Getting paid for waiting...

[Morethan1]

I've been on and off the forum these past couple of years. Trying various different businesses and ideas. I'm back in the job market and while waiting on someone for a meeting I had an idea, what if the late guy paid me for making me wait for him?

I figured I'm not the only one waiting on others for meetings. So I made a landing page: Tardy

Let me know what you guys think! Ask if you have questions about this or anything else.

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

Interesting idea. Let us know how it pans out

 

[alexkuzmov]

what if the late guy paid me for making me wait for him?

Whats in it for the late guy?

 

[Stargazer]

Not going to happen.

If I am the type of person who habitually runs late and and/or can't be bothered to call you then I clearly don't value your time and therefore I would not think I owe you anything.

And if I am the type of person who aims to arrive early or on time then I don't want someone making an appointment with me telling me I need to pay them if I am late.

Dan

 

[amp0193]

I think there could be something here. You'll need to play around with different angles to see what resonates.

Another way to approach it, would be not to punish the late guy, but to reward the consistently on time people.

I could see this used by managers inter-company. Tie it to a credit system, and after you get a number of on-time credits, cash it in for something... a paid day-off, free lunch, etc. And have the only penalty for being late, being a deduction in the credits you've built up.

You still get the benefits of time pressure, but remove the visual punishment of being late.


Could possibly work with a group of friends too... last one there buys the first round of drinks, or something like that.


Another thing... what about doing it for meetings that run late (which, as a former employee, was probably my #1 job-related frustration)? Set a defined meeting length, and the organizer of the meeting owes the attendees something if they allow it go on too long. I think this would be even more powerful... because it's a top down approach. Puts pressure/accountability on the boss, and not the low-level employees. Whereas punishing the employees for being late, could be seen as kind of draconian.



I think this app idea is worth pursuing and learning more!

 

[Kak]

I've been on and off the forum these past couple of years. Trying various different businesses and ideas. I'm back in the job market and while waiting on someone for a meeting I had an idea, what if the late guy paid me for making me wait for him?

I figured I'm not the only one waiting on others for meetings. So I made a landing page: Tardy

Let me know what you guys think! Ask if you have questions about this or anything else.

As someone who is late to an appointment maybe once a year that would apologize profusely, I love the premise! However, I think it will be tough to get people to embrace it. Habitually late people ALWAYS have some excuse that, to them, makes their lateness OK. They will get pissy if you call them on it... So what happens is people like me that work with them don't take them as seriously and also pass them up for new opportunity.

It is going to piss people off and unfortunately our culture has gotten so informal on this. I am usually visibly annoyed, but I rarely say anything. To me it is them deciding their time is more valuable than mine. An insult, but I decided I could tell them to go to hell tomorrow and just move on with the business at hand. Maybe I am a pushover on this. How hard do other folks come down on employees and contractors for being late?

 

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[Lex DeVille]

It is going to piss people off and unfortunately our culture has gotten so informal on this. I am usually visibly annoyed, but I rarely say anything. To me it is them deciding their time is more valuable than mine. An insult, but I decided I could tell them to go to hell tomorrow and just move on with the business at hand. Maybe I am a pushover on this. How hard do other folks come down on employees and contractors for being late?

It's a huge problem in the freelance world too. I give people 5 minutes. After that we'll never speak again. Maybe it could be a feature built into a freelance platform. Then it would support both client and freelancer in showing up on time.

 

[Roli]

As someone who is late to an appointment maybe once a year that would apologize profusely, I love the premise!

I was reading this reply and I thought, hey, maybe this would work with someone the opposite of @Kak. I have a friend who is always late, I've even tried coaching her on her tardiness. Here's the thing though, she doesn't like, nor want to be late all the time.

Maybe she, and people like her would download this app, because then they have an incentive not to be late.

I think it's worth giving it a go and seeing what the market thinks.

I give people 5 minutes.

Wow! That's harsh!!

Five minutes is in the realm of genuine excuses right? I always try and get to meetings 15-30 mins early, however, even with this strategy I'm occasionally five minutes late. Probably a bit more than once a year, but in the same ballpark.

 

[Kid]

Cool. Wonder how it will work out.

 

[BizyDad]

I was reading this reply and I thought, hey, maybe this would work with someone the opposite of @Kak. I have a friend who is always late, I've even tried coaching her on her tardiness. Here's the thing though, she doesn't like, nor want to be late all the time.

Maybe she, and people like her would download this app, because then they have an incentive not to be late.

I think it's worth giving it a go and seeing what the market thinks.

I was thinking something similar.

