Residents of Rewired: Powered by Flossie

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Welcome to Residents of Rewired! It’s an occasional series about some of the interesting residents we have nestled in our new Auckland co-working space. We chat to them about their ventures, their passions, some fascinating facts, and what makes them tick.

Today we chat to the team at Flossie about their unique business and what the future has in store for them.

Tell me a bit about your story

Let’s admit it. You don’t want to have to think when you buy online. You expect convenience and that you’ll be remembered.

Today, there are some industries that are doing it really well. They’re setting the benchmark for how every online transactional experience should be. They recognise that we like to do things quickly on our phones and that we crave efficiency, accessibility and a personal experience every single time.

No matter what you’re buying we deserve this because that’s what we’re all expecting. This is why we introduced Flossie as a smarter and friendlier way to book hair and beauty services on web or via an app (iOS & Android).

Flossie exists for people like you. People who want to get what they want, when they want – with ‘little fuss’.

We’re aware that how you may buy might be driven by price, location, reviews, stylist or just by a specific date or time. We allow for all these options when it comes to finding and getting what you want.

Flossie integrates with a cross-section of salon management providers meaning that we can show real-time availability from a salons calendar that you can book instantly (in under 30-seconds) and pay for upfront.

We partner with only tried-and-tested salons, spas and clinics. Buying with confidence is really important to us and we standby this by giving our habitual buyers the opportunity to validate the salon before we partner with them.

We have over 5,000 services available to book everything from hair, massage, nails, facials, brows, lashes and more. Providing a personal customer experience for our 60,0000 ‘Flossie fans’ is at the heart of everything we do. Alex Campbell who runs our marketplace is often going the extra mile to provide recommendations to our customers based on their needs. This can range from suggesting a salon that has a particular product suitable for a certain hair type, through to creating custom services for special occasions.

The technology underpinning Flossie has provided an opportunity for us to create a spin-off, Powered by Flossie that we’re shortly launching into the UK market. Powered by Flossie provides flexible tools for both enterprise salons and product brands seeking to remove fragmentation and leakage.

A common pain point Powered by Flossie solves is booking abandonment (where customers give up on hard-to-use and slow booking processes), which are almost double that of cart abandonment rates for traditional e-commerce businesses – leakage that’s costing these businesses millions of dollars.

There’s no disruption or need to throw out what exists already and start from scratch, as Powered by Flossie plugs into the existing management software. What the team have built over the years enables us to be the booking layer for multiple salon, spa and clinic software systems simultaneously, making us a unique player in the market.

This plug and play approach stretches through to no hidden set-up or requirement for on-boarding and training for staff.

The team are focussed on being the fastest beauty booking user experience in the world through modernising the industry with a better technology stack.

Why did you move into Rewired?

We were in the city in our own office and felt fairly isolated from other tech businesses. The idea of moving into a co-working space came-up and we were aware that Xero was setting-up Rewired.

After meeting with Louis we felt that Rewired was the best option for us and we wanted to be one of the original tenants that could help shape the culture and community of the space.

Where does the name Flossie come from?

Jenene’s Nana used to call her Flossie – we wanted something that was inherently feminine, could be spelled easily, meant nothing rude in a foreign language (and we could afford to buy the domain names!).

What do you find most rewarding and challenging about being in the tech industry?

What we’re doing right now is both rewarding and challenging. This has come from a few years’ of R&D and establishing the Flossie marketplace.

Our challenge is that we’re very niche and we’re the first to do this, so we have to be the testers and do the failings and set the pace and tone.

If you had to choose one piece of advice for people wanting to start a business, what would it be?

Just do it.

A favourite quote from Cath (Carlsen) on the team is by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

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