When living in an apartment block, doing your laundry can be very frustrating, time-wasting activity. Now, three female entrepreneurs have developed an application,Book N Wash, which makes the entire booking process easier.
People who live in an apartment block knows how frustrating it is to walk down to the laundry room with all your laundry, only to find there is no washing machine available. Now, three female entrepreneurs from Business Academy Aarhus, Cecilie Andreasen, Gitte Ellegaard, and Rikke Simonsen have created a digital solution to avoid this problem.
The company bookrs have developed an app that give you the opportunity to book or cancel your laundry appointments. Most importantly, you can do it no matter where you are, quickly and easily through the app on your smartphone. Furthermore, the consumer will receive a message if anyone else cancels their booked time, so that they can do an “urgency load”.
“Basically it is not a new thing. It is an old thing that we have brought into the modern world. What we have done is digitalized the washing board in a simple and easy way. It might not be so innovative, but innovation is also about creating something new from something old” says Gitte Ellegaard, bookrs.
Book N Wash
Through the app Book N Wash, bookrs wants to offer their consumers a service by booking and cancelling laundry appointments through their application or website. Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you can still use the product. bookrs wants to remove the frustration, which often is associated with doing your laundry.
Their customers are not individual consumers, but the boards of the co-ops and other housing associations. The product is easy to acquire. A member of the board orders logins to the building from the website, www.booknwash.com. The logins will be received by e-mail. The logins are then passed on to residents, who can log in through the app or the website. Bookrs points out that Book N Wash is a cheap solution.
From a school project to a real company
The idea behind the startup emerged during Cecilie, Gitte, and Rikke’s education at Business Academy Aarhus, where they are currently taking a Bachelor’s Degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
“The idea has grown out from a school assignment, where we had to find a project to work with and we looked at things that irritated us on a daily basis. We shared the subject with our network on Facebook and through that, the idea emerged. Thus in the beginning we got feedback from real people, who motivated us a lot and at the same time they could relate to our issue,” says Cecilie, bookrs.
Their focus was not to create something new, but to solve a daily problem that people can relate to. Finding the right time to do your laundry can be frustrating for many people. Even after their school assignment was finished, continued to work with the idea, because they knew that this product could become something great.
Dealing with the growing pains of a new business
As a startup, there are challenges to overcome all the time. The biggest challenge for bookrs was to realize the idea and sell it. They point out that there is always something new and something that needs to be dealt with and you get to know how through experience. One thing that bookrs really appreciate is that they are more than one person in the company, so they can get feedback from each other and really discuss their ideas.
Another thing that bookrs appreciate is that they have an Advisory Board with four professional business people, whom they can work with. The founders chose the Advisory Board themselves amongst a group of people who offered to assist them.
Who is Bookrs?
Bookrs consist of three women who are much passionate about the startup world.
Cecilie Andreasen has a background in Multimedia Design. She started a degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship to gain some tools to become a consultant for present companies. She have never thought of becoming an entrepreneur herself, but as she says, “Things change”.
Rikke Simonsen has also studied Multimedia Design together with Cecilie and is now studying Innovation and Entrepreneurship as well. Besides being a part of bookrs, Rikke also has her own company called Designersweb, where she designs and develops websites for companies. A year ago, she didn’t imagine herself starting her own company, but now that she has, it’s great and exciting!
Gitte Ellegaard has always known that she wanted to be independent, which is why she chose to study Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She wanted to develop her network through education, which she emphasizes is alpha and omega for a startup. For the last five years, she has organized a New Years Eve for singles in Aarhus.
The girls have started bookrs and Book N Wash from scratch and have a mutual passion for making the company a success.
Onwards and upwards
Currently, bookrs are testing their product at two places, one in Aarhus and one in Aalborg. During this period, bookrs receives a lot of feedback, which helps improve and develop the Book N Wash app. Even though Book N Wash is in the early stages, bookrs has many more ideas to work with in the future. This won’t be the last we hear from the three female entrepreneurs from Aarhus.