Planning a wedding is in no way an easy feat. It takes a great deal of time, energy and resource to deal with the numerous things required to pull off that perfect wedding ceremony. Since wedding planning is such an important and demanding task, people usually forget how much fun it could be if some of those responsibilities are taken care of by someone else. That’s why wedding planners are hired but instead of easing the hectic planning, they might end up increasing the overall cost and overshooting the budget.
Heard about Wedoido?
A new Dutch startup Wedoido has come up with plans to change this scenario with an out-of-the-box solution. Founded by Jorg van der Ham and Thomas Vles, the Amsterdam-based company has announced its new app that can be used to book the wedding you always wanted, minus the hassles. The new platform is live and available in Amsterdam for now and will enable one to use a directly bookable wedding scenario. This comes soon after Wedoido did a pre-seed round a couple of months ago.
The company also conducted a market check to find that about 50 percent of venues immediately charged double the standard amount when one is booking the venue for a wedding rather than a birthday or a business event. Additionally, they also don’t reveal information on availability and pricing without a visit, or a long phone call. The new Wedoido app is aimed at solving all of these problems and more.
Silicon Canals recently got an opportunity to have a quick chat with the founders and they had got a lot to share with us about the company’s future plans and products.
Already raised an investment
Wedoido has already raised an undisclosed amount to establish the brand and finance the company over a period of 5 months. The funds are being used on system development, marketing, vendor acquisition, team, office and other general costs. Vles who’s also the CEO of the company notes, “The goal is to reach pre-defined KPIs which will enable us to raise money above a certain valuation.”
Thinking international?
While the Wedoido app is currently available in beta and only in the Dutch language, Ham also being the CTO of the company says, “Our focus will be only on the Dutch market for next couple of years. However, once we reach certain KPIs, we have it in our roadmap to expand to the US given our investors there.”
First-of-its-kind in Europe
Wedoido claims to be the world’s first wedding platform that enables couples to check for prices and availability of locations and suppliers, and lets them book through the same platform. The Dutch startup aims at bringing transparency and innovation to an outdated sector. Vles says, “Not even locally, there’s no competitor globally that offers a similar service.”
So, how does it work?
The new platform enables couples to plan all aspects of their wedding. This includes sharing their inspiration by uploading or creating a moodboard and receiving relevant options, which match their preferences. If these matched preferences are what they like, the couples can directly book them through Wedoido. As for the business model, it is a commission based service, similar to Airbnb.
Vles adds, “We want to reach KPIs on marketing, system development, customer satisfaction and vendor acquisition. Next to that we are executing experiments on expansion areas, other business models and application flow.”
When asked, if they’re looking for external fundings in 2019, Vles said, “ After hitting our KPIs, we prospect a seed round in Q3-Q4.”
A digital wedding planner or a wedding assistant!
Amalgamating wedding planners and smart tech, the company views itself more as personal Wedding Assistants in the planning phase. It goes a step beyond than wedding planning with the option to book on-site support for the day of the big event, but it says that with good preparations that shouldn’t be necessary. The startup believes, it will keep innovating and improving their technology, without losing their personal touch.
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.
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