velra.
booking

velra.

The operating plan

How the product works for clients, owners, and staff — what has to work, how we launch and roll out, how it scales without a support team, and the math that gets us to a million-dollar business in three years.

JourneysSystemsSelf-serveVs. Vagaro & FreshaLaunch planScalabilityRevenue plan

The three journeys

What the process looks like for each person

Every feature we build serves one of these three paths. If it doesn't, it waits.

Client

Find a pro, book in under 60 seconds, never call anyone.

  1. 1Discovers a business via marketplace search, a QR flyer, or the business's own velra link.
  2. 2Views the branded profile: services, prices, staff, real reviews, gallery.
  3. 3Picks service → staff → time from live availability (no double-booking possible).
  4. 4Creates an account or signs in, confirms; deposit charged if the service requires one.
  5. 5Gets an instant email confirmation with add-to-calendar and cancel/reschedule links.
  6. 6Shows up, is checked in, pays and tips at checkout, earns loyalty points.
  7. 7Manages everything after: portal shows upcoming, past, rebook in one tap, leave a review.

Business owner

Run the whole shop from a phone and never file a support ticket.

  1. 1Signs up as a business, completes onboarding: profile, branding, public link, first service.
  2. 2Adds staff with pay models, permissions, and assigned services — invites go out by email.
  3. 3Configures hours, buffers, deposits, cancellation windows, and calendar interval.
  4. 4Works the day from the dashboard: today's revenue, needs-attention queue, live appointment feed.
  5. 5Uses the resource calendar to book, block, drag and reassign across all staff.
  6. 6Rings out at Point of Sale: services, retail, tips, split payment, receipt.
  7. 7Reviews reports weekly: revenue, staff performance, retention, retail attach rate.
  8. 8Grows with the promo toolkit: QR flyers, social templates, marketplace spotlight.

Staff member

Open one screen in the morning and know exactly what the day is.

  1. 1Accepts the email invite, sets a password, lands in the staff portal.
  2. 2Today view: next client, running order of the day, gaps, and totals so far.
  3. 3Taps a client to see history, technical notes, and past photos before they sit down.
  4. 4Checks clients in, adds notes and photos, closes the ticket with tip.
  5. 5Sets recurring hours, breaks, and submits time-off requests for owner approval.
  6. 6Tracks earnings: commission, retail, tips, and payout history with filters.

Systems

What has to work

The full surface area, and honestly where each piece stands today.

Booking engine

Working

Live availability, buffers, staff/service overrides, deposits, waitlist.

Resource calendar

Working

Multi-staff day grid, blocks, walk-ins, reassignment.

Client CRM

Working

History, tags, notes, preferences, attachments, loyalty.

Staff portal

Working

Today view, schedule, clients, services, availability, earnings.

Point of Sale

Working

Services + retail, tips, discounts, split payment, receipts.

Payments & payouts

Working

Card processing, platform fee, payout ledger per business.

Reports

Working

Revenue, staff performance, retention, product movement.

Branding & profiles

Working

Per-business theme, gallery, public slug, marketplace listing.

Transactional email

Working

Confirmations, reminders, staff invites — one unified sender.

Plans & billing

Working

Growth/Pro tiers, trials, feature gating, self-serve upgrade.

Self-serve help layer

Next 6 months

Wiki, FAQ, in-context tips — every task documented in-app.

Automated retention

Next 6 months

Rebook nudges, lapsed-client win-backs, review requests.

Inventory depth

Next 6 months

Purchase orders, supplier reorder points, cost of goods.

Memberships & packages

Next 6 months

Recurring plans, prepaid bundles, gift cards.

Multi-location

Year 2–3

Location switching, shared clients, per-site reporting.

Open API & integrations

Year 2–3

Accounting, marketing tools, partner apps.

Self-sustaining

Users run everything themselves

Support cost is the thing that kills margin at this price point. These are non-negotiable rules.

01

Every setting is editable by the owner

No 'contact us to change your plan/hours/fees'. If a human at velra has to do it, it isn't finished.

02

Every screen explains itself

Empty states teach the next action; each dashboard area links to its wiki entry.

03

Onboarding forces a working shop

A new business cannot reach the dashboard without a profile and at least one service.

04

Data in and out without us

Client/service import, CSV export, and per-client data deletion are user-run.

05

Staff manage themselves

Hours, breaks, time-off requests, and notes are staff-owned; the owner only approves.

06

Billing is self-serve

Upgrade, downgrade, cancel, and see invoices in-app; trials convert without a call.

07

Support tickets are logged as bugs

Every question that reaches a human becomes either a UI fix or a wiki entry that week.

Competitive

Why a shop picks us over Vagaro or Fresha

We win on setup speed, mobile, staff experience, honest pricing, and owning your own brand.

