Time flies, sometimes. Other times… it feels like quite the opposite.
As we glanced into the proverbial oven the other day, we were reminded that just over a year had passed since we left our jobs 1 to work full-time on Beespoke (www.beespokeapp.com), a London-based app expected to go live on the App Store and the Play Store this Summer. In that time, we’ve experienced a roller-coaster of breakthroughs and heartbreaks, and everything else in between. We’ve iterated massively, and even pivoted along the way. One thing though, hasn’t changed.
Beespoke’s always been conceived to be a platform for accomplishment for both users and providers. From day one, we’ve dreamt up an app designed to improve the state of the service industry (starting with service providers ranging from dog walkers, sitters, cleaners, or yoga instructors) and to contribute to a future in which Beespoke itself will be eventually “dwarfed by the aggregate value of the [ecosystem] built on top” 2 of it.
As Beespoke blooms, so will the service professionals on the platform, who’ll get to grow their business, their way. This part is important: Beespoke exists because the on-demand industry as it stands today is one that wants to have its cake and eat it too. Disguised employment and lack of social responsibility go unchecked everyday, and we want to change this. Providers should be entitled to choose who they want to work with, when they want to make themselves available, which geographies they want to serve, and which price they want to charge. As far as we’re concerned, these fundamental rights of self-employed professionals should be extended to the likes of cleaners, babysitters, personal trainers – anyone whose livelihood is made by providing value to the homes they care after.
On the customer end, Beespoke works as a dedicated solution for everyday care needs. The App That Cares, as we call it internally, is designed to help households make informed and worry-free decisions about the men and women that look after them. A cause for delight? Yes, because standout professionals deliver a bespoke service, wholly and genuinely catered to you. And another yes, because Beespoke doesn’t stop at making an introduction. It strives to deliver carefree living by making your day-to-day a bit sweeter – first via your providers, then through little thoughtful gestures we hope will make a world of difference.
The intended outcome is an engaged community, exemplified by user-provider relationships meant to endure. To ensure this, Beespoke will facilitate exchange, and reward complicity between both parties. Because – chances are you’ll hear this from us a lot – care gets personal with time. And personalised care implies good knowledge, and a good rapport with the people, or the homes being looked after. Honest conversations with service providers have entrenched our belief that this rings just as true for a dog walker as it does for a cleaner, or a yoga instructor.
To borrow a line from one of our favorite 3 Parisian/Londoner eateries: “Good things take time. We have the food. Do you have the time?” Obviously Beespoke’s not entirely about food 4. But we hope that the app’s release later this year will be equally as satisfying as a lovingly-prepared home-cooked meal.
With Care,
Beespoke Team
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(1) We “celebrated” the 1-year anniversary of our resignations on March 15th!
(2) To employ the tres-a-propos words of the team over at Slack in their blog post entitled “The Slack Platform Roadmap”, who wrote: “We are building for a future where Slack is dwarfed by the aggregate value of the companies built on top of it.”
(3) Ferdi Paris opened Ferdi London earlier this year. Their Instagram: @ferdi.london
(4) More on this soon!
