Bright ideas for new businesses are often sparked by personal experience and it was Kamil Mahajan’s frustration with trying to book appointments by phone that prompted him to set up Otals, an online scheduling platform that streamlines bookings for customers and service providers alike.
The company’s main focus is the rapidly growing market for services to be provided at home. This has been fuelled by the pandemic which has fundamentally changed working patterns and it goes beyond the usual list of plumbers and electricians to include everything, from dog grooming and physiotherapy to reiki sessions.
“The wide use of smartphones is driving the global online on-demand services sector which is expected to reach a value of $2.2 trillion by 2028 with CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of just under 30 per between 2021 and 2028,” Mahajan says.
“People want to be able to schedule their appointments easily but the process is often very inefficient,” he says. “With the Otals platform, a customer can book an appointment in three clicks and a service provider can use it to advertise, list their services and automate engagements with their customers. A business only has to list once to take unlimited bookings while ease of use is ensured by searching based on location and service category.”
Otals was set up in March 2021 and is currently being run by Mahajan with some part-time help. Mahajan studied management and information systems at Dublin Business School before completing an MSc in digital investigation and forensic computing at UCD. Prior to setting up his own business, he worked in senior roles in information security with Quantcast and Facebook. Most recently, he was the information security manager at Maynooth University.
“Otals is addressing a number of problems,” Mahajan says. “For example, the loss of revenue and waste of resources due to no-shows. We provide reminders about appointments to minimise this. We also save users time on administrative and repetitive tasks while booking options for customers are no longer limited by business opening hours.
“With our platform, a service provider can list their availability and let customers browse and book an appointment in seconds using our web and mobile apps with no going back and forth. They also get access to business tools such as online payments. Being able to list their availability means a service provider who only wants to work certain days, or to top up their working week with extra clients at the weekend, can just advertise these slots.”
The company launched its MPV in September last year and costs to develop the web, iOS and Android apps were roughly €70,000 with financial and business support from LEO Kildare, while Mahajan also participated in the New Frontiers programme for start-ups run by TUS (technological university of the Shannon and Midlands) and Maynooth University.
Kildare-based Otals is currently operating in the Irish market only, however, the company has already tried and validated its idea in Indonesia. Asked why Indonesia Mahajan says, “Ireland is a market of five million people. Indonesia is a market of over 270 million and it is very tuned in to our type of service so it makes sense.”
What’s also interesting about the company’s entry into the Indonesian market is that, based on local knowledge, it will be using a different revenue model there. In Ireland, the company is using a conventional fixed rate SaaS subscription. In Indonesia, it will be revenue sharing because it’s a well-established practice and the Otals platform can expect a slice of about 20 per cent of each booking. By contrast, Mahajan has found Irish people are resistant to revenue sharing. What has stopped Mahajan going all out after the Indonesian market has been the impact of the pandemic and money. He is currently looking to raise €250,000 to fully launch the platform there.
