We’ve long seen scheduling as a possible anchor for SMB marketing services (coupons, leads, promotions, analytics, upsells et al). Obviously, we are not alone. More than 75 players are positioning themselves to lead the way in scheduling, including MindBody, Booker, Intuit, ReachLocal, Yodle, Square, GenBook, Agendize, Schedulicity, Moon Valley Software, MaxiPage, Hakema and others.

An alternative approach to the space has been taken by PingUp, a new player that just launched this week, and three- year- old MyTime. Both players have focused primarily on searching, aggregating and confirming online appointments from scheduling providers, while adding in marketing services as an additional layer.

From its inception, however, MyTime has also positioned itself up as an intermediary and a media and commerce channel in its own right. Now, MyTime has crossed the line, armed with a new round of $9.25 Million from Khosla, Upfront Ventures, shopping mall giant Westfield and others — on top of $3 Million raised in 2012.

While it will continue to aggregate and work with other scheduling providers, the 100 person, San Francisco-based company will also compete directly against them via two products: MyTime Scheduler, a sophisticated scheduling program; and MyTime Marketplace, a “fully responsive consumer destination to find and book appointments with nearby service businesses.”

The services cost from $9.99 to $39.99 a month, depending on the number of employees supported and types of services taken. The pricing is seen as significantly lower than other scheduling software providers.

CEO Ethan Anderson notes that the launch of MyTime’s Scheduler and Marketplace products is a natural extension of its appointment aggregation service, which is already driving “nearly one million people” a month to its Web site and mobile apps. He contends that the company’s efforts have also been set apart by a more seamless consumer experience.

Driving MyTime’s new strategy is the rapid adoption of mobile tools and services by consumers. “We know consumers prefer to book and pay for things through their smartphones now, but most businesses haven’t made it possible to book them online yet,” says Anderson. “Everyone knows that consumers are ahead of the SMBs.”

Businesses that take leads from MyTime will pay a 37 percent commission. MyTime also provides an attractive 2.69 percent rate for payments, undercutting Square’s 2.75 percent commission.

The company says it has built a relationship with 10,000 businesses, with 1,000 new businesses signing up a month. Anderson hopes to see that number double or triple during the next quarter and converted into paying accounts — due in part, to the new products, and its sales team. “Our goal is to go after the two million local businesses and get them on Scheduler within 5 years,” he says.

MyTime CEO Ethan Anderson

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Red Beacon founder Ethan Anderson has unveiled his latest project, MyTime, a “scheduling supermarket” that sets dynamic pricing for unfilled appointments. Online scheduling intrigues us as a gateway towards promotions and transactions, but it remains underutilized by SMBs and the space is also highly fragmented.

The site launched today in Los Angeles with 1,106 “fully vetted” businesses participating. MyTime promotes open avails in service calendars with ads on social media, email and other channels. It takes a 40 percent, one-time commission from new customers that it attracts. Existing customers who use the system don’t cost the business anything. The system also handles online payment for businesses, sending out payments to businesses in the same day.

Anderson has been working on the project for a year, building a 15 person team. He has raised angel funding from scheduling vets such as Merchant Circle founder Ben T Smith IV, along with others such as Jason Calacanis and Dave McLure (500 Startups).

The site’s ambition is to aggregate as many businesses as possible on his “light” scheduling system to allow consumers to shop for appointments near them. It integrates data from 12 existing scheduling systems, including Google calendar, Zoc Doc, Schedulicity, iPhone/iPad and Android phones and others. A dozen more systems are being worked on.

Dynamic pricing is used to provide consumers with discount incentive during non-busy periods. Discounts could be 30 percent to 40 percent. Conversely, premiums can be charged for very busy times, such as Saturday mornings at hair dressers.

All services are guaranteed, and each service is vetted via social media and rating and review sites.While the site has 50 service categories, major segments are expected to be health and beauty, fitness, yoga, pet sitting and domestic services

Anderson says his experience launching Red Beacon, a services leads company, taught him that consumers want instantaneous service. “They don’t want to wait a day or two” to get a bid. All the pricing is right on the site and payments can be processed right there as well.

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Redbeacon, the six-person San Francisco-based service referral company, announced today that it has raised a heady $7.4 million in Series A financing from Mayfield Fund and Venrock. CEO and Cofounder Ethan Anderson tells us that the company needed such a huge round to quickly ramp up the staff, including engineers, designers and marketing people; aggressively expand markets beyond San Francisco (although no markets have been finalized); and build a wide range of business partnerships.

Anderson notes that demographics and population size will play a large role in determining its next markets, but that business “distribution partnerships” will also play a role. For instance, Redbeacon is currently testing with BT in the U.K.

Partnerships, however, will consist of all shapes and sizes, including communities, search engines and media sites. The commission basis for job leads will “monetize better than advertising,” predicts Anderson. It will also feel like a natural, value-added feature of their sites. Partners “will drive tons and tons of traffic,” he says. “They’ll be moving to value added transactions to users.” The site currently works with BigTent, the women’s group site. It also works with several companies that remain unannounced.

Partnerships are being extended to individual SMBs, which can be partners by plugging a Redbeacon widget into their site. They can emphasize specific service categories and service providers among the leads that are carried and receive a piece of Redbeacon’s 10 percent commission for jobs. A plumber, for instance, could provide a link to dry wall repair. “It is very contextual,” says Anderson.

Anderson adds that the site’s big challenge right now is not so much online competitors such as ServiceMagic, QuinStreet and others, but “changing consumer behavior,” as people are still used to picking up the phone. The social aspects of the site should help along these lines, especially the solicitation of consumer reviews, which complement reviews imported from Yelp, Google and Yahoo. Anderson notes that 50 percent of consumers who use the service for a job are providing reviews.

As for learnings from the site’s launch in San Francisco, Anderson says it is now up to 4,000 small businesses and service pros, and “is always getting more. It is almost enough to make the service work” with price quotes on every job, he says. “People are getting price quotes from very good providers.”

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