HourTown Adds Features for Service SMBs

I spoke on Friday with Ryan Donahue, founder of small business scheduling site HourTown. He and I talked about the economic climate and his observation that recent subscribers to his service are listing part-time and weekend hours, suggesting that people are moonlighting or hedging in the event they lose their jobs. Non-scientific but interesting nonetheless.

Donahue was briefing me on new features the site was adding, including scheduling for multiple providers within a single business (e.g., stylists in a salon), widgets for SMB websites and SMS notifications of an appointment or inquiry. Here’s a site that uses the widget:

Here’s the hosted scheduling page:

The HourTown model is a subscription model. HourTown offers its services for free, but leads are limited. Unlimited leads/appointments requires a monthly subscription.

HourTown competitors include BookingAngel, Libersy and GenBook (and ZocDoc in the medical vertical).

I suggested (in a moment of self interest) that Donahue build a calendaring solution for analysts that helps avoid the time sink of scheduling and rescheduling briefings. He demurred and referred me to Google Calendar.

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