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34 Comments

Finally, I think I've got a good idea

  1. 2

    I'm a doctor in the UK and I definitely think this app would be useful!

    Currently, we either have people who are employed to run a rota for a large team, or individuals (docs and nurses) volunteer to organise it within their department. So you don't necessarily have to work with a hospital. It could be used by individuals - issue is everyone in the department would have to buy into it for it to work...

    Swapping shifts, booking leave and study leave, ensuring compliance with restrictions on total number of hours worked, and an ability to book extra locum/paid work would be useful functions!

    Even if it was person to person, like splitwise, it would probably have to communicate with someone in charge in the department. They like to have oversight - can't risk not having a night on call doc or nurse! Could endanger patients...

    Buena suerte!

    1. 1

      Thank you for your feedback ^^

      Having someone in charge of a group will be a challenge, but I thought of adding a different role like "admin", who approves all shift trades.

      Anyways, that is a problem for the future, right now I'm focused on starting small and add features progressively

  2. 2

    I like the idea. I'll be following your progress!

    1. 2

      thank you very much! it is my first commercial product and I still have to learn a lot of stuff, but it is a fun journey :)

      1. 2

        At my hospital, we use Amion (amion.com) to see our schedule and trade shifts.

        1. 1

          I'll check it out, thanks :)

        2. 1

          What are the strengths/weaknesses of Amion? What it’s lacking in your opinion?

          1. 1

            I've seen more apps/companies like this one, what I don't like is that it is only focused on physicians, I want to do something more generalistic, for anyone working with shifts.

            More things I didn't like:

            • Some parts look very ugly
            • No universities from Spain, so can't register
            • A hospital needs to use this and then allow their physicians to use it

            My initial inspiration is debt sharing apps like Splitwise and Splid, where any user can register and join a group

  3. 2

    Congratulations. The idea seems good. People may need it.

    1. 1

      thanks! I'll make a post about it soon :)

  4. 1

    Had a similar idea as my friend works in the hotel industry with people calling off all the time. Not to dissuade you but I did some research into it but stopped as swapping shifts isn't something that happens on a daily basis and happens maybe once at most per week (more like once every two or three weeks) and that just a group text or having your mgr call others that might want to take the shift solves the problem without having to painstakingly on board and off board people all the time for using it a few times a month.

  5. 1

    The idea is good.
    Check this out, gastromatic.com . It is exactly the same idea just for restaurants.

    1. 1

      I think this is not even in English, I have seen other companies like this, it has a problem, the restaurant needs to buy it and then allow their coworkers to use it.

  6. 1

    Hope you find a good angle here. Usually these systems would be sold to the hospital (trust… whatever…) and forced onto the staff. I like the idea of a nurse-centric design. I wonder how it fits in with whatever bureaucracy, so you swap shifts on the app but then you need to really swap the shifts on some other system or even pen and paper.

    I like the idea. I can see this being something like WhatsApp chat where you chat socially “can someone take my shift!” with some smarts to record the agreement and then somehow notify whoever needs to know.

    I wonder if staff will pay for the app? Or as a long game get enough using it for free then have a premium version for the hospital.

    1. 1

      You just read my mind :)

      Selling it to hospitals is hard, but that is not the first step, my app is for the employees, not for the hospitals/restaurants/companies.

      Yes, the idea is to make it freemium, if it succeeds and has a lot of users it will be easier to sell to hospitals/restaurants, but it is not the main focus.

  7. 1

    I wonder if https://wheniwork.com/ would solve this concern. That said, good idea!

    1. 1

      A company has to buy it and then allow their employees to use it, I'm targeting the employees first :)

  8. 1

    There are some open source products already , have you tried customise them to your requirements, instead of building from scratch.

    1. 2

      Can you give me some names?

  9. 1

    Good luck! Awesome to see the excitement.

  10. 1

    Just like you, I like to scratch my own itches ^^. I don't think there's anything wrong with that - but maybe it's not optimal. I guess there need to be enough people with the same itch and I usually don't go that far in my analysis. This might be where I go wrong 😄

  11. 1

    That is a good idea, I'm gonna build that for you!

    Don't jump to the solution. Explore the problem more carefully.

    You mention that there are already other apps that do this. Has your girlfriend tried them? Why didn't she want to use them?

    1. 1

      I did research on a lot of these apps (more than 20), usually, I found one of these problems:

      • It is ugly
      • It doesn't allow to trade shifts
      • It has to be bought by a company/hospital/restaurant first to join
      1. 1

        Ah, there you see. This is not a consumer app. Even though nurses use it, the purchaser is the company or hospital.

        Enterprises sales has a long sales cycle. Try segmenting the market and find a niche, a small hospital with a short sales cycle and a clear need for this solution.

        Keep in mind that your customer is the hospital, not the nurse. And apply The Mom Test to all feedback you receive, especially the feedback from your girlfriend.

        Also, hospitals usually don't buy apps for one or two feature. They buy solution suites that offer multiple solutions. If you want your app to make the cut, you need to offer tight integration into their IT system.

        1. 1

          My customer is the nurse, not the hospital, as a first step

    2. 1

      ^ Important, I've been a victim to my own impatience in the past lol

  12. 1

    Awesome and good luck!

    Are you thinking about selling to organizations/companies or trying to go direct to users? I can think of pro and cons for each approach.

    1. 1

      User first, if it succeeds, go for hospitals/restaurants/companies

      1. 1

        Makes sense. I think the key thing here to figure out is who is willing to pay. I have a feeling that companies are more willing to pay than employees out of pocket, but I also have a feeling that if companies pay they might want a somewhat different product than the user. I guess you'll figure it out. Good luck!

  13. 1

    Why don't publish that post here on IH? :)

  14. 1

    I'm rooting for you! Does the organization your girlfriend works for have anything like this already? Can they be your first client?

    1. 1

      Yes, I'm from Spain and all hospitals have some kind of old system for this, usually giving the nurses an excel table on paper. Nurses use external apps anyways to organize their schedule.

      I thought of selling it to organizers, like hospitals, restaurants, etc. It is an option for a future version, but in theory yes they can be mi clients :)

      1. 1

        Nurses use external apps anyways to organize their schedule.

        Do they use free apps or paid? If they don't pay for their apps out of their own pockets, nurses are not your customers.

        1. 1

          They usually use freemium apps, some of them pay for the premium features.

          I will run ads for the free version and add a premium monthly subscription (if they pay is normally for some kind of analytics)

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