Why We Built mivo

A personal look behind the idea

There are moments in your professional life when you keep running into the same wall. For us, Jan Franke and Antonia Winter, that moment didn’t come suddenly. It grew over many years. Every time we worked with service providers in IT consulting, the same question came up. Is there an online booking system that truly fits what we need?

We never had a good answer. And the longer we searched, the clearer something became that many service providers had known for a long time. Existing tools often feel like compromises. They work to a certain point, but never in the way you actually need them. They have gaps. They create workarounds. They take time. They slow down processes. And they leave you with the feeling that things should be much simpler.

That is exactly where mivo begins. The journey to a modern online booking system we built because we needed it ourselves.

We come from IT consulting and have seen this problem up close

In our projects, we help service providers work digitally. Yet everywhere we went, we met the same challenges. Appointments. Courses. Payments. Calendars. Workflows.

It sounds simple, but in reality it’s anything but.

We searched for a long time for a straightforward system for appointment and course bookings. A solution that truly brings together courses, services, payments, and time slots. Whether it’s a course booking system, appointment scheduling software, slot-based booking, or digital appointment management.

We kept trying to adapt existing tools. We combined different systems to compensate for missing features. But no matter how hard we tried, we always hit the same wall. There simply wasn’t a system that solved all of this elegantly.

And at some point we asked ourselves why we were waiting for a tool that clearly didn’t exist.

The moment mivo began

At first it was just a sentence. We could build it ourselves.
We didn’t say it out loud for a long time, but the thought was there.

When we finally took it seriously, everything changed. We felt that we wanted to build something that didn’t exist yet. Not another tool full of compromises, but a system born from our own daily work. A system we would have needed in every project. A system that actually works for service providers.

In January we wrote the first line of code. Back then we had no idea how big this project would become. Nine months later mivo was ready. A modern alternative to classic tools like Calendly, TidyCal, or SimplyBook. A real Calendly alternative, a TidyCal alternative, but above all a product with its own identity.

mivo was built together with the people who use it

Building mivo was never just a technical exercise. It was a shared journey with the people we’re building it for.

We talked to yoga teachers who had to manage their courses across multiple platforms.
We talked to dog trainers who built new workarounds every single week.
We talked to coaches whose scheduling was scattered across several systems.
We talked to studios that couldn’t properly integrate online payments.

Every piece of feedback flowed directly into mivo. Every challenge became part of our architecture. Every idea became a building block of a system that today stands as a modern booking solution for service providers.

Step by step mivo developed its own identity. Something unique. Something that didn’t grow out of a product concept but out of real problems and real people.

mivo is meant to make everyday work easier for service providers

Whether it’s courses, appointments, online meetings, workshops, webinars, events, or flexible time slots. mivo is meant to connect workflows instead of splitting them apart. It should bring clarity instead of complexity.

mivo is a complete online booking system, a tool for scheduling appointments and courses, a system for time slot management, and a solution with integrated online payments. All within one platform.

We wanted an interface that simply feels right.
We wanted technology that is reliable.
We wanted a tool that doesn’t get in your way.
And we wanted a solution that works for many types of service providers. From consultants to physiotherapists. From studios to coaches.

Our most important principle: the core functions of mivo are and will remain free

We know how frustrating it is to try a new tool and hit a paywall right away. That’s why we decided that the most important features must be free to use.

mivo is a free booking system for service providers. A free tool for appointments. A solution for courses and time slot management that doesn’t block you from the start.

Appointment booking. Courses. Time slots. Calendar sync. Online payments with Stripe. Automatic notifications. A clear and simple dashboard.

Everything is available immediately. No barriers.

We believe good software should help first, not hold you back.

What mivo is today and what it will become

Today mivo stands as a modern, fast, and flexible online booking system. A tool we would have needed ourselves for years. A system that grows every day through real feedback.

mivo is software for coaches, trainers, studios, therapists, yoga teachers, and many other service providers. It brings together scheduling, course booking, time slot logic, payments, and calendar connections in one unified system.

We build openly. We talk to our users. We share our roadmap. We improve every day. And we want to grow mivo step by step into an international booking system that shows how simple online booking can be.

Our personal conclusion

mivo didn’t come to life because we wanted to build another SaaS product.
mivo came to life because every day we met people whose work was far more complicated than it needed to be. We collected their stories and turned them into a solution that, in our eyes, was long overdue.

mivo is our personal tool against chaos, workarounds, and rigid systems. The booking tool we always needed. And we’re grateful that it can now help others too.

Our previous article: Introducing mivo – the booking system for service providers