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When a talented technical mind meets an entrepreneurial spirit, great products can happen — and this is exactly the case with Webba Booking.
Ivan Halaka, the problem-solving developer, and Tauras Sinkus, the business-driven CEO, joined forces to build a comprehensive solution to streamline appointment scheduling for businesses of all sizes. Webba Booking offers a user-friendly interface to customize booking processes, manage appointments, and handle customer interactions efficiently with features like flexible scheduling, secure online payments, and integration with tools like Google Calendar and WooCommerce.
With Ivan’s knack for building effective tools and Tauras’ insight into market needs, this dynamic duo turned a simple idea into a thriving solution that optimizes scheduling and boosts operational efficiency. Their collaboration demonstrates how powerful teamwork can be.
Let’s dive into their journey and see how their combined skills helped Webba Booking take off. 😎
Hi Ivan and Tauras — welcome and thanks for joining us! Please tell us about yourselves.
Tauras: Hey everyone! First and foremost, I’m the proud dad of a 4-year-old miracle, my daughter Vesta. She’s my love, my life, and my biggest success.
As for my career, I’m an internet entrepreneur from Lithuania. Over the years, I’ve also lived in the UK, Singapore, Switzerland, and Indonesia.
I studied Economics, but honestly, it never really clicked for me. I’ve always been drawn to business and started young: selling newspapers, flipping mp4 players, and even tutoring English (despite barely knowing it well myself 😅).
I was never tied to a specific industry; I just loved creating things people would pay for. Naturally, spending so much time in front of a computer led me toward internet-based ventures. Five countries and 20+ ideas later, here I am, talking to you as the co-founder of the Webba Booking plugin! 😉
Ivan: Hi, and thanks for having me! A little about myself: I’m a proud husband to my wonderful wife, Olga, and a father of two amazing boys, Yaroslav and Alexander. I was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, where I created countless memories and experiences that have shaped who I am today.
Recently, I made a big move to Poland, where I’m embracing new opportunities and enjoying the beauty of this country. Coding has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and it’s been a big part of my life for nearly all of it.
When I’m not coding, I love spending time with my family. Whether we’re traveling, playing board games, cooking together, or building Lego cities, those moments are the most precious to me.
Sounds like you’re both doing something right 🙌 Tauras, you’re the CEO of Webba Booking. Ivan, you’re the Head Developer. How did you guys meet, and how does your professional relationship work?
Tauras: Funny story — we were introduced by one of Webba’s customers. Ivan was looking for a partner who could handle the marketing and business side of things, so he shared this with some of the plugin’s most loyal users. One of them posted about it in a local Lithuanian entrepreneurship Facebook group, and that’s where I found out. I reached out to Ivan, and we set up a Google Meet to discuss the partnership.
At the time, I was traveling in Bali, and Ivan was in Ukraine. I remember during that first call, I was on high alert, constantly looking for red flags 😂. I mean, partnering with someone I’d just met online? What could go wrong, right?
But honestly, my gut never flagged anything.
Ivan was genuine, professional, and trustworthy, and Webba had so much potential. It was built with integrity, a customer-first approach, and a clear vision. We hit it off right away and, after a few weeks, agreed to work together.
Fast forward two years, and not only have we made solid progress with Webba, but we’ve also developed a great work dynamic as a team!
Your story of coming together is inspiring — it highlights the power of genuine community 🙌 How did your journeys lead you to WordPress?
Tauras: I’ve been building websites since my teenage years, so when WordPress emerged and everyone started buzzing about it, I had to check it out right away. Over the past decade, I’ve crafted and managed over 100 WordPress sites. I started with personal blogs, expanded to creating websites for others, and managed sites for past employers.
I’ve recently built a portfolio of 10+ affiliate marketing sites across various niches. For me, WordPress is the go-to CMS for turning ideas into reality. Plus, co-owning a WordPress plugin gives me a unique perspective from all angles.
Ivan: My coding adventure began at 13, diving into DOS development back when Windows 3.11 was cutting-edge. I started with Pascal and loved tinkering with in-game save files. When Windows 95 came out, I grabbed a book on Borland Delphi, one of the first Windows programming environments. Books were my main source of learning back then, with the internet still feeling pretty exotic. I devoured everything from Assembly to C++.
