There is Light
An open letter to our family, friends, and fellow Time Travelers:
We are all balancing between reality & optimism. There is light, and the challenge of the moment is a forcing function to connect with one another, share resources, and come up with solutions to resolve the social & economic crisis. We hope everyone is SAFE & HEALTHY.
Calm over calamity
Like most Californians & people around the world, we are in week #2 of shelter-in-place. For those of us who work in tech, we are oftentimes blessed more than others, and while the world deals with Covid-19, it has been heartening to see the outpour of good wishes & support.
Truth be told, last week has been one of the longest weeks for many of us — a mixture of anxiety, boredom, and uncertainty took root in our minds. However, this crisis also helps many of us to listen to our common sense and gain new perspectives on life.
Social distancing ≠ social isolation.
We have seen inspirational social-norms: cello master Yo-Yo Ma posts a daily song of comfort, Lin-Manuel Miranda does his Hamilton rendition. Personally, I’m rediscovering many simple joys of life: cooking with my family, yard working with my mom over Hangouts, and collaborating remotely with my team. This is a different life on the screen from disappearing into social media or polishing up photos with filters. This is opening a medium with human generosity and empathy.
It may not be much light but it beats the darkness…
New economic reality
Short intro about us: Timeless is a startup developing a service marketplace on top of the calendar ecosystem, and we turn 1-year-old on April 1st. Just like many businesses, we are deeply concerned about financial conditions ahead. One of the biggest challenges is inoculating our remote & distributed teams from the vagaries of the crisis, so they can do their jobs, continue building momentum against adversity, and, ultimately, create something of real value. Taking the NfX’s advice to forge ahead in times of uncertainty, this moment of crisis will have far-reaching effects on society, and it has already changed how we WORK, PLAY and LEARN: Schools are closing, sports leagues have been canceled, and many people have been asked to work from home. In the short-term, the outlook can appear bleak. But there will be many learning experiences and, perhaps, unintended positive outcomes.
As we have teams of engineers & designers in Asia, we had to respond to the Coronavirus outbreak in January, and like many startups, we are QUESTIONING key assumptions:
How will life be different when more services are shifting online?
What will people need to harmonize work & life?
What tools are needed to manage time & services?
What can we do to make Timesss 10X better?
We believe that much of the social distancing are shifting lives and livelihood for millions of people, and many of them will persist as new norms post-recovery. As a calendar company organizing your time, our goal is to help people adapt to online service platforms.
1st. The coronavirus outbreak will create new online consumer demand & shift spending behaviors. Our team believes people will be discovering, discussing, and eventually taking action on previously offline service transactions. This new social norm will go beyond food delivery, video stream, and office collaboration. Keep in mind, services are 69% of the US economy, and only 7% are digitally transacted. Intrinsically, we sense the migration from offline marketplace will accelerate as many people are pushed to use online service marketplaces during the quarantine lockdown period. As new categories of online service marketplace emerge, we want to make it easier & faster to access multiple service platforms.
2nd. More poignantly, service categories such as movies, concerts, sports, and meetups will be digital and experienced vicariously (Take a look at boosts in Netflix Party & Twitch streaming numbers). This crisis offers us a new opportunity to focus on service discovery & scheduling on the calendar network. Specifically, we have done a lot of engineering work to programmatically integrate online service platforms and present relevant services inside of a calendar feed. This is a tough thing to do well, as most of us have dealt with, “where the f* did that recommendation come from?” So, we are developing an event-feed system that enables Timeless users to explore & bookmark services as if they’re collecting pins on Pinterest. Users can edit & reshare these bookmarks using the calendar subscription mechanism. Our bread and butter going forward will be helping people navigate this new world of online experiences, as people look for an escape during the difficult times ahead. This is our new & improved marketplace design for the summer beta release ← join our fishfood.
3rd. We are calibrating our GTM strategy to become more efficient using the calendar network (e.g., existing connections on contact lists and past calendar events). Instead of Biz-dev heavy partnerships, we favor API-driven integration with service providers to speed up recovery and promote a new way of acquiring customers. As we prove out our base hypothesis, we plan to build the world’s best mobile calendar and enable service providers to get their business back on track & get more customers via Timeless calendar.
There is Light somewhere
We had an ambitious plan when we started Timeless on April 1st, 2019, and we know we are getting closer and closer to build the future of the service marketplace. As technology optimists, we believe that the wave upon which we surf, the shift of information, communications, and commerce to the Internet, is still full of possibilities. In these uncertain times, our eyes are always in the future because there is light.
Zi & Timeless Team (z@timeless.space)