Setup time

velra

Minutes, guided, no onboarding call

Vagaro

Sales call + paid setup

Fresha

Simple but shallow

Pricing

velra

Flat per shop, all features by tier

Vagaro

Per-feature add-ons stack up

Fresha

Per-booking fees on marketplace

Mobile experience

velra

Built phone-first for staff in the chair

Vagaro

Desktop tool squeezed onto a phone

Fresha

Good for clients, thin for staff

Staff workspace

velra

Dedicated portal: day, clients, earnings, availability

Vagaro

Limited staff view

Fresha

Limited staff view

Branding

velra

Per-business theme, own public link, real profile

Vagaro

Templated pages

Fresha

Fresha-branded listing

Client marketplace

velra

Included, drives new clients to your shop

Vagaro

Weak discovery

Fresha

Strong, but rents your client

Support model

velra

Self-serve by design, docs in-app

Vagaro

Ticket queues

Fresha

Ticket queues

Go to market

Launch and rollout plan

Five phases, each with one job. Don't start the next until the current target is hit.

Phase 0 — Harden

Weeks 1–4

Nothing ships broken.

  • Run every role end-to-end on a real phone: client books, staff works, owner closes out.
  • Fix every dead end, empty state, and mobile overflow before a single outside user sees it.
  • Seed a sandbox business used for demos and training.
  • Write the in-app help entry for every screen — support tickets are a product bug.

Phase 1 — Design partners

Month 2–3

10 real shops, hand-held.

  • Recruit 10 local businesses (salon, barber, nails, spa, medspa) on free extended trials.
  • Migrate their services, staff, and client lists for them — removing switching cost is the pitch.
  • Weekly 15-minute call per shop; log every question as a product gap, not a support answer.
  • Goal: each shop takes 30+ bookings/month through velra and stops using their old tool.

Phase 2 — Local density

Month 4–9

Own one metro before adding a second.

  • QR flyer + window decal campaign; every client booking becomes a marketplace account.
  • Staff-to-owner loop: staff who move shops bring velra to the next one.
  • Referral: one free month for each shop referred, both sides.
  • Marketplace spotlight becomes the paid upsell once client traffic is real.
  • Target: 100 paying businesses, under 3% monthly churn.

Phase 3 — Repeatable rollout

Month 10–24

Copy the metro playbook.

  • Self-serve onboarding replaces hand migration: importer, templates, guided setup.
  • Add memberships, packages, gift cards, automated retention — raises revenue per shop.
  • Multi-location support unlocks small chains (3–10 sites) at higher price points.
  • Launch a new metro every 6–8 weeks using the same flyer + staff-loop motion.
  • Target: 500 paying businesses.

Phase 4 — Scale

Year 3

$1M ARR, run lean.

  • Open API and partner integrations make velra the system of record.
  • Payments volume and marketplace spotlight carry a growing share of revenue.
  • Support cost per business trends toward zero — everything is self-serve.
  • Target: 1,000+ paying businesses at a blended $85/month.

Scalability

How this holds up at 1,000 shops

Product scales, headcount doesn't

  • Self-serve onboarding and imports
  • In-app docs instead of a support team
  • Templates for services, hours, and pricing

Data model holds up

  • Every record scoped to a business id
  • Row-level security so shops never see each other
  • Bulk operations for imports and batch updates

Growth is repeatable

  • Metro playbook: flyers, QR, staff loop, referrals
  • Marketplace compounds — every client is reusable demand
  • Staff carry velra to their next shop

Reliability is the moat

  • No double-bookings, no lost tickets, no failed payouts
  • Money screens (POS, payouts, reports) tested first
  • Mobile parity — the shop floor runs on phones

Retention over acquisition

  • Shops that ring out daily never leave
  • Client history and loyalty create switching cost
  • Watch weekly active shops, not signups

The number

Three years to $1M

Conservative assumptions, no funding required.

Year 1

$83K

annual recurring revenue

100 paying shops · $69/mo blended

Design partners → first paying metro. Churn under 3%/mo.

Year 2

$474K

annual recurring revenue

500 paying shops · $79/mo blended

Memberships, packages, retention add-ons lift ARPU.

Year 3

$1.02M

annual recurring revenue

1,000 paying shops · $85/mo blended

Multi-location and payments share push past $1M ARR.

Revenue levers

  • Subscription — Growth and Pro tiers, the base of every dollar.
  • Payments — platform fee on processed volume grows with each shop's revenue.
  • Marketplace spotlight — paid placement once client traffic is proven.
  • Add-ons — memberships, gift cards, extra locations, extra staff seats.

The whole plan reduces to one number: 1,000 shops paying $85/month. Everything we build should either add a shop, keep a shop, or raise what a shop pays.

Internal planning document · velra Booking