Getting people to admit they have a problem when they feel they don't is one of the hardest things you can ever do in business. And that describes most people who are "habitually late". It becomes a part of their self identity. I think that's why you've gotten many of these responses. We all know the type. You don't want to market this to those types. The idea of marketing to their bosses I think has some merit.

Also for those who already know its a problem and are willing to do something about it, this could go somewhere.

Based on your landing page, I'm just not clear on who actually signs up and how it will work together. And how do you get paid, affiliate commish on the prizes? I am a big fan of simple landing pages, but I don't know if this one builds enough value to get sign ups.

Personally I think there are easier ways to make a buck, but I don't think its a non starter. Good luck to you.

 

[Morethan1]

I think there could be something here. You'll need to play around with different angles to see what resonates.

Another way to approach it, would be not to punish the late guy, but to reward the consistently on time people.

I could see this used by managers inter-company. Tie it to a credit system, and after you get a number of on-time credits, cash it in for something... a paid day-off, free lunch, etc. And have the only penalty for being late, being a deduction in the credits you've built up.

You still get the benefits of time pressure, but remove the visual punishment of being late.


Could possibly work with a group of friends too... last one there buys the first round of drinks, or something like that.


Another thing... what about doing it for meetings that run late (which, as a former employee, was probably my #1 job-related frustration)? Set a defined meeting length, and the organizer of the meeting owes the attendees something if they allow it go on too long. I think this would be even more powerful... because it's a top down approach. Puts pressure/accountability on the boss, and not the low-level employees. Whereas punishing the employees for being late, could be seen as kind of draconian.



I think this app idea is worth pursuing and learning more!

Thanks for the feedback, agreed, there is a lot of different angles possible with the basic idea.

I had thought of rewarding the good behaviour (showing up early/on time), wasn't sure how to approach it. The use of credits is a good idea.

Maybe divide it into what kind of setting it will be used in (business or casual) and from there have the different kinds of defaults, either meeting or meetup etc.

+1 for the meetings running too long, will definitely add it to the list of features, that are slowly growing lol.

 

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[Morethan1]

As someone who is late to an appointment maybe once a year that would apologize profusely, I love the premise! However, I think it will be tough to get people to embrace it. Habitually late people ALWAYS have some excuse that, to them, makes their lateness OK. They will get pissy if you call them on it... So what happens is people like me that work with them don't take them as seriously and also pass them up for new opportunity.

It is going to piss people off and unfortunately our culture has gotten so informal on this. I am usually visibly annoyed, but I rarely say anything. To me it is them deciding their time is more valuable than mine. An insult, but I decided I could tell them to go to hell tomorrow and just move on with the business at hand. Maybe I am a pushover on this. How hard do other folks come down on employees and contractors for being late?

I've known those types of people as well. They have slowly gotten axed from my cricle. I agree that today, more people are getting away with BS.

Then again, I am also seeing a shift in accountability, responsibility & self-improvement. So maybe those that want to improve could use this tool?

 

[Bekit]

I've been on and off the forum these past couple of years. Trying various different businesses and ideas. I'm back in the job market and while waiting on someone for a meeting I had an idea, what if the late guy paid me for making me wait for him?

I figured I'm not the only one waiting on others for meetings. So I made a landing page: Tardy

Let me know what you guys think! Ask if you have questions about this or anything else.

As someone who tends to run late, I think it's a great idea. It would put subtle pressure on me to make sure I'm on time so I don't have to pay.

I think there are people out there who are so irresponsible that they wouldn't bother to pay, but there are others who are conscientious enough to hate being late, even though they habitually do it. It would be like an extra measure of accountability. And I think it would help more meetings to start on time.

 

[Morethan1]

It's a huge problem in the freelance world too. I give people 5 minutes. After that we'll never speak again. Maybe it could be a feature built into a freelance platform. Then it would support both client and freelancer in showing up on time.

Definitely something I'll look into.

Getting more into the settings of each meeting/meetup, I had planned to give full control to whoever is setting up the meeting to enable/disable grace periods, total wait time before the meeting gets cancelled/rescheduled etc.

 

[Morethan1]

I was thinking something similar.

Getting people to admit they have a problem when they feel they don't is one of the hardest things you can ever do in business. And that describes most people who are "habitually late". It becomes a part of their self identity. I think that's why you've gotten many of these responses. We all know the type. You don't want to market this to those types. The idea of marketing to their bosses I think has some merit.

Agreed, the know it alls won't be open to this.

Also for those who already know its a problem and are willing to do something about it, this could go somewhere.

I'm hoping

Based on your landing page, I'm just not clear on who actually signs up and how it will work together. And how do you get paid, affiliate commish on the prizes? I am a big fan of simple landing pages, but I don't know if this one builds enough value to get sign ups.

