automated or partially automated allocation of resources.

31:57

I vividly remember how difficult it was back in the days to book a meeting room for any given meeting.

32:06

Yeah, that is true. That should simply not be part of our daily business day.

32:13

We'll be back after a short ad break where we talk about business model and growth strategy.

32:23

Hey guys, welcome back to our interview with Emanuel Simon, CEO of Tamify Next

32:29

Generation Scheduling and, I would say, resource allocation tool.

32:35

We are talking about your business model and growth strategy here.

32:39

What's the revenue engine of Tamify? Can you break it down simply?

32:45

Well in terms of verticals we

32:48

are widely spread we do have benchmark clients

32:52

in the banking environment insurance optician

32:56

segment also hearing aid is becoming more and more actually recently bike industry

33:04

electric bike industry becomes bigger bigger for us so overall one could say that wherever there is,

33:15

more demand on scheduling than an easy one-to-one relationship.

33:21

That's where the sweet spot of Timeify is, and that's where our growth perspective

33:26

and opportunities jump in.

33:29

We're not specialized on any vertical. That's the beauty of Timeify.

33:35

If you tomorrow say instead of selling cars or e-bikes, I want to sell red gummy

33:42

bears, you sell red gummy bears. we don't stop you to do so.

33:46

And tomorrow you offer services selling red gummy bears. You can do it actually

33:51

in milliseconds, right? So we don't stop our clients to grow. Actually, we want to partner up with them.

33:57

We want to support them to grow. If you want to open a new store tomorrow,

34:02

well, don't worry about scheduling and making it possible. We are there.

34:07

In terms of product development, next to our Tamify assistant,

34:12

We just released queuing will become our next big thing because queuing and scheduling is related.

34:23

And my colleagues are working heavily on an extremely outstanding queuing solution

34:29

that is then fully integrated into your scheduling where you can prioritize.

34:34

You can define VIP clients. You can maybe prioritize even people who,

34:41

I don't know, if a mother with two kids and pregnant is coming in,

34:45

boom, you prioritize her and she gets the next free slot for the services you

34:50

offer or whatever you fancy,

34:53

including a hardware support.

34:57

We don't do that by ourselves, but we have a partner who is providing a hardware

35:02

support in terms of tablets and screens, et cetera, for your point of sales.

35:09

I'm wondering queuing, queuing in terms of just simply email,

35:16

booking links in terms of phone or even with the chatbot on the website.

35:21

Yeah, that's basically everything. So just assume you have scheduling already and let's assume that,

35:31

to our recent industry that it grows a lot, to the bike shop,

35:35

bike store industry, right? So you schedule a meeting online for buying a new bike, right?

35:44

Basically, with our tool, you can also increase the amount of meetings for high

35:50

margin services you offer. If you say, well, selling a bike brings more cash to my company than having

35:58

a service for a bike or just adjusting the wheel of the bike,

36:03

it's just two euros, but selling a bike brings you 10,000 euros.

36:08

You prioritize and you offer more meetings to sell bikes.

36:13

But then a day before the day comes, you say, well, if I don't have enough meetings

36:19

for selling bikes, I open the calendar for those service meetings to make sure

36:25

that my people are still busy. And then basically you have people who don't book a meeting,

36:30

but they come in your store and say, hey, I want to buy a bike, right?

36:36

So either way, you have a big screen in your entrance and they type in their

36:39

credentials and you have someone in your store checking who it is.

36:44

Or you have somebody with a tablet in your hand typing in the credentials.

36:47

And this client says, oh, I want to buy a bike.

36:51

You prioritize him. And the next available slot, boom, he gets.

36:54

Waiting time, two minutes. Or he says, well, here's my old bike.

36:57

Please, can you check if my wheel and my brakes are properly working?

37:01

They say, well, that's like a 10-euro job.

