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There are plenty of calendar and scheduling apps that take charge of your professional life and serve you slot in meetings with your teammates and work collaborators . Howboutis all about finding metre with your friends to overhear up .
The company is bank on the fact that some Gen zed users are very felicitous to share their entire calendar with their friends . Howbout , which has a majority of the user aged 25 or below , said that more than 75 % of its users apportion their full calendar with at least one friend .
The startup was base in August 2020 by university good friends Neil Tanna , Jake Jenner , and Duncan Cowan . After university , Tanna became a corporate lawyer , Jenner was an investment banker and Cowan was a software engineer . They realized that it became difficult to catch up with each other . Tanna always wanted to progress something of his own , and convinced the other two co - founders to build Howbout with him .
The company is announcing today that it has raised $ 8 million in Series A funding lead by Goodwater Capital , with participation from FJ Labs , subsequence and football thespian Harry Maguire . Existing investor , including Boost Capital and Angel Invest , also put money in the stave . The companionship has now raised more than $ 13 million in financing .
“ In my work life , clip was a multiplayer experience where I could see other colleagues ’ schedules and meet them accordingly . But in my personal life , it was a single - actor entity , ” Tanna told TechCrunch over a call .
“ There were a lot of apps to manage personal productiveness . But I did n’t have a societal graph on top of my social agenda . We wanted to make time a societal entity . ”
With the app , you’re able to see your own docket and the schedule of booster who have shared their calendars with you . you could also share your availability to a all-inclusive set of people without share your full calendar . Users can also make different mathematical group with user if they hang out with that set of hoi polloi often .
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Howbout let you schedule event and ask in people through a link . citizenry who are not on the app can see the invite . However , if they want to respond , they have to download the app . Tanna said that the company has also try out with allow user respond on the web and can switch to that option in the future if they see merit in it .
The party also has tools like voting on a time for availability or a meet up — just likeDoodleorClockwiseoffers in a professional stage setting .
Users can sum succeeding case like gigs or adventure to their bucket lists and past upshot that they enjoyed to Memories for callback value . Each effect with admirer has its own group chat for planning , so you do n’t have to apply irregular group on other apps like WhatsApp .
Building a social product centered around time
The company , which has 13 employees , has over 4 million register , with more than 50 million events created on the app . It has its largest audience radix in the U.S. , trace by the U.K. , Germany , Australia , and Canada . With the later fundraise , it wants to inflate in the U.S. market .
Howbout think that its net effects will be set off by chief acquaintance officers — people who take enterprise in a group to plan meet - ups and events . Tanna said that most people who visit the app stay combat-ready and add more ally .
The company has tried unlike strategies like stigmatise event activating and subscriptions . But currently it is focusing on growth .
Chi - Hua Chien , Colorado - father and managing cooperator at Goodwater Capital , secern TechCrunch that Howbout has an chance to build a successful social mesh over clock time . “ Successful societal platforms had a core subject matter character like Facebook had updates from friends and Musical.ly had intertwine videos with music . For Howbout , that is meter , ” he said .
He noted that Gen Z is a slap-up target hearing for the app because they are not hesitant in sharing their calendar and they realize that the option to that is not meeting or catching up with friend . While this might be straight for some , it ’s hard to know whether it ’s the beginning of a raw social trend or not . So let ’s see whether portion out personal calendars become a thing .
The tale has been updated to reflect clarification from the startup around user numbers
