Easy Eikaiwa
An Austraian by the name of Mark Beattie has recently been developing an online lesson reservation application. It uses the common ticket system that most eikaiwa have and it will go live in the near future. I asked Mark a few questions about his application, Easy Eikaiwa.
1. What made you decide to write the Easy Eikaiwa web application? What did you have in mind?
I decided to write Easy Eikaiwa to make a simple, affordable booking system available to language schools and private teachers without the need to purchase, setup or install any complicated or expensive software. The intention is to give anyone who needs it cheap and painless access to a tool that was designed specifically for them.It’s basically a ticket-based booking system. You could think of it as having an extra virtual receptionist who can take bookings and cancellations 24×7 online. It might not be as cute as a real one, but it should free up the phone and help put more bums in seats, so to speak.
2. What’s your previous experience? (Former eikaiwa teacher? Professional web developer?)
A bit of both really. Professionally my background in Australia is in electronics and communications, but my first experience with the web in Japan was at a Japanese web studio back in 2001. I spent a year there as their in-house code monkey before inevitably finding myself teaching, part-time at first, but eventually it ended up being full-time for a few years.For the last few years I’ve been working in Japan as a freelance web developer while teaching on and off at a school which is using an early version of the system. It’s been good first-hand experience with how the expectations of students, teachers, school owners, and also myself as the developer can vary.
3. How long has it taken you to write?
I spent a few years developing the earlier version actually. That was a learning experience in the importance of PC adoption amongst your customer demographic, or a keitai interface for those without (on the wishlist for the new system).It’s taken 6 months to completely rebuild it from the ground up in a new application framework since then. My previous experience showed how important it is to develop web applications that give the user just enough tools to get the job done and then get out of their way, so the redesign has been aimed at creating a tool made specifically for the job at hand instead of trying to be a Swiss army-knife.
4. What would you ultimately like Easy Eikaiwa to become? (ie: do you want it to be adopted by The Big Four? Or for private students/smaller schools? Everyone?)
Well, I could be tempted by a juicy contract from The Big Four, but that would really be counter to the real mission, which is to keep everyone else in the race. The size of the big four has forced them to drag prices down and let “feature bloat” creep into their services. I think the best way for the rest of us to stay competitive might be to not compete – at least not on price or even services like at home video lessons.Ultimately I’d like to enable anyone with a language school or private students to stay lean and agile by helping you to make the most of you existing resources without having to compromise your price or services. An easy, affordable booking system can increase utilisation and give value-added convenience. Easy Eikaiwa is designed to scale from private teachers out to schools with several campuses without making much difference to your fixed expenses.The bigger players probably have a large enough IT budget to develop their own in-house solutions, so I’m here to offer the same services to those who need a cheap point of entry. We host the application online, and take care of maintaining, upgrading and improving it as part of the price. The monthly subscription model is cheap, and saves you the time and money required to develop and maintain this kind of service yourself.
5. Any last words?
We’re just starting out and venturing into new grounds as we go, so I’d like to thank you for taking the time to lend us your attention. If you keep an eye on us you should see some exciting developments as we try to close the technology gap by making it easy and affordable.
Anyone who’s interested in getting their scheduling and bookings online should check us out, and we’d love for you to spread the word. We’ll be opening our doors for business shortly and look forward to hearing from you. Please email any questions to info@easyeikaiwa.com. Thanks again.
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