Hi! Most people who have seen or heard about Chimpped and its purpose are enthusiastic about our mission to reduce time spent on making appointments. I like that idea too, and that is why Chimpped was created. This is only the beginning and although far from reaching the vision, I would like to share with you the story about Chimpped. If the below quantity of text seems daunting, my sister wrote an awesome blog summarizing our story.
My name is Mimi and I co-founded Chimpped, but let me confess upfront: I don't have a technology academic or working background. I am also not an Ivy League school drop-out or graduate (which seems to be a common resume theme in Silicon Valley). In fact, prior to Chimpped, I was not even living in Silicon Valley or the U.S. **Don't worry, the other co-founder and engineers of Chimpped are highly experienced and are veterans in technology**
So who am I? I was a long-time veteran of the financial industry, juggling between a demanding career, frequent travel schedule and a 5-year old daughter at home. Originally from California, my family and I have worked and lived in Hong Kong for the past 15 years where I trotted all over Asia for work and fun. Finally in 2011 and as difficult as it may seem at that moment, I decided to call it quits to spend more time with my family.
Periodic frustrations had provoked me in the past whenever I received phone calls in the middle of a work meeting only to confirm a massage appointment, or when my face turned red as the restaurant hostess assured me (to my disagreement) that no reservation was made under my name, or when I had to secretly tiptoe to the back staircase to make an OBGYN appointment so colleagues couldn't hear me. But that was just a part of life and I did not think much about it other than getting frustrated in the heat of the moment. Boy, did that "no big deal" perspective change when I started to care for my family full-time.
Scheduling appointments for my family, husband, daughter and myself simply took up an absurd amount of time. A lot of things we did on a regular basis involved making bookings, from dining with family, to dining with friends, to my daughter's ballet, art and ice-skating classes, to her doctor check-up, to my haircut, down to our pet's visit to the vet. You get the picture. Not only do I have to go on various sites to research and conclude on a Service Provider, but I needed to do a combination of calling (with busy and "closed for the day" messages) and emailing. After that, there is a process of writing things down, inputting the confirmed appointments manually on my desktop and iPhone calendars, and sometimes even a self-made spreadsheet matrix of my daughter's activities.
Just writing the above process tires me out. "Why?" I asked myself. Why can't this be simpler? Without being a tech wizard, I thought we certainly may have sufficient technology capability to pull together a solution. After confirming with my long-time friend Tony (who is way more experienced in tech than me), we decided to embark on a journey to make this happen. So we gathered a team of brilliant engineers and started our way to build Chimpped.
Our goal is to make the whole booking experience simple and convenient -- not just what you see on Chimpped today, but more features will come out to complete our goal.
My daughter and I literally packed our bags and moved to California, all in order to realize a dream one step at a time. Next week, we will share with you why Chimpped is called Chimpped.
My name is Mimi and I co-founded Chimpped, but let me confess upfront: I don't have a technology academic or working background. I am also not an Ivy League school drop-out or graduate (which seems to be a common resume theme in Silicon Valley). In fact, prior to Chimpped, I was not even living in Silicon Valley or the U.S. **Don't worry, the other co-founder and engineers of Chimpped are highly experienced and are veterans in technology**
So who am I? I was a long-time veteran of the financial industry, juggling between a demanding career, frequent travel schedule and a 5-year old daughter at home. Originally from California, my family and I have worked and lived in Hong Kong for the past 15 years where I trotted all over Asia for work and fun. Finally in 2011 and as difficult as it may seem at that moment, I decided to call it quits to spend more time with my family.
Periodic frustrations had provoked me in the past whenever I received phone calls in the middle of a work meeting only to confirm a massage appointment, or when my face turned red as the restaurant hostess assured me (to my disagreement) that no reservation was made under my name, or when I had to secretly tiptoe to the back staircase to make an OBGYN appointment so colleagues couldn't hear me. But that was just a part of life and I did not think much about it other than getting frustrated in the heat of the moment. Boy, did that "no big deal" perspective change when I started to care for my family full-time.
Scheduling appointments for my family, husband, daughter and myself simply took up an absurd amount of time. A lot of things we did on a regular basis involved making bookings, from dining with family, to dining with friends, to my daughter's ballet, art and ice-skating classes, to her doctor check-up, to my haircut, down to our pet's visit to the vet. You get the picture. Not only do I have to go on various sites to research and conclude on a Service Provider, but I needed to do a combination of calling (with busy and "closed for the day" messages) and emailing. After that, there is a process of writing things down, inputting the confirmed appointments manually on my desktop and iPhone calendars, and sometimes even a self-made spreadsheet matrix of my daughter's activities.
Just writing the above process tires me out. "Why?" I asked myself. Why can't this be simpler? Without being a tech wizard, I thought we certainly may have sufficient technology capability to pull together a solution. After confirming with my long-time friend Tony (who is way more experienced in tech than me), we decided to embark on a journey to make this happen. So we gathered a team of brilliant engineers and started our way to build Chimpped.
Our goal is to make the whole booking experience simple and convenient -- not just what you see on Chimpped today, but more features will come out to complete our goal.
My daughter and I literally packed our bags and moved to California, all in order to realize a dream one step at a time. Next week, we will share with you why Chimpped is called Chimpped.
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