37:05

This guy has to wait an hour maybe because prioritized is the meeting to sell

37:11

a bike, which is from a margin point of view much more attractive than simply

37:16

checking the brakes of a bike. I hope this example was understandable somehow. Yeah.

37:22

And you can do that in every industry.

37:25

If you look at the high-end retail industry, we're based in Munich.

37:29

If you go here, downtown Munich, there are sometimes queues in front of the

37:35

high-end companies, the big brands.

37:40

So how cool would it be if one of your VIP clients is checking in and you realize,

37:46

oh, this guy just checked in, so I prioritize him.

37:50

Although there's a big queue outside, this guy shows up and you sent him a QR code.

37:57

The guy at the door is scanning it and you prioritized him. And this guy is surpassing the queue.

38:05

And just imagine what reaction that is. Everybody in the queue says,

38:09

what the hell? Who is that? How can I become as important as this guy?

38:14

How much do I have to buy to skip the queue, right? To skip the line.

38:20

So these are the funny things you can do with queuing in connection with scheduling.

38:27

And then whether it be for bikes or big fashion brands or for government,

38:32

if you go to one of our Kreisverwaltungsreferate or official… Which.

38:40

Is the county administration offices, yes.

38:42

Thank you. Like that, it doesn't matter.

38:46

We don't care what the service is or what the place. you can you can basically

38:49

treat that all pretty much the same right.

38:51

To our audience i

38:54

was wondering how do you guys think timeify can expand its reach um emmanuel

39:01

another question because we now realize you have small smes and really big enterprise

39:07

customers how do you approach them differently what's your different go-to-market strategy there

39:13

Well, the SMB clients, we highly appreciate them, but basically they register

39:20

via our homepage, and basically that's a self-registration process.

39:26

Corporate enterprise company, we have active outreach.

39:30

We spend really human resources on talking to them, interacting with them,

39:35

having meetings, providing them proper onboarding.

39:38

Sometimes, and I totally understand that,

39:42

companies don't even want Tomify to appear,

39:46

so they connect us via our very well-defined and structured API,

39:51

and we are a white-label solution totally embedded into the IT architecture

39:57

and landscape of our clients. So you don't even realize that you book a meeting, except you read the data

40:05

privacy policy. That's where we mentioned.

40:08

But operational, you don't realize that it's time to find. And we do not have

40:12

an ego saying, well, but we need our logo on your landing page.

40:16

As long as it works for you, I am a happy service provider, right?

40:21

In the enterprise segment, I clearly have to say the coverage of clients is important, right?

40:32

It is very, very important. I think...

40:36

Not being for ages now part of the SaaS industry,

40:40

I think many companies underestimated the effort and the requirements needed to keep clients,

40:50

to basically not only sign a client, but also keep clients as happy clients for quite a long term.

40:58

Because you need to interact, you have to schedule your fixes weekly,

41:04

monthly, by yearly, whatever it is, right?

41:06

But you need a counterpart. You need somebody you can play with on the other

41:11

side in a big corporation. Those people change.

41:14

They move on to new jobs, et cetera, pp.

41:17

So you need a good coverage not only before you sign a contract,

41:21

but also after you sign a contract. And then it always sounds easy to connect and implement new IT.

41:31

But in the end, that is many, many times still people business to make sure

41:36

that everything runs smoothly and your software is properly used on the client side.

41:42

I was thinking about a question. I should write them down and pay not so much

41:49

attention to what you're saying because I completely forgot.

41:53

Let us go a little bit into the finances just a tiny bit.

42:00

Last time you raced, according to Crunchbase, funding was in 2020.

42:04

And so far, you've raced, according to them, 11.5 million euros.

42:11

I was wondering, how do you balance rapid growth with financial sustainability,

42:18

given the current environment of higher interest rate?

42:22

Plus, just recently, much more insecure world with the Trump tariff introduction

42:28

here, which may or may not wreak havoc on the global economy.

42:36

Well, I think I have a big advantage coming out of the banking industry,

42:42

being a bit more old school.

