@manfredipistBookIt for padel clubs and more, building from Italy
Hey everyone 👋 I’m Manfredi, building from Italy. Two products on my plate:
🏓 BookIt — bookit-app.it
A B2B2C SaaS to run padel & multisport clubs: real-time court booking, tournaments, Stripe payments, live streaming (BookIt TV), a used-gear marketplace, two-way chat, and AI analytics for churn and revenue. The wedge turned out to be boring but real: most managers were running everything from a back-office PC and WhatsApp — BookIt moves the whole operation onto their phone.
🐶 Tindog — tindog.it
A matching app for dogs — think Tinder, but for finding playmates, walks, and mates for your dog. Same playbook: a clean mobile-first experience for a market that’s still running on group chats.
What I’d love from the room: I’m raising to scale BookIt and TinDog across Europe 🇪🇺 — so I’d love intros to investors (pre-seed/seed, sports-tech, consumer or B2B2C SaaS), and to swap notes with anyone who’s expanded a SaaS from Italy into Spain and beyond.
Happy to help back on anything Stripe, marketplaces, or selling software to non-technical SMB owners. 🙌
Comments3
Welcome Manfredi. Running a whole business off WhatsApp is more common than people think. I see the same thing in call centers. Are your clubs actually moving bookings into the app, or are they still taking a lot over WhatsApp?
Thanks Matthew. Well, I gotta say BookIt app is pretty straightforward so users are not encountering any particular issue not to use the app instead of relying on phone calls and whatsapp. Moreover, users are encouraged to use the app by the means of contests which gamify the app experience, giving them free matches or lesson or even sport accessories, depending on clubs' own choices.
Manfredi — "most managers were running everything from a back-office PC and WhatsApp" — that's the whole game, and I'm seeing the same thing from West Virginia. Local service businesses here (cleaners, salons, groomers) run on a phone and a text thread, and the software that wins is boring, mobile, and meets them where they already are.
I'm building BoDiGi 2.0 — describe a business app in one sentence, AI agents build the working thing chasing the exact same wedge: owner-operators off WhatsApp and onto something built for them.
Padel clubs in Palermo and groomers in Wheeling — same customer, different accent 😄 Following along .
Would love to trade notes on what managers actually adopt vs. ignore.
3 comments
Welcome Manfredi. Running a whole business off WhatsApp is more common than people think. I see the same thing in call centers. Are your clubs actually moving bookings into the app, or are they still taking a lot over WhatsApp?
Thanks Matthew. Well, I gotta say BookIt app is pretty straightforward so users are not encountering any particular issue not to use the app instead of relying on phone calls and whatsapp. Moreover, users are encouraged to use the app by the means of contests which gamify the app experience, giving them free matches or lesson or even sport accessories, depending on clubs' own choices.
Manfredi — "most managers were running everything from a back-office PC and WhatsApp" — that's the whole game, and I'm seeing the same thing from West Virginia. Local service businesses here (cleaners, salons, groomers) run on a phone and a text thread, and the software that wins is boring, mobile, and meets them where they already are.
I'm building BoDiGi 2.0 — describe a business app in one sentence, AI agents build the working thing chasing the exact same wedge: owner-operators off WhatsApp and onto something built for them.
Padel clubs in Palermo and groomers in Wheeling — same customer, different accent 😄 Following along .
Would love to trade notes on what managers actually adopt vs. ignore.