After school, I thought of doing a Computer Science degree but ended up studying Geology instead. That didn’t stop me from coding, though! I applied my skills in Geo Information Systems (GIS) and secured a job at a scientific institute in my third year. There, I developed a graphic editor for geological maps. I transitioned into CAD development after university, which allowed me to focus more on engineering tasks. I had a promising CAD career ahead of me but always dreamed of running my own software company.
During the rise of the internet and e-commerce, I started exploring web development and SEO in my free time. I ran a one-person web development agency, using WordPress and MODx CMS, and offering SEO services.
I eventually ventured into affiliate marketing, launching sites with free coupon codes from popular stores. Within 6 months, the revenue was so good that I focused solely on that, working just 2–3 hours a day. Everything ran on autopilot — coupons were updated on my sites via RSS feeds and SEO was outsourced. However, changes in search engine algorithms eventually hurt my sites’ traffic and income.
Despite this setback, it taught me that creating my own products could be more stable and fulfilling than promoting others.
So where did the idea for Webba Booking come from?
Ivan: After my affiliate business ended, I decided to explore the idea of creating my own product. I had some friends who were selling themes on ThemeForest, so I reached out to them for insights.
During my market research, I started by sorting plugins based on their sales numbers to identify the more popular ones. I then tracked their sales at three key intervals: initially, after two weeks, and again two weeks later. This helped me filter out the plugins with the highest audience growth. Next, I categorized the plugins by niche and analyzed the competition within each one. My goal was to find a niche that wasn’t overly competitive at the time.
Finally, I excluded plugins that would take too long to develop into an MVP. After this process, I landed on the booking niche and began developing Webba Booking.
Can you explain what Webba Booking is and how it works?
Tauras: The concept behind Webba Booking is pretty straightforward — we help service providers accept bookings through their WordPress websites. These services can be anything from coaching, beauty treatments, and consulting to booking hourly event spaces like meeting rooms or renting items like golf carts.
The system covers everything you’d expect from a booking tool. On the backend, service providers can create different services or products, set pricing and availability, add descriptions, and manage bookings. It also connects directly to their calendar and payment systems, making it a complete, all-in-one booking management tool.
On the frontend, their customers get a simple booking form where they can choose a service, select a time slot, provide booking details, and, if enabled, complete the payment process.
What sets Webba Booking apart from its competitors? Is there a unique feature or “magic ingredient” that makes it stand out and contributes to its success?
Tauras: While many plugins are tackling similar problems, what sets Webba Booking apart is its flexibility for service providers. We offer advanced pricing rules, allowing for surge pricing, holiday periods, quantity-based pricing, and more. Our settings also cover lots of ground — things like availability management, prep-time, accepting deposits, using gift cards, and creating coupons. These options really make Webba stand out.
Of course, we also integrate with payment providers, calendars, Zoom, and similar tools, but that’s pretty standard across the board.
What I’m most proud of, though, is our support. Despite being a small team, we have an excellent support rating. If you check our reviews, you’ll see that 90% of them highlight how responsive, helpful, and friendly our support is.
Given Webba Booking’s impressive 5-star rating and over 2000 active installations on WP.org, have you encountered any negative feedback?
Tauras: While we’re fortunate not to get much criticism, I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged our customer base is when I joined. People are eager to share feature requests and suggest UX improvements.
We’ve built an internal and external roadmap based on that valuable feedback. Right now, 95% of our reviews are 5 stars, which is yet another testament to Ivan’s fantastic support. Before we brought more hands on deck, Ivan was responding to every request within 1–2 hours, whether it was a weekend or late at night. It’s the equivalent of a mom-and-pop shop, but in the WP plugin space.
I’m sure you’re flattered, Ivan 😉 Can we also give the rest of your awesome team kudos by introducing them and showing the magic they bring?
Tauras: When I joined, it was just Ivan and me — our team has doubled since then! We quickly realized that to match our ambitions, we needed extra hands, but we kept our bootstrapped mentality and scaled cautiously.
First, Asnate, who I’d worked with on other projects, came on board as our content manager. She’s been instrumental in enhancing our website, documentation, and SEO presence.
