Start-up 24onoff has announced the UK launch of a new project management app for web and smartphones (Apple iOS and Android), helping digitise everyday paper-based tasks such as creating timesheets and invoices, as well as tracking man hours and managing documents (read this BIM+ article).
24onoff was originally launched in Scandinavia by the Heimdal, Trondheim, Norway-based founders some 2-3 years ago, and has accumulated some 5,000 users in northern Europe, mainly in Norway, Sweden and Denmark (the app also has a Polish language edition). CEO Sondre Blaasmo says: “24onoff removes the paper trail with a easy-to-use, ‘field friendly’ web and smartphone app for construction workers of all ages.”
Blaasmo has been studying management and entrepreneurship at London’ University’s Goldsmith’s College, so it was perhaps inevitable that it would be launched in the UK. Ole Jørgen Næss, head of product development said: “We realised we needed to make a unique and customised software for all the small builders in the UK. We’ve now created a product that has helped companies reduce the time spent on paperwork and administration by an average of 50%.”
The company piloted the application with more than 50 small builders, plumbers, electricians and property maintenance companies around the UK, and the majority of these are said to have now purchased the software. In a launch promotion, 24onoff is offering teams of up to three employees free use of the software, with no hidden fees.
Competitive market
As regular readers may recognise, 24onoff is targeting a massive market of small-to-medium-sized businesses (95% of UK construction, for example), and it’s also a market being targeted by several other providers around the world, including Copenhagen, Denmark-based GenieBelt (one of the better-funded ones – post – vital if a SaaS business is to reach a widely dispersed, fragmented, and relatively low-tech SME market), Australasia-based TidyBuild (post) and Small Builders (post), and US-based eSUB (post), Corecon (post) and Jobsite Unite (post). I also recently looked at another UK provider, Builderstorm.
