Managing your digital calendar can be a daunting task, and this becomes a greater problem when sharing between different platforms. It was this need for platform integration that Adam Bird, founder and CEO of Cronofy, spotted and decided to take action on. By developing an Application Program Interface (API) toolset for developers, Bird has found a way that will allow us to share and collaborate in our calendars without having to worry about potential compatibility issues.
I spoke to Bird to find out more about why he launched Cronofy and his plans for improving calendar integration for all of us.
Sarah Shields: Why did you start Cronofy?
Adam Bird: Our calendars are incomplete. They do not reflect our lives, merely the elements of our lives that we’re motivated enough to go through the manual labour of keeping up to date. Any commitment we make should automatically be in our calendars so we can reference that against all of the other commitments we make. The plumbing work required to make this easy for developers to do didn’t exist, so we built Cronofy to make it possible.
Shields: How does your API support developers’ needs to connect with their customers’ calendars?
Bird: The Cronofy Calendar API removes all of the complexity of dealing with multiple calendar service providers. As developers we have no control over the calendars our customers use. In many cases neither do they. Two-way calendar integration can unlock all sorts of use cases and enables deep integration with users’ lives. It’s not just about posting appointments into people’s calendars to enable automated booking, it’s also about being able to react to changes.
For example, our calendar API restaurant bookings can appear automatically in people’s calendars and be kept up to date with any changes. The magic really happens if the user deletes the calendar event. Our API can notify the service so they in turn can automatically cancel the reservation. Suddenly developers can start thinking about their users’ calendars as an interface point into their applications.
Shields: Developing a method of incorporating calendar management into CRMs sounds interesting. Can you explain why you’ve targeted this as an area of need for organizations?
Bird: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are only as good as the information that is entered into them. As a long term CRM user, I know only too well the reluctance to update every minute detail because it gives me little value. Filling in the forms doesn’t generally enable me to close more business. The calendar however is a useful tool that I use to run my life. It is the source of truth about many of the interactions that I have with customers and contains valuable data that should be in my CRM to drive reports and analysis.
By using our API to connect calendars with CRM systems, that information can be connected to the reporting and analysis capabilities required to inform sales processes. Furthermore, when a calendar event is created this can be augmented with deep links into the CRM system as well as pertinent information about the prospect/account to ensure sales teams are fully informed.
Shields: What have you found to be the best method to growing your customer-base and why?
Bird: Our key segment is developers. The goal with marketing to developers is one of awareness rather than buy now. Hitting someone with your solution at the moment they’re ready to start work and use it to solve a problem is rare. The approach we’ve taken is raising awareness through multiple channels. Hack competition sponsorship, content marketing, speaking engagements all serve to put us at the center of the conversation about calendar integration. It’s a long-term approach but there are generally no shortcuts to building a sustainable business.
Shields: What’s been your biggest challenge to date?
Bird: Probably API design. When designing the perfect calendar API we’ve had to rethink some paradigms and reconsider a lot of old ways of doing things. The challenge with API design is that it’s a massive commitment. As soon as you have customers integrated with your API and relying on it that commitment has to be total. It is possible to update APIs but making changes can cause our customers big headaches and thus the value derived from any change has to be that much higher. The hope is that you get it right the first time!
Shields: What are your future plans for Cronofy?
Bird: We’re really focused on being the go-to service for calendar integration. What’s great about delivering API services is that you get to be part of all sorts of use cases that you never imagined. Your API becomes a key component of larger solutions addressing all sorts of important domain challenges. Our job is to make sure our API continues to serve those use cases in the most efficient and compelling fashion.
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