We then embarked on a nearly year-long project to completely revamp Webba’s UX/UI, bringing in freelance designers and developers to speed up the process. After launching the new version, we saw immediate growth as users found it easier to navigate, which boosted our retention.
Our latest addition is Mandro, our support superstar. He’s been a game-changer, allowing Ivan to focus on Webba’s growth and development at full throttle. We cherish our bootstrapped approach, which keeps us mindful of our next steps and prevents us from wasting time or budget. We’re incredibly grateful for our team’s growth and excited about expanding even further!
It must be magical watching your business expand 🚀 At Freemius, we like to explore the habits of results-driven people. Tauras, how do you get the most out of a typical business day?
Tauras: My day kicks off with a solid morning routine — shower, coffee, and some journaling. Once I’m set, I dive into emails and Slack to handle any urgent matters. Next, I review the sales report, traffic stats, and support workload.
If everything’s on track, I tackle my priorities listed in our PM tool, Asana. My day typically involves a mix of analyzing customer feedback, managing marketing campaigns, working on sales assets, and finding ways to optimize our operations.
You mentioned marketing campaigns. What strategies have worked for Webba Booking and how big a role does marketing play?
Tauras: We’re always testing and trying different strategies, and we’ve found some key approaches that work well for us. SEO is a big focus, along with running pricing promotions and building our 5-star review profiles on both WP.org and Trustpilot. SEO does take time, so we’ve published a variety of comparison and how-to articles relevant to the booking industry.
We’ve also discovered that “evergreen” promotions are effective; people are more motivated to buy when they see a time-limited offer. Social proof is crucial these days, so we’ve established a Trustpilot profile and added CTAs for reviews on our website and in our emails. Positive reviews on WP.org have consistently boosted our rankings, even surpassing plugins with higher download counts.
However, we’re still working on finding the right formula for building an affiliate community, running paid ads, and email marketing. While we’ve seen some success in these areas, we haven’t yet cracked the code for scalable strategies.
A new software creator who’s a fan of Webba Booking knocks on your door asking for advice. What do you tell them?
Ivan: If you’re diving into product development, my top tip is to really get to know what’s already out there. You don’t need to cover every single option, but check out most of them to understand the landscape. Also, pick the right technology for your project. Even if you’re not a tech guru in a particular area, if your competitors are using certain tools, it’s worth learning and using them yourself.
For instance, React is a game-changer. While it’s not essential for all WordPress plugins, it can give you an edge, especially with Gutenberg blocks and popular page builders.
Another thing: if you’re launching something totally novel thinking you’ll hit the jackpot, be ready for a long road. People might need time to get used to it. In my experience, it’s often smarter to take something that’s already out there and improve it.
Also, check out the teams behind similar products + the size of their workforce (this info is usually publicly available). For Webba Booking, competing with bigger players is tough with our small team, but we’re planning to grow and boost our market position.
Devs, take note 👆 And while you’re here — Ivan, please tell us about your dev environment.
Ivan: I operate on a Windows platform utilizing Docker. For editing, I rely on Visual Studio Code, equipped with extensions such as ES7 React/Redux/GraphQL/React-Native snippets, IntelliPHP, PHP All-in-One, PHPDoc Comment, and Prettier, which enhance my development workflow.
Webba Booking is something many rely on. Are there tools and devices the two of you depend on, and why?
Tauras: For our business operations, Asana and Slack are our lifelines. They help us stay organized and communicate effectively. For product development, we lean on Jira.
We like to keep project management and product management separate because it gives us a clearer view of tasks. For instance, Jira is fantastic for product development — it’s way more suited for this than Asana. Plus, it’s great when we bring in external help; they only see the tasks related to product development and don’t get bogged down by everything else.
What platform did you use before Freemius and why did you switch?
Ivan: We originally launched Webba Booking on Envato’s CodeCanyon and even reached Elite Author status there. However, I realized that to grow further, we needed more advanced features from our sales platform. Specifically, I wanted greater flexibility in license management and a system that offered better insights into sales data, marketing tools like coupon creation, and integration with mailing platforms. Freemius turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.
When it came time to switch, I moved to Freemius in 2019 without considering other options.