42:46

I learned the hard way that you should earn first money before you spend it, right?

42:53

So that's pretty much my own personal DNA, first earning the money.

43:02

And then defining how to spend it.

43:05

Nevertheless, growth, it's still a growth game, right? So you have to always be on the edge.

43:13

So cash on the bank account is nice for all CEOs, let you sleep well,

43:20

but it's unproductive liquidity, right?

43:23

So you have to invest it in terms of more sales, more product,

43:26

whatever you currently need. So honestly, I can't give you an all-answering and all-solving answer.

43:36

It's simply a trade-off, right? Sometimes you have to be a bit more on the risky

43:40

side. Sometimes you have to be a bit more on the safe side.

43:44

Nevertheless, as we touched it before, profitability is key these days,

43:50

and at the same time, you have to grow. So you have to find a proper balance

43:53

that I think depends on your shareholder structure.

43:58

Are they willing to provide more cash? Then you can be more aggressive.

44:02

Are they not? Then you should be more restrictive. So there is no right or wrong.

44:07

I think every company has to find its own way based on the very clear requirements.

44:14

Become profitable. Become self-sustaining.

44:17

But you also have to grow. And somewhere in between there, you have to find your own way.

44:22

That's right. And I remember what I was wanting to ask you before that question

44:28

because the simple per return principle, 80-20,

44:33

I've realized a lot of companies make 80% of the revenue and they're for profit with 20% of the clients.

44:40

That goes into what you've been telling about, keeping your most important clients happy.

44:46

Yeah, true. But at the same time, it's easier to say than than really to do.

44:51

You should not be dependent on a couple of big clients, right?

44:55

Even from investor point of view, they don't like to see the bulk risk in your top line.

45:04

Going a little bit into team and leadership values, what are the core values

45:10

that define the Tamify culture?

45:14

Well, I do have a big history in sports.

45:19

Besides working and playing and spending time with my family,

45:23

I'm totally into sports.

45:26

I played semi-professional baseball in Germany, which is not common at all.

45:33

But it was fun back in the days so I do know what teamwork is all about,

45:40

so the core principles basically for me is number one speak up culture I need

45:46

people independent from their role and responsibility to speak up I need to

45:51

know what's good what's bad, what they like, what they don't like.

45:55

In the end we find agreement we find a compromise And then I don't care what

46:01

happened before or who was on the other side of the discussion.

46:04

After we exchanged all critical points, after everybody raised his position

46:10

and clearly showed speak up culture, we go in the same direction. That's number one.

46:16

Number two is clearly teamwork. And the funny thing is people always ask me,

46:21

what do you understand by teamwork? And the reality is on a daily basis, it's different. On a daily base,

46:28

you work in different teams, different groups, different colleagues.

46:30

So your position, your role, and what is required to make this team a well-performing

46:37

team is different, right? So just ask yourself, what can I do to make this project, this sprint, this team a good one?

46:45

If it means that nobody's taking notes and I, as the CEO, should do that, well, hell, I do.

46:51

If it helps, I do, no matter what, right? I can ask somebody or I make sure

46:56

that somebody's taking notes just as a stupid example.

46:59

But every team has to make sure that it's professional, it's working and to

47:06

simply enter into a different role.

47:09

So teamwork for me is super important. I don't like finger pointing culture. I hate that. Okay.

47:17

And number three is clearly ownership and responsibility.

47:21

I worked long enough in big corporates and I'm always exploding if I hear the

47:27

sentence, somebody should do something.

47:31

Well, I worked in companies with over 100,000 employees and I never had a colleague

47:37

whose name was somebody and I never saw the somebody doing something, right?

47:43

So take ownership and responsibility. If you want something to be done,

47:49

ask this person, ask this team very clearly.

47:52

And if you realize a spot, I could hire 100 more people in Tamifar, right?

47:56

But currently, that's not the time to do so.

48:00

So I have more jobs to allocate than people I can ask for, right?

