 "Startup Street: Zenoti helps spas, salons manage daily activities")
Entrepreneurs Sudheer Koneru and Dheeraj Koneru experienced first-hand the difficulty in running their spa, salon and fitness centre chains — Latitudes Health Club and Tangerine Spas — as the industry lacked software that was reliable, easy to use and supported the whole ecosystem of operational tasks in a spa and salon.
Founded in 2010 in Hyderabad and now headquartered in Seattle, Zenoti offers a software-as-a-service solution to spas and salons. Zenoti’s cloud software solution is designed to manage all operational aspects of the spa and salon business, including appointment book, billing and customer relationship management capabilities, a webstore where clients can offer online booking as well as sell retail products and gift cards, staff management, inventory control, built-in marketing and analytics.
There was no affordable software available that supported the needs of a multi-location chain.
This experience gave Sudheer an understanding of the challenges in this industry. Sudheer and Dheeraj went back to their roots in enterprise software and founded Zenoti (formerly ManageMySpa).
“The global wellness industry-related software opportunity is projected to be more than $10 billion. This includes spas, salons, medi-spas, yoga studios, wellness classes and fitness centres. In the last decade, we have seen major shifts in how consumers and businesses have adopted technology. And, that shift is now reaching the wellness and beauty industry,” says Sudheer.
“What we are seeing is that salons and spas are ready to adopt cloud software and the benefits that this platform brings. A large part of the challenge is resetting expectations on what a cloud solution can do – which goes much beyond what was possible just five years ago,” he adds.
Prior to floating Zenoti, Sudheer was director at Microsoft, Washington, and managed a large part of what is now the Windows Operating System. He then started integrated HR solutions firm SumTotal Systems in the US and grew it to a $100-million business over a period of nine years. Dheeraj was part of the founding team of SumTotal Systems, which was acquired by Skillsoft Limited in October 2014.