I'll add more meat to the page to make things more clear.
I was thinking of offering a subscription model for using the service/app.

 

[Morethan1]

As someone who tends to run late, I think it's a great idea. It would put subtle pressure on me to make sure I'm on time so I don't have to pay.

I think there are people out there who are so irresponsible that they wouldn't bother to pay, but there are others who are conscientious enough to hate being late, even though they habitually do it. It would be like an extra measure of accountability. And I think it would help more meetings to start on time.

That's the goal, to make sure everyone is on time.

Was also thinking of creating a leader board of punctuality.

 

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[amp0193]

Was also thinking of creating a leader board of punctuality.

A leaderboard / gamification of this could be more motivating than the having to pay part of it.

I see the having to pay part being a tough pill to swallow.

With a leaderboard though... who wants to be last and look like a loser?

Even if everyone already knows Johnny is the late person, and Johnny knows that everyone knows he's the late person... seeing it displayed and quantifying that lateness could be a motivator for Johnny to actually acknowledge his issue and start to improve it.

One of the #1 things for employee motivation and improvement is measuring performance. "what gets measured, gets managed".

 

[Kid]

A bit of the twist - let's make last person that will come late to meeting somehow punished (i don't have better word for it atm).

It could be done in funny way like badge in app etc so no one would feel really offended or smth.

If everyone comes on time - nobody looses.

 

[Morethan1]

A leaderboard / gamification of this could be more motivating than the having to pay part of it.

I see the having to pay part being a tough pill to swallow.

With a leaderboard though... who wants to be last and look like a loser?

Even if everyone already knows Johnny is the late person, and Johnny knows that everyone knows he's the late person... seeing it displayed and quantifying that lateness could be a motivator for Johnny to actually acknowledge his issue and start to improve it.

One of the #1 things for employee motivation and improvement is measuring performance. "what gets measured, gets managed".

Exactly!

Going through all the feedback from this week and making some changes.

What I'm hearing is this:

2 use cases
1. Work environment (office/freelance/contract), boss sanctioned to up productivity
2. Self-improvement, a person that wants to improve his/her punctuality and "recruits" others to keep each other accountable

Measuring what?
1. Tracking start of the meeting and who's delay it
2. Optional - Tracking the end of the meeting, meeting organizer is responsible

How to change the behaviour?
This part seems like it's the most controversial. So far, here's what we have:

• $/min is owed by late person to all parties of the meeting
• A pre-defined reward is owed to all parties by late party (ie your buddy shows up late, he owes you a beer)
• A point/credit system for rewarding the people on time, redeemable for days off or other perks
• A leaderboard that keeps track of who is on time vs not, social pressure used to increase on time arrival

 

[Morethan1]

Been a while since my last post. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been grinding

I made some changes based on the feedback you guys gave and what do you know? I hit the front page of betalist this morning!

 

[CareCPA]

Been a while since my last post. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been grinding

I made some changes based on the feedback you guys gave and what do you know? I hit the front page of betalist this morning!
View attachment 30640

I would implement this with clients. If they don't show up on time to a meeting/call, automatically charge them for wasting my time.
It somehow seems less imposing than taking a deposit "just in case."

 

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[Mutant]

A few thoughts on this:

Firstly, congrats on getting featured. I think there's definitely a space for this in the world somewhere, as your own twist on an established concept. Like an old school "swear jar" or one of the other rewarding/punishing apps out there I know about the concept of, but don't use or know the names of (quick google got me this list: Want to kick a habit? The 6 best goal-tracking apps to kick your butt )

As someone who used to be perennially late, I know change is possible! I still struggle sometimes (but I've at least managed to shift it back so the struggle to get out the door doesn't always equate to my actually being late to the target destination). But it certainly took a) deciding for myself that I had a problem & b) wanting to change it.

Getting people to admit they have a problem when they feel they don't is one of the hardest things you can ever do in business. And that describes most people who are "habitually late". It becomes a part of their self identity.

Absolutely. It is my identity, & that didn't used to be an especially bad thing, it just was what it was. My whole family struggled to leave on time. I still think of myself as a "late person" because it still takes effort, I don't think I'm habitually early without effort yet. (Oh gosh, it making me think of those people who still say they're alcoholics even once they're twenty years sober, maybe that's what it takes!) But I measure my victories when I find someone who mentions in passing that I'm usually early, or when an old friend actually comments on the change unprompted.

For those who want to change, this app could provide some positive (or negative) feedback, for those who don't (but whose boss wants them to) it could provide the nudge in a different way that speaks to them. (I wouldn't use this app for instance, but I have my own conscience punishing me, or if I did use this app, I wouldn't want to pay money as punishment).