48:06

And that means just take ownership and responsibility. Do things.

48:11

I'd rather have people do 1,000 things and do 100 errors rather than doing 10

48:17

things and one error, right? I don't care about errors, do errors.

48:21

If you do things, even if it's in relation to clients, we can talk about that.

48:26

But not doing things, not answering to clients, not picking up a ball,

48:30

not picking up a loose end. Sometimes we simply have to accept, okay, after we talked about it, nobody's taking care.

48:38

Let's leave it there until we hire somebody who is taking care.

48:41

But at least we should tackle that topic. We should pick it up.

48:45

We should not be afraid of picking up things. We might not be an expert.

48:49

That happens, then we look at it.

48:52

We push it as far as we can. If we make an error, we learn.

48:57

But we get up the next day. So take ownership and responsibility is the third.

49:03

Speak up culture, teamwork, ownership, and responsibility. That are my three core values.

49:08

Mm-hmm. Lessons for future entrepreneurs, maybe even actionable.

49:16

What's the one piece of advice you wish you had received before starting at Temify?

49:23

There's one thing I underestimated, I have to admit, that although we are progressing

49:29

on a daily basis and our development is really going upwards,

49:34

I underestimated that it's going upwards, but in high waves,

49:38

right? It's going up and down. The trend is going in the right direction.

49:43

But I underestimated that it's really going in ways.

49:48

One week, you overachieve all your goals, everything runs smooth, and you're super happy.

49:56

And the next week, everything turns around totally the opposite,

49:59

right? So honestly, I underestimated how wavy the journey is to grow.

50:09

It's not, you know, every day a little step.

50:14

It's sometimes a big step forward and then also a big step in the negative way.

50:21

And I think as long as the trend is in the right direction and this wave is

50:26

going upwards, you're on a good track. but simply accept that there are also

50:31

times and challenges that hit you hard, right?

50:36

You're totally right. I'd like to go a little bit with the last few questions,

50:43

looking ahead for Timeify.

50:47

Two questions are now coming, typical standards, and I assume you have to say

50:52

twice, yes. Are you open to talk to new investors?

50:55

Always.

50:57

Are you looking for talented people to join your team?

51:00

As well. See?

51:02

Yves, what's your long-term vision for Timeify and what's next?

51:09

Well, basically, our strategy is to really become the global leader in sophisticated

51:14

enterprise scheduling solutions.

51:20

We reached EBITDA break-even last year, November, December.

51:27

It's a little more to be cash flow positive. And then basically,

51:32

I want to grow, grow, grow.

51:37

Product-wise, I already said, next to new skills in our AI-based Tamify assistant,

51:45

queuing or line management becomes our next topic we want to deploy this year.

51:52

Many clients from us already asked. It creates a lot of traffic and tension

51:56

and basically having a great and powerful scheduling tool.

52:01

It's just, you know, we don't start from scratch for queuing.

52:05

It's just a little add-on we produce.

52:11

Honestly, I want to see many happy clients using Timeify and people using online

52:16

appointments. That would be my dream.

52:21

That is pretty great. Emmanuel, it was such a pleasure talking to you.

52:28

Thank you very much. Only one question left.

52:32

Where can people connect to you and learn about Tamify? We'll,

52:37

as always, link down your LinkedIn profile here.

52:39

I assume everybody who's interested in investing in the company,

52:42

they can reach out straight there. And there would be an HR link for Tamify where people can apply.

52:51

So people can directly apply on our homepage. You can directly reach me over

52:57

LinkedIn and I send you a booking link, of course, so you can directly book

53:00

your slot with me, my calendar.

53:04

Via Timeify.

53:06

Via Timeify, of course.

53:08

Yes. To our audience, the closing question. What's the one question you would ask Emmanuel?

53:13

Drop it in the comments below. Emmanuel, thank you very much.

53:17

Thank you very much for having me. Have a great day.

53:20

YouTube, bye-bye