Itâs MeetBitâs 1st anniversary and I canât believe itâs been exactly a year since we started. It feels like just moments ago, we were pre-product and just pitching the idea of a scheduling assistant to potential early adopters.
In the year that has passed, MeetBit has gone from an idea by 2 college students to a scheduling solution that helps entire teams manage their availability and time.
I started @heymeetbit w/ @kirstenmarini exactly a year ago and so far whilst still in college, weâve been able to fundraise 7 digits, earn 5 digits in revenue and grow into a team of 7.
— Lance đđŒ (@lvillacin) January 12, 2022
Here are some lessons and our storyđđŒ
Scheduling was a personal problem.
When Kirsten and I decided we wanted to start a startup together we started hunting around for an idea we could quickly test. We looked for problems we could address and well, started with things that personally were grinding up our own gears.
Back then, both of us were on the executive board of BYTE, our universityâs startup organization. As student leaders, we had to deal with a lot of other students to bring our organizationâs projects to life. On top of that, we had other clubs and had class group works like every other student.
Whilst looking for a problem, we realized we found ourselves in a certain situation all too often. We would be in a group chat with other students and when we had to meet, it would take ages to find a common time. Someone would say, âI have class sorryâ, âhow about tom instead?â or some other response that would force the scheduling conversation to definitely last a few hours.
This was how we started MeetBit. We thought, what if there was a way to send a single message and get the perfect meeting schedule right away. We wanted to just say: âMeetBit schedule a meeting with everyone here tomorrowâ and we would get a meeting scheduled instantly with the entire group.
Spending time on what really matters.
There always is something to work on, and with the finite amount of time we have each day, we have to pick and choose which comes first and what can be put off for another day. For certain roles, there are tasks to be prioritized and ones that shouldnât.
Sales teams meet with clients and close deals, marketing teams ideate and build campaigns and management strategize and guide. But, whatever the role is, everyone has to meet with who theyâre working with. This, then makes scheduling a task that everyone has.
However, scheduling isnât the core role that people have and is a menial task we just all have to do. But, we end up spending so much time trying to find time, things get done later than weâd like to or we're squeezed when we actually have to do our job.
We understand how important scheduling is. But, we also understand itâs not what anyone wants to spend their time on. Coming from our own experience, we wanted to let people offload scheduling and focus on what they love and are good at.
Weâre spending more time to help you save time.
MeetBit has since moved to become a scheduling powerhouse that handles your personal availability, finds common times with your teammates and organizes meetings with external partners. You might think weâre almost done here and that in the year that has passed weâve finally got scheduling covered. However, thereâs still so much to address and weâre now bringing in even more people on board to spend more time in solving this problem.
From 2 student founders, weâve now grown to a team of 7 and are actively hiring. We'd love to have you, so head on over to meetbit.io/careers to join the us. Weâre also midway through our pre-seed funding round and weâre happy to have the support of Buko Ventures and many angels from Manila Angel Investors Network and our own network.
Time is a valuable resource that we all have. And we want to continue to help you in maximizing this efficiently. We started MeetBit so we could get scheduling over with and move to what we were trying to schedule in the first place. As we head on forward, and with our team, investors, advisers and of course you our dear users, we're confident in just a little bit more time, scheduling all your meetings will truly happen in just a snap.