Toronto startup's booking app attracts barbershops from around the world | Hacker News Reader

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

theglobeandmail.com

69 pointschriswoodford28 comments

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/

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...)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Maybe they will call it Zocdoc.

I hope they succeed just for the verb potential :)

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Yes Shopify has a Toronto office after their acquisition of Jet Cooper: http://www.jetcooper.com/

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

http://www.marsdd.com/

Not so fast

http://startupnorth.ca/2014/06/07/searching-for-life-on-mars...

MaRS has a bunch of issues, but that piece is off base. He seemingly missed the part of that building with actual start ups in it...

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.

> 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.

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

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?

There are some investment "bridges", usually ran by Canadians who made money in the States and are now helping out. I'm not well versed enough in the legality of US-entities investing in Canada, but in principle yes, the opportunity is there.

In Waterloo I think it's possible with a seed fund that puts in 100-150k at 2 to 3M valuations before the good ones get picked up by YC.

A lot of Canadians move down to the states anyway because developer salaries are like 2-3x higher.

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