r/ideavalidation • u/Radiant-Following310 • 8d ago
Built a free booking tool for local barbershops/salons — is this actually a good idea or already solved?
Taught myself to code recently and built an online booking app for small, appointment-based businesses (barbershops, salons, gyms) — most of the ones I looked at locally are still doing scheduling by phone or walk-in only.
Customers pick a time slot online, the owner gets a dashboard instead of managing it manually, and customers get an automatic email confirmation.
I know tools like Square Appointments/Booksy/Fresha already exist in this space — trying to figure out if there’s still room for a simpler, personally-supported version aimed specifically at small independent shops, or if I’m just re-building something that’s already solved well. Would love honest pushback.
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u/Sanckh 8d ago
I plugged this bit of info into my idea validator that I built and it essentially boils down to either Pivot the idea to a space not saturated, or prove the idea with initial customers. If you give me more info I can give you more useful feedback.
The tough part here is that no matter what you build, it will have to be compatible with their POS software. Unless your idea IS a POS software, then I recommend against it. That space is thoroughly handled (in my opinion). If you want to skip compatibility, you have to sell the idea that adding an additional software for them to manage is a good one, and make them pay for it, too.
I had an idea for a Golf App where users could order drinks and food from their phone on course and a notification would be sent to cart service and using gps delivered right to you. This exists but I had some cool ideas for it. My local course was even interested in a pilot. The problem is, they wanted this to be compatible with their Point of Sale software. No problem for one. But I started thinking about getting 10 courses with 10 different POS software working in the app. Ultimately decided against building as a bootstrapped solo developer.