Vimcal aims to be the most advanced calendar application on the market

Vimçal, a company backed by Y Combinator, believes that creating an event takes many steps in today’s calendar application offerings. That is why the company has developed a calendar application that allows you to create and edit events in just a few steps. Today, the startup is launching its iOS app along with integration for Outlook accounts.

The company already has web and desktop clients for Windows and Mac (Intel and M1) and a Chrome extension for people who want to view their calendars and schedule their appointments on a big screen. But until now, Vimcal only supported Google accounts (Google Workspace).

The team made the calendar easy to use by assigning a keyboard shortcut for almost every action, from creating an event to quickly switching between meetings to see what’s happening throughout the week. It takes about three to five steps to create an event. The calendar also has a command center where you can type phrases like “Meet Lisa for lunch tomorrow at 1pm” to quickly set up an appointment.

Vimcal also makes it easy to indicate meeting times. It offers a more customizable solution to scheduling software like Calendly: you can simply drag, copy, and paste available slots into an email. You can also set regular times for each week with a feature called Personal Links, which is more like Calendly.

One of Vimcal’s most useful features is time travel, which allows you to easily compare time zones to find a suitable space for each zone. You can also add multiple time zones for comparison.

All of these features are available in the new iOS app, which has been in beta since April. But instead of hotkeys, they are optimized for the touch surface. The company developed this app using its acquisition of Weve Calendar earlier this summer. The new app also lets you quickly send an email from the notifications shade to email others if you’re a few minutes late for a meeting.

Vimcal for iOS is a free app, but if you want to use the product on your desktop you have to pay $15 per month or $150 per year. For teams with more than five members, the product costs $120 per year. The company is already working to make Vimcal suitable for commercial use with customizable features.

The mobile and desktop versions allow you to view your teammates’ calendars, making it easy to choose a time for a meeting in different time zones.

Company founder and CEO John Li first launched the product in January 2020, just before the pandemic and the rise of remote working. First, the company took users on a 30-minute phone call to provide an overview of the product, similar to the Superhuman email client, and answer any questions. Li said the team brought in 10,000 users through calls in the first year and a half, some of which also served as investor calls. The company even has the option for new customers to schedule a call with the team while they try out the product or purchase the subscription.

To date, Vimcal has raised $1.9 million from investors including Y Combinator, co-founder of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia, former CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, founder of Teachable, Ankur Nagpal, and Hustle Fund.

“For the next six months, we will focus on building resources for teams. So far, we’ve focused on making remote programming and self-programming seamless. Now let’s focus on internal programming for teams and companies. We are also developing apps for iPad and Apple Watch, and later for Android as well,” Li told TechCrunch.

The startup, which has a team of nine, also launched a product called vimcal maestro for executive assistants earlier this month.

There is a lot of competition in the calendar space. There are old players like Google and Outlook with new players like Calendly, Aerotime, Amie and Magical competing for a spot on your calendar. Li says speed and ease of use are Vimcal’s USP.

“We always tell our users that anything they can do in another calendar app, they can do in half or less in Vimcal. We designed our product to be intuitive and fast,” said Li.

“When we made our app, we listed all the keystrokes and mouse movements required for the top 10 things like: B. Create an event in a calendar. And then we look at that list and reduce the number of steps.”