Resolved issues in bookings for sideline members!

Could you first tell us what you do, Terakado-san?

I have been working as a startup advisor for Unicorn Farm since May 2021, although I had been supporting startups as an individual.

My main focus is advising startups on strategy, marketing, sales, and customer success.

My own work at Hay Inc. is my day job, so a few hours a week are spent at the Unicorn Farm.

Is this a side business? Can you tell us how it all started?

I found out Tadokoro was looking for mentors on facebook and applied.

I contacted Tadokoro because I thought I could expect synergies by working with him on the startup support I had been doing.

I feel that I can actually learn a lot from the framework, knowledge, etc., and can use internal assets, etc., which I feel is different from an individual.

How does the mentoring process work?

We meet several times a month to discuss the client's issues and strategies.

Each member has his or her own area of expertise, so the members in attendance are determined according to the client's issues. Of course, there are times when Tadokoro also attends.

Since most of the team is made up of members with side jobs, it was difficult to keep track of their main job schedules, and this was a challenge.

So you needed to centralize multiple calendars?

Yes, we were in a dual management situation where we were managing the main calendar for our main business and also managing the Unicorn Farm calendar.

In addition, since we could not see each other's calendars, it was time consuming and inefficient for us to coordinate our schedules.

Since we had used Youcanbook.me in the past, we proposed to use a book coordination tool to solve this inefficient situation.

So you adopted Jicoo as your scheduling book.

Yes, we asked our internal members to help us research a book scheduling tool, and they agreed that Jicoo would be a good solution.

We chose Jicoo because it allows us to reference multiple calendars and integrate Zoom integration.

Also, since Jicoo is a Japanese service, we could be assured of support.

Please tell us about the changes you have made in the communication of bookings.

Before using Jicoo, we could not check our calendar, so we had to confirm candidate dates in Slack.

Once we decided to have a meeting, we had to present the candidate dates, exchange dates, and register them in our calendar, which is a lot of work just to book the meeting.

I can't even look at the Unicorn Farm calendar because it doesn't have any appointments on it, so that doesn't help me coordinate lol.

How do you feel after using #### Jicoo?

I am very happy with it because I myself dislike inefficient or unproductive ways of doing things.

With Jicoo, I no longer have to publish Zoom or look at multiple calendars, so I am happy with the reduced effort of coordinating the mentoring, which is about 15 mentoring sessions per month lol.

I think Jicoo has greatly reduced the workload from the clients with whom we coordinate, as they are able to choose from a large number of candidates.

How do you use the reduced time?

I can now use the reduced time to focus on client-focused work such as research, proposal preparation, and interviews.

I am also able to devote more time to the 30-minute free mentoring sessions I have with interested companies.

This is an important time for us to get interested companies to become clients through our seminars and the content on our website.

So you can now spend your time on essential tasks. By the way, do you have any requests for improvement for Jicoo?

It would be great if it is possible to prevent same-day booking.

Oh, I see that you can Manage Availability. I see.

Other than that, I would like to be able to Manage Availability from Monday to Friday at once, and to be able to share the minutes of the meeting.

It would also be nice to be able to automatically send Zoom recording URLs.

I don't like complicated things, but maybe I'm being a bit greedy lol.

Could you tell us again about the benefits of using Jicoo?

I used to have to go back and forth between my main business, Hay's calendar, and the Unicorn Farm calendar, but I no longer have to.

Also, with Jicoo, I can check my schedule by integrating the two calendars, so I don't have to skip internal meetings anymore.

I couldn't see the schedule of Unicorn Farm at that time.

Can you tell us who you would recommend it to?

I would recommend it to people who have a side business or use multiple calendars.

People who have a side job have a day job, so their schedules are tightly packed.

For example, the available slots are the next week or the week after that.

With Jicoo, you can focus on your core business by eliminating the hassle of bookings.

Can anyone who books use it?

Yes, I think anyone who books can use Jicoo.

For example, if you are in customer success, you can use it to book onboarding.

It is still common practice to submit a list of possible dates and then respond to the book, but I would like to see Jicoo become the norm for scheduling in the future.

Booking is a job that produces nothing, so I would like to see a style of scheduling that is as simple and efficient as possible, and that makes meetings as efficient as possible.