GetEase & Apexive: CTO as a Service as the Key to Startup Success

Everyone loves pampering themselves with a relaxing massage or a fantastic manicure session. However, it isn't always possible to find the time to get out of the house. This is because convenience is no longer a luxury but becoming a necessity for consumers. This is where dutch GetEase comes into the picture! 

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GetEase is an on-demand lifestyle services marketplace delivered straight to your doorstep. The platform leverages an algorithm to match clients with vetted beauty experts. This enables clients to obtain desired beauty services without having to manually research and reach out to salons and individual experts.  

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By joining forces with the founders - extremely talented ex-Googlers - Ilona Van Wegen and Maurits de Cler, we have created a flawless and future-proof marketplace that is all set for scaling to other countries (besides the Netherlands). 

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At Apexive, we became the CTO of GetEase as a part of our newest disruptive model - CTO as a Service. Within only 12 weeks, our team was able to develop two well-functioning cross-platform apps along with the admin console!

Click here to read the full case study.

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GetEase is backed by famous startup accelerators - APX and Graduate - and has recently closed an investment round raising over USD 700k. We are proud to reveal everything that went behind the curtain while engineering the next tech unicorn. Read on!

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A wise and cost-effective approach to MVP

The GetEase founders started with a third-party white-label turnkey solution for a quick launch. It helped them kick off the project quickly, get the first users and service providers interested in the marketplace, and gather precious insights.

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GetEase was ready for the next step - a bespoke high code solution. For that, they needed an experienced CTO together with a trained team of engineers. 

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Instead of learning how to build reliable, scalable, and, let's be honest, quite generic software from scratch, GetEase decided to employ the highly trained and experienced resources of Apexive which has already built dozens of similar apps so there is no need to repeat the costly learning mistakes and reinvent the wheel.

“We are extremely excited to back GetEase with the latest technology that instantly places them in one line if not in front of the established marketplaces. This allows GetEase to skip the long trial-and-error process of building basic marketplace software and keep a very sharp focus on the product itself and growing the business.” Alexis Yushin, CEO of Apexive said.

Usually, it takes years for a startup to reach this point in their technology, however thanks to Apexive, it takes precisely 12 weeks from start to finish to build two cross-platform mobile applications - one for GetEase clients and the other one for the service providers. 

“We couldn't wait another six months and do not optimise conversion. That’s why we decided to collaborate with Apexive and make the most of CTO as a Service,” Maurits de Cler, Co-founder of GetEase mentioned.

Building marketplaces is not easy, and it becomes all the more challenging if the software agency does not have previous experience. It is crucial to properly understand and predict numerous future edge cases for both clients and providers. 

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Hiring CTO as a Service helps in performing all these tasks. It also takes care of your technical needs at a much lower cost than what you would have to incur on hiring an in-house team. Due to extensive experience, It helps you select the most suitable tech stack and design the development roadmap. All of these will be specifically tailored to the client’s project requirements and business goals. 

We’re extremely happy with this partnership! A good functioning app built in a future-proof and scalable technology is truly setting us up for success. Next to that Apexive allows us to really focus on growing our business by providing a CTO as a service. They have a lot of experience so we can focus on growing our user base and onboarding service providers! Ilona van Wegen, Founder of GetEase said.

Having Apexive as CTO-as-a-service implementing new features takes hours or sometimes minutes, and here is an example - when we needed to add in-app chat canned quick responses to our backend, it took us exactly 16 minutes. 

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Apexive’ CTO as a Service can help you in building flawless custom-built technology that is always to adapt to the changing business needs. With us on board, you won't have to reinvent the wheel and repeat the same mistakes. We take care of the common technical mistakes so that you can focus on your product, not technical implementation. We enable you to do a full product launch in weeks, not years! 

“This is a triple-win: slash the time to launch from months to weeks, save big on development costs, and not be limited by technology in any way,” Alexis, CEO&CTO of Apexive explained.

Apart from the covered benefits, there is a huge investment saving in tech:

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• Earlier launch = start generating revenue earlier (company running costs)
• Finding top in-house players is time-consuming and expensive

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At Apexive, we have previously worked on such projects. Our solid technical background and our previous experience have proven invaluable to us.

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Recommended reading: How did we build food ordering marketplace

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The Next Unicorn is Ready for Scaling

The common perception that the biggest asset for a startup is in-house tech team is not up-to-date. Nevertheless, flawless future-proof working technology is the main asset; there is no point in building a software agency from scratch on a large scale.

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To enhance the customer experience of GetEase, we have developed a user-friendly, flawless application that allows customers seamlessly book their favorite services in the comfort of their own homes.

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However, this basic functionality is not what truly matters. The platform needs to support all kinds of machine-learning optimisation algorithms, from recommendations to ratings to smart pricing factoring depending on service provider performance, location, time of the day, and many other factors. And this is where the technology provided by Apexive really shines and what will make a huge difference for GetEase.

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Equipped with the latest technologies and a smooth, bug-free solution, GetEase is all set to scale up!