New York-based Beauteeze launches its salon-booking service (exclusive)

Ever called a spa or beauty salon to book an appointment and been put on hold or sent straight through to voicemail?

New Yorker Abby Ziff has experienced this time and time again. So she started Beauteeze to help fellow Manhattanites book appointments at nearby salons.

It’s a destination site for consumers, but the team also built a widget that any third-party provider can add to their website, so new and existing clients can book an appointment online.

Above: Beauteeze’s cofounders Abby Ziff and Adi Turgeman

Beauteeze is designed to be a useful marketing tool for the salons themselves, and it integrates with existing scheduling and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Ziff said that most of the local businesses they work with in New York favor Booker.com and shouldn’t have to ditch their current software.

For this reason, the founders believe they have an edge on West Coast competitor StyleSeat.

“If a salon doesn’t want to switch to our software — they don’t have to,” said Ziff. “We have hundreds of integrations so there is no barrier — and that makes us a little different to our competitors.” Note that these integrations are via the widget, and not full-scale developments.

Ziff’s cofounder and CTO is a software engineer from Israel — the pair built the website with less than $70,000 in funding from friends and family. They launched the beta in March, and Ziff says they already have hundreds of salons signed up.

The company makes its charging the software companies it integrates with — a lead generation model. Alternatively, salons can pay $30 a month for access to Beauteeze’s online scheduling tools — a good option for businesses that don’t boast a strong digital presence. “For them, it’s a virtual storefront,” said Ziff.

Beauteeze is currently looking to raise a seed round of funding, so it can add sales, marketing and developer talent to its team.

Top image via Shutterstock