Our Journey: From Idea to Reality

In 2017 I went from an employee of a big corporation to an enthusiastic startupper. An idea that had come to my mind 13 years earlier in New York, was coming to life in London.

A friend supported my idea and together we launched the so-called Uber-of-cleaners, which is a platform connecting cleaners and clients like Uber connects taxi and its potential passengers just at a click of a button.

As you can imagine the initial business plan had little to do with reality, which is a common for startups.

We faced numerous challenges on daily basis. Looking back, I’m not sure I’d have the heart to do it again, knowing all the hardships we were to go through. That’s the advantage of ignorance. You lack the information that would have frightened you away from your dream. You start with a there is nothing to lose attitude – which can make you brave enough to begin the journey.

We had a very small startup capital, which attracted investors, but very soon we learnt that a project like ours required no less than a million pounds on the account. What we had at our disposal was several times less.

I had an impression that we were driving a three-wheel car trying to fix the fourth one on the way and restyling the autobody at the same time. Is this feeling familiar to you?

Naming

The naming part was exciting. We wanted it to be laconic and catchy; moreover it had to be apprehensible for the local people. My partner offered eMop: Electronic mop at your service!

Unfortunately, the domain www.emop.com was occupied and we decided not to buy it out. We found .world, which seemed to be even more suitable for those, like us, who wanted to conquer the world. Time showed that we were mistaken. Domain extension matters for SEO and for the reputation of the company. www.emop.world wasn’t the right domain for search engine optimisation and customers didn’t trust us. Consequently, we had to change the domain and www.emop.world became www.emop.co.uk two years later.

Connecting clients and cleaners

So, we had the name and the proper domain, what was next? How to connect the clients and the cleaners digitally. To achieve this, several IT components were necessary:

• A website where orders are placed
• Orders Management System
• Mobile app for the cleaners to receive their orders
• Mobile app for clients (with a long term planning in view)

Before developing all the above mentioned components, we had to workout how to make it operate all together.

My next post will tell you how we dealt with the problems we encountered. Subscribe and follow the news!

Julia Ponomareva

eMop Founder