Late no more

Appsaya came up with the solution that eases time-consuming scheduling of appointments, especially for businesses that invest a lot on administration and appointment scheduling tasks.

Mamadou Ndiaye, founder and CEO of Appsaya, developed a technology to help facilitate efficient appointment scheduling for businesses and their customers. What it does is that it helps businesses simplify appointment scheduling with their customers by integrating booking solutions into business websites. He wanted to be useful and give back to society by creating something that could impact people’s lives. So, after an almost two-year experience working with L’Oréal in Paris, he felt it was time to take a risk.

He started a consulting company, Stratos, with no savings and his family in Senegal still needed the little money he sent. However, he believed he would be more useful to society if he could create a sustainable company. He thought developing a company would help himself and the people around him, whether they would learn from his mistakes, do better or just benefit from the value of the business he created.

One thing led to another
‘This first company [Stratos] allowed me to sign a contract in Gibraltar for a telecommunication operator and some other contracts with SMEs in Paris and Normandy regions in France. Along the way, an idea came up from one of my clients and I found some partners to build a product,’ he said. This product marked the beginning of his new startup adventure, iReservos, a web-based platform that helped businesses ease their customers’ appointment scheduling process. It became the parent company of Appsaya.

The idea of iReservos started in France six years ago. Mamadou noticed that one of his first clients, which was a driving school in Paris, had receptionists in 10 shops and spent a lot of time scheduling appointments for students. Mamadou and his co-founder believed an online scheduling platform could solve the pain of any type of appointment-based services. He knew this technology could be useful in many countries.

Through iReservos, he learnt more about the field of business and built a team ground up from co-founders to partners, investors and technologies. ‘The iReservos adventure allowed me to learn a lot about myself. I was lucky enough to have been able to convince over 20 people to invest in our startup,’ he added.

In Southeast Asia
Mamadou always thought of going global from day one but decided to extend his idea to Southeast Asia for business and personal reasons. ‘I wanted to learn about new cultures and live far from my roots in an environment that would be beneficial,’ he said. But he was also aware of the rapidly growing economy and opportunities available in the region. He knew setting up his company would not only be an interesting experience but also profitable.

With three other partners, Mamadou developed the web-based platform, Appsaya, in Malaysia.’I was lucky to have them participate in its development every day,’ he said. As years went by, Appsaya had helped book appointments in various sectors such as healthcare, beauty, government organisations, event exhibitions, conferences and more.

What Appsaya did was allow any user, at any time, to book an appointment with a doctor, dentist, hair stylist or embassy and even receive notifications and reminders. It also served as a business matching platform to help event organisers connect with participants which helped optimise people’s time by allowing to book meetings prior to the event.

WIEF’s network
In 2015, Mamadou attended WIEF’s IdeaPad, an exclusive platform at the 11th WIEF that provided startup businesses to pitch to an audience of potential clients and investors. During the event, he managed to secure major clients in France and Malaysia. ‘WIEF gave our company its strongest network which helped Appsaya gain substantial visibility and most importantly signed off its most significant contract,’ he noted.

This allowed Mamadou and his team to better identify and distribute their product to their clients. He also joined the Hong Leong Islamic Bank jumpstart programme in 2016 which helped him measure their work and progress. ‘After the event, business relationships become stronger over the years and take their valuable time to guide and help you find your way to success,’ he added. He also participated in last year’s 13th WIEF in Sarawak, where he recalled that he met business leaders who inspired him to develop the company. Since then, he identified new markets and used other leverages to continue his journey with less funds.

Latest developments
One of Mamadou’s major developments was their new product which catered to event organisers such as exhibitions and conferences. ‘This new product opens a whole set of new perspectives for our company globally. We’ve just completed the delivery of MIHASConnect which is the official business matching platform for the Malaysia International Halal Showcase (MIHAS). This year’s edition is expected to receive over 25,000 participants from 80 countries,’ he said. This, he said, confirmed his long term partnership with MIHAS.

In the market today, there are new entrants with technologies similar to Appsaya such as BookDoc and other Singaporean companies but Mamadou said they were working to define their own blue ocean. ‘For the next five years we plan to serve 3,000 clients globally both for events and appointment scheduling,’ he concluded.

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