Building a new product to help people find time

Why we started Sama

Earlier in the year I left my role as CEO of Treatwell, Europe’s largest marketplace for hair and beauty appointments. I came out of nearly 7 years of heads down in hard work, and I didn’t really have a clear view of what was next.

In an ideal world (or maybe more specifically in a different year), I would have travelled to an isolated beach and reset my mind, or climbed a mountain to soul search. Unfortunately, London was in full lockdown at the time, so neither was an option!

But there was one trend that was accelerated due to the pandemic, meeting people online was now commonplace. So I thought I would take the opportunity to connect with as many people as I could, learn about what they are doing and why. My hope was that these meetings would fuel my inspiration and eventually something would spark.

It was fascinating to meet a wide variety of people from all over the world and a few themes started to take hold, such as online education and remote working. I started bouncing off these ideas with a former Treatwell colleague Tomas, who was stuck in New Zealand during his sabbatical year with the family. We became great sparring partners as we were both thinking of new businesses.

One frustration repeatedly came up: it is such a hassle to meet new people and agree on a suitable time slot. The experience is just really poor.

Problem Identified

The monotony of those back and forth emails to agree on a suitable time slot is very inefficient. In addition, as I was meeting people not only in the UK but also US, Japan, (and New Zealand!), in many cases someone would always misunderstand the timezone and that would throw you back to the starting point.

There are some existing tools out there but most enable you to send a link to your availability and let the other person book a time slot that works. Although useful for one party, I have always felt that sending links creates an awkward experience. In real life, when you ask someone for their time, you would try to respect their schedule and minimise the hassle on their end.

We liked the idea because it is trying to solve such a specific and niche problem, but at the same time addressing a huge market because the problem occurs everywhere in the world, everyday.

Another angle that gave us confidence is that we had spent the last 6 years trying to digitise the calendar and appointment slots for the beauty industry. We definitely felt there was a Founder-Market-Fit, and if anyone was equipped with the knowledge and experience to get this going, we believed it was us.

What we want to achieve

So what do we want our product to do? Basically our goal is to build an AI assistant that provides instant suggestions of mutually available time slots. We call this the scheduling network, and envision that if we can get enough users on to the platform, it will be a super powerful tool for our customers.

The other important component of Sama is the analytics. The more you use Sama, the more Sama will learn about your preferences and become a better assistant for you. But we also want to provide simple insights of how you are using your time. This is something that surprisingly few people do. Reflect back on how their time was spent.

We will be posting blogs about how we plan to take the first steps into that journey.

Most importantly — Our Mission

Sama’s mission is simple but ambitious: to help people find time.

Time is arguably the most important asset that any human being can have, and this pandemic has taught us how precious it is.

We’re starting with the literal meaning of the word and focusing on the scheduling problem, but we also mean finding time to do what is important.

We’ve assembled a truly talented and remote team, literally spread across the world. We’re only getting started so stay tuned for more things to come!

Want to give us feedback or interested in joining the team? First go to our site and download the app. Or, reach out to hello@meetsama.com.

Extra: Origin of the name

Tomas started calling this idea Samantha, the name of the AI in Spike Jonze’s movie “Her”. We wanted to bring a warm feeling into the user experience, emulating a super PA (personal assistant) taking care of scheduling meetings for you.

I then shortened that to Sama because in Japanese putting ‘sama’ next to your name — like Kei-sama — shows respect to the name you are addressing. And that is exactly how we wanted users of our product to feel. Respected and taken care of.