WHEN he was a student in Ateneo de Zamboanga, Chino Atilano thought of a system that would get rid of long queues, knowing the hassles they give to people, including himself when he was paying his tuition. By developing the system, Atilano thought it would benefit a lot of people because it can save their precious time.
Thus, TimeFree was born.
TimeFree uses a proprietary algorithm developed by Atilano and his co-founders. By using a time-based algorithm, TimeFree computes the past 10 days’ average time per customer. Afterward, it informs the customer that he’s just few minutes away from his turn. It has short-messaging system capability, where the user has the option to be notified.
Founded in 2013 the IdeaSpace Philippines-backed TimeFree Innovations has launched its virtual queuing solution in the Philippines and Hong Kong and will be introduced soon in Malaysia.
- Why did you aspire to be a technopreneur? Did the environment (your hometown)
inspire you?
The challenge of solving real-world problems was very enticing to me. It may sound a cliché but growing up in Mapun, a small island in the province of Tawi-Tawi, I realized there are several problems which technology could solve. At an early age, it became my pastime to think of ideas that could help solve these problems, majority of which I have experienced myself. Until now, I have a lot of ideas bouncing in my head. It just so happened that I am focused at solving one right now with TimeFree.
- What are the most challenging aspects of developing a start-up from conceptualization to development?
Fund-raising and sales are arguably the toughest aspects of developing a start-up from the ground up.
The former is something that is crucial yet one that is so difficult to accomplish especially in our country wherein investors’ appetite for risks isn’t as big as their counterparts in Silicon Valley. Without any funds form investors, it’s very difficult to make significant progress. While there are some start-ups that were able to get by without investors’ money through bootstrapping, fundraising is still very crucial, if not now, at a later time in the start-up’s life.
A sale is what makes or breaks a start-up. You may have a product you think is commercially viable but if you cannot translate that into actual sales then you’ll just burn away your funds. Even start-ups with deep pockets would eventually die if they cannot have significant sales. It’s almost impossible to keep a start-up alive without revenue.
- What made you establish TimeFree Innovations?
When Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program and IdeaSpace offered us seed funding to establish our own start-up, we thought it was a great opportunity to pass on. Despite our regular day jobs, my co-founders and I decided to establish the start-up and work on it until we were able to commit full time to the start-up after nine months of bootstrapping.
- What are the benefits of TimeFree Innovations?
The value proposition of TimeFree for consumers is that they no longer have to physically wait in line for their turn. In fact, they can get a queue number using their smartphone. As for businesses, they can gain access to actionable transactional data to improve their service delivery, reduce customer walk-away rate, improve customer engagements, optimize staff productivity and streamline customer channels that can boost traffic to their stores.
- Describe the fledgling years of your business
We’re still relatively a young company, with barely two years in operation. The first year was filled with mistakes and learning, both on the business and technical aspects. Year Two was more productive for us in the sense that we were able to accomplish our targets as far as product development is concerned and we were able to successfully have a closed beta launch which offered us key insights in improving our products and also tweaking our business model.
- Do you think that the IdeaSpace award is a major factor in boosting the stock of the company?
Yes. Apart from bumping up our valuation, it also gave a sense of credibility to our company. Being seen as an investee company of IdeaSpace, which is the incubator and accelerator arm of the MVP Group of Companies, made it easier for us to secure appointments with our clients and also to convince them to use our products.
- How did you react to the fact that your company had to gain some wins, so to speak, overseas to get local recognition?
It was definitely surprising to see that companies in other countries see the value of our product more than the companies in the Philippines. Though in hindsight, it was more about our lack of marketing activities here.
- What are your long-term plans for TimeFree Innovations?
We want TimeFree to be a globally competitive company and the market leader in virtual queuing. We have the potential to accomplish this and it’s just a matter of execution for us. We acknowledge that there are a lot of challenges ahead but these are opportunities for us to learn and grow as a company. Hopefully in the next 10 years, we’d be able to generate significant revenue, make healthy profits and capture a big market here and overseas that will enable us to eventually go public.