However, one last thing it made me think of, alas I forget where I read it, was about a nursery who had a problem with parents picking up their kids late, so they decided to institute a punishment, & fine the parents money. What actually happened though is that late pickups increased. It turns out previously the parents had been feeling bad about it the late pickups, but now they felt like they'd paid for it, so it was ok. It wasn't a fine, it was a service. Which also reminds of the certain group of people in London who like to park their flashy cars directly outside of Harrods (fancy department store). To them the £80 fine is just the price of parking where they want to park, no big deal.

I would make sure to offer a range of potential punishments (& rewards) because some will work for some & not for others.

 

[Morethan1]

I would make sure to offer a range of potential punishments (& rewards) because some will work for some & not for others.

Figuring out how to do this one is a challenge I'm currently facing. There's a long laundry list of features and things I want to implement, but have to keep myself from getting into feature creep and just roll something usable out.

Once it catches on, I'll add more stuff.

Thanks for sharing @Mutant much appreciated.

 

[Morethan1]

It's been about a month since I started posting about my startup Tardy on various social media platforms. No hard press coverage yet. These are my numbers:

• ‍ 120 users
• 17 sign ups
• Conversion of 14%

I've redone my landing page 3-4 times now.
There's still some tuning to be done.
What I'm doing now:

• Cold email CEOs
• Finishing up beta of the app

Challenges:

• Conveying value to businesses -> get more conversions

Thanks for space, I'll keep updating as things progress

 

[minivanman]

Back in the cleaning business, we always had the key or garage code for our regular cleans but if we did a move in or move out clean I demanded cash only (no other form of payment was accepted for a move in or move out) before my girls ever stepped foot in the house. If we agreed on 11am start time, the clock started no matter if the person that hired us was there or not. If they didn't have the cash when my girls arrived, the time started and they will wait outside (on the clock) until you return with the cash. But, if you didn't show up within 7 minutes..... the girls left, only to return for a $100 bonus, before any work was started of course. All move outs were cleaned as $95 houlry cash up front. I would walk through and give a guestimate of how long it would take. If it took longer, they would need to get more cash before we continued.

When I used to go on estimates for regular cleans, I would give people 7 minutes to show up or else I would leave and never return. Nowadays, I wait 30 seconds on customers then I head back home to sleep until they text me, begging me to come back.

 

[Kid]

You can split a bit your offering into Enterprise and average Joe.
Version for Joe would be free,limited and for fun like being late to party but
it would serve as proof that its used by many.

Then you go with Enterprise version that is paid but targeted at CEOs and teams
or just for "commercial" use.

By having like 100,000 users (those free), it would be much better conversation starter then having to explain the concept of an app.

Anyway, good luck!

 

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[Jeff Noel]

View attachment 34564
It's been about a month since I started posting about my startup Tardy on various social media platforms. No hard press coverage yet. These are my numbers:

• ‍ 120 users
• 17 sign ups
• Conversion of 14%

I've redone my landing page 3-4 times now.
There's still some tuning to be done.
What I'm doing now:

• Cold email CEOs
• Finishing up beta of the app

Challenges:

• Conveying value to businesses -> get more conversions

Thanks for space, I'll keep updating as things progress

I don't know if it's too early, but you could make an "App Installs" (objective) FB ad to get things going at a relatively cheap price. Like, trying 5$/day to begin with. Could get things rolling. Especially with the Instagram Story ads.

Edit: Good job ! Things are progressing. Keep going !

 

[Prince33]

View attachment 34564
It's been about a month since I started posting about my startup Tardy on various social media platforms. No hard press coverage yet. These are my numbers:

• ‍ 120 users
• 17 sign ups
• Conversion of 14%

I've redone my landing page 3-4 times now.
There's still some tuning to be done.
What I'm doing now:

• Cold email CEOs
• Finishing up beta of the app

Challenges:

• Conveying value to businesses -> get more conversions

Thanks for space, I'll keep updating as things progress

Wow, now that's what I call taking action on an idea. I can learn from you for sure.

To play Devil's advocate I'd say the concept of this app is kinda eerie. Reminds me of those Black Mirror episodes where every aspect of our life is digital. If something like this becomes mainstream(congratulations future you!) we'll be tracked from the moment we get up in the morning.

So to pull something constructive from that I'd say this app will mainly cater to people serious about their endeavors for sure. No lazy people would dare use such a thing, haha

So maybe catering/marketing this to like "early risers" facebook group or something could help.

 

[Morethan1]

A little update:

This idea went from b2c to b2b. I'm focusing more on businesses that have daily employee meetings. The response has been positive. Have had a few interactions with CEO's that would be interested in implementing.