I reached out to Freemius directly, and Vova responded with all the details about the migration process and addressed my concerns regarding accounting and legacy issues. It was clear that Freemius had everything we needed.
The migration went smoothly. The documentation was detailed and included code examples, which made adapting our code much easier. Overall, it was a seamless transition, and Freemius met all of our needs.
What specific Freemius features would you like to highlight?
Ivan: The standouts for us are:
- Automated deployment. Since we offer both free and premium versions of our product, automating the creation of the free version was crucial for efficiency and consistency.
- License management. Building our own license management system would have been a huge time-sink. Freemius offers an automated, intuitive license management system with great UX.
- Coupons. Our marketing campaigns rely heavily on coupons, and Freemius makes this process super flexible and customizable. We can adjust a wide range of parameters to fit our needs.
- Integration with Help Scout. Having customer and website data within our support panel is incredibly useful. It eliminates switching back and forth between platforms to check if the user is a premium customer when they joined, and on which websites they have Webba installed. This integration helps us understand how long users have been with us and their level of satisfaction. For example, if a user has recently purchased our product, they might need extra attention. They may be more likely to reach out with issues or concerns, especially if they’ve had less than stellar experiences elsewhere.
The Freemius community has also been a huge asset. We’ve made many smart decisions based on discussions in the community’s Slack channels.
For instance:
- Questions about refunds: We learned a lot from other members about managing refunds, which helped us develop a strategy to balance revenue and minimize negative reviews.
- Website reviews: We’ve asked the community for feedback on our website multiple times. The detailed reviews led to key improvements.
Has Freemius made a notable contribution to Webba Booking’s revenue?
Ivan: Definitely 😉
The best answers are usually the most straightforward 😄 Has Freemius helped you achieve any other success metrics?
Ivan: Freemius’s well-designed Black Friday campaigns have been a game-changer. We’ve joined every one since 2019 and saw a big boost in sales and new users. Just check out the graph below!
How have you found our support?
Ivan: It’s been fantastic. A special thanks to Leo for his exceptional help! 🙂
We often need to dig into issues, like when a customer’s payment fails, and Leo’s responses have been incredibly detailed, clarifying what went wrong.
On that note, let me share a tip. Start your support requests with the following details:
- Developer: A
- Plugin: B
- Customer: C
This will save you and the support team a lot of time.
While you’re sharing pearls of wisdom, please think about the following: You get to start Webba Booking again knowing what you do now. What would you do differently?
Ivan: We’d rethink our approach to features.
Early on, we tried to include every feature request from customers. While this made the product very flexible, it also complicated its use. To fix this, we made a major update with Webba Booking 5, categorizing features into basic and advanced and simplifying many aspects.
Finding the right balance between having a comprehensive feature set and keeping things simple is key, especially when targeting a non-technical audience.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced personally and in business? How did they help you get to where you are today?
Tauras: Knowing when to say no, both personally and in business. I often come up with too many ideas and want to try them all. My Google Drive folder is overflowing with over 30 started projects, from non-plastic products to creating a huge wedding vendor marketplace in Switzerland. I love starting things and along the way, I learned how to evaluate project potential, effort, and skill-match much better.
Ivan:
For me, the biggest challenge is dealing with the gap between effort and outcomes. After putting in a lot of work, it’s tough when results don’t meet expectations. It’s tempting to make drastic changes, but often the real issue is setting unrealistic expectations or lacking patience.
The best approach is to stay calm, thoroughly assess what went wrong, and celebrate even small victories. For instance, when I first launched Webba Booking on Envato Market, it didn’t meet my high expectations, and there were no sales for the first 3–4 months. Despite the rocky start, I stayed dedicated, kept improving the product, and incorporated user feedback.
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Are there any plans for Webba Booking you’d be keen to share?
Tauras: Our top priority is to make Webba the number one booking plugin on WordPress. We have an extensive list of features and improvements planned for 2024 that will benefit both our current and new users. As we continue to grow, we’re committed to investing in top-notch support to maintain that personal, “mom-and-pop shop” feeling. 😊
Thanks for your time, Ivan and Tauras, and we wish you well for the future! Before you go, please drop your social handles so that people know where to find you.
Ivan:
Taurus:
Webba Booking:
