Emailing is all fine and dandy, but if you are engaged in a back-and-forth email exchange. Then the whole process quickly becomes a pain point. No one likes threads after threads of email conversations. It is a global pain point, and Calendly shows just how much a pain in the foot back-and-forth email can become.
Founded back in August 2017 by Nigerian-born Tope Awotona, Calendly removes the hustle of back-and-forth emailing when two parties want to make an appointment to meet or talk to each other. The online service has found prominence in the COVID-19 induced virtual meeting.
As it usually works out, one has to look at their calendar and identify the days and times they are free. Then emailing the person they’re supposed to meet with that information. The person they are supposed to meet with will also have to check their calendar and see if the day and time given by their correspondent works for them. If it doesn’t, then they will have to email them back, saying they both need to agree on a different time or day.
With Calendly, one of the people that are supposed to meet simply shares a link to their Calendly account. The other person will then see the slots in the week when their correspondent is free, which also works for them. Hence eliminates the need for back-and-forth emailing.
Calendly prominence during COVID-19 Lockdowns
With the coronavirus global pandemic, a lot of physical meetups were discouraged or outright banned. To keep business going, people had to resort to virtual meetings. It was during these times that Calendly witnessed fast growth. People were scheduling virtual meetings via the platform thanks to the ease of setting up appointments without the back-and-forth emailing.
In 2020, the meeting scheduling service recorded over 100 million meetings. Additionally, it is fast becoming synonymous with calendar meeting scheduling management. The platform now boasts of about 10 million active monthly users. It also recorded $70 million worth of subscriptions in 2020, and projections point to it hitting revenues of $1 billion in a few years.
The company had earlier raised $200,000 Series A funding from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq CapitalOpen. Calendly has again bagged a Series B round of funding worth $350,000. OpenView is leading this round of funding and valuing the company at over $3 billion.
In a news conference, Awotona said, “Our profitable, unique, product-led growth model has led to Calendly becoming the most used, most integrated, most loved scheduling platforms for individuals and large enterprises alike. While we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry.”
Blake Bartlett, a partner at OpenView added: “Calendly has been a part of the OV family since our original investment in August of 2017. We’ve been consistently impressed by Calendly’s performance, and we’re beyond excited to deepen our partnership with this significant investment.
When we began working with Calendly’s Founder/CEO Tope Awotona, we were compelled by sheer size of the opportunity. Everyone hates the back-and-forth emails it takes to schedule a meeting. This universal pain point leads to a massive global market opportunity because meeting scheduling touches so many industries, use cases, and business processes. It even expands outside the professional realm to address my personal and prosumer use cases.”
Image Credit: WSJ