MyTime Founder Ethan Anderson, courtesy photo
The app launched last November in Austin and lists more than 18,000 local businesses. It lets people book everything from haircuts to dog groomings to massages easily online.
“We’ve all experienced the frustration of booking appointments by phone,” said Ethan Anderson, founder of MyTime. “You’re put on hold forever, or the business is closed when you try to call, or you play endless games of phone tag just to book a simple appointment.”
That’s why Anderson created MyTime. The website and mobile app solves this problem by letting people book all of their appointments at any local business through MyTime.com or through itts mobile app.
Austin is a test market for MyTime’s new business model.
“In other cities, we charge businesses who want to promote themselves a commission on revenue whenever a new customer books an appointment,” Anderson said. “In Austin, we are testing out a new flat fee structure for businesses who want to promote themselves.” The businesses pay $50 a month and if they do not receive $50 in revenue from the app, MyTime doesn’t charge the fee, Anderson said.
In Texas, people have used MyTime to book thousands of appointments already. The service has combed through that data to find some interesting comparisons among cities. Compared to Dallas and Houston, Austin is more last minute when it comes to appointment booking, according to MyTime.
“Austin books appointments an average of 72 hours in advance, compared to 78 hours in Houston,” according to MyTime. “Austinites book their appointments during the day. Only 26% of appointments are booked at night between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. vs. 30 percent of bookings in Dallas and Houston during the same time.”
“Austin might be less bougie,” according to MyTime. “Austin over-indexes on basic haircut bookings while massages over-index in Dallas and hair styling over-indexes in Houston.”
MyTime is making a big push to attract Austin consumers to its app. It’s launched radio ads and hired out billboards.
The reception has been good so far, Anderson said.
Anderson created MyTime, which was incubated at 500 Startups, launched in San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2013. The company now has more millions of businesses listed nationwide and has 75 employees, including two contractors in Austin. MyTime has raised $3 million from 12 investors, according to its CrunchBase profile.
“It always felt weird to me that there wasn’t a single destination to do this like there was for OpenTable,” Anderson said.
“We literally want any appointment based business to be on MyTime,” Anderson said.
Some of the most popular bookings are for haircuts, waxing services, manicures and dog grooming, but things like dental exams and massages are growing, he said.
“We are making a bigger push into automotive and housing clean services,” Anderson said.
The site offers exclusive deals for customers who book services during off-peak times. It also gives its users a $20 credit when they refer friends to a particular business.
MyTime also offers a loyalty program to its users. When they book three different types of appointments, they get the fourth one free.