In the heart of Cebu City, Philippines, Startup Oasis is a co-living concept evolved. It is a place where the customer and developers live and work together, where the customer brings their startup ideas that the developers of the website and app developers make concrete.
We sat down with Damien for this product-of-the-month function and spoke about his product, Shaver, a proximity app that caters to people who need hairdressers. First, it will be launched in Paris.
On his Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
“Damien happily described when inquired to discuss about his minimum viable product or MVP, “I’m here to create an application, which enable you to find a barber or a hairdresser within your specified location. That is the app’s first significant point. So, we wanted to build something so people wouldn’t have to wait for a hairdresser, you know.
He went on to explain why this app is required, “…and we had problems finding hairdressers, free (available) hairdressers, as customers.” So, we started wondering what made it work, and what we discovered was that many hairdressers only spend half of their time working. The rest of the time they’re not working. They are just there chilling or resting. To solve this problem, we decided to do something, to create something. We’re trying to build an app called “Shaver” for that reason.
So, how’s it working? If you have made an account as a hairdresser, you just switch on availability when you want and you will be able to see anyone around 1 km around your location. “I don’t like to be compared to Uber – Damien said. He laughed, “I don’t like to be compared to Uber because, particularly, you know that Uber can choose the driver’s prices and all those things, we don’t do that.
Where it all begun
That’s actually a funny story because I was looking for a web developer in Paris and there are websites where you put in the job you need to do and there are individuals from India and Madagascar who replied that they were available and I would like to work with them. I was reluctant because they were far away, and I was scared that they would do a job that wasn’t up to my standard. I didn’t know about offshoring, and I studied offshore on the Internet when I found out about it.
“So I was doing offshore research and I saw Baptiste’s intervention on a forum saying,’ yes, offshoring can be good, it can also be bad, it depends,’ and so I was attracted in his involvement, so I categorically looked at his portfolio and list of work, and I discovered the Startechup website, so I made it a point to ask him for a Skype call.”
On co-working and offshoring decisions
I’m not a developer, but I’m here to understand what the developers are doing,” Damien spoke about the intention why he decided in contradiction of offshore work.” I wanted to work with programmers, to understand the entire process, to understand the steps.
This is not the first time that Damien has worked with his app developers. He said that the first version of his app was developed as a hybrid, meaning that it works for Android and iOS phones, but this had a lot of bugs that led him to search for 2nd version developers on Android. This is what he and Startup Oasis are doing now.