Feeling Bored? Momenday’s Here to Help! A Sharing by Two Passionate Entrepreneurs

BEST Student Reporter: Shirley Lai

 

Marvis Lee and Vivian Lai, two partners with very different personalities. We are very happy to have them in this issue to share their start-up journey with you. Marvis and Vivian graduated from the School of Business of Hong Kong Baptist University in 2018 and 2020 respectively. These two young entrepreneurs are the Co-founders of Momenday, an improvised leisure and entertainment booking platform.

“Moment of the day”

The company name “Momenday” can be extended and interpreted as “the moment of the day”, it can also be transcribed into Chinese character “無問題 (No problem)”. Compared with other traditional booking methods, Momenday can make immediate booking even for impromptu idea. With Momenday, customers do not need to call the merchants one by one to check the availability of activities and venues anymore, they can simply do everything through Momenday’s all-in-one click online booking platform. This does not only save users the time to search from site to site for the right leisure activity to join, but users can also book their desired activities at the very last minute! Apart from leisure activities, users can also find information of cafés, studio & party rooms, beauty and spa. To encourage users to use their platform, discount will be provided for any successful booking appointment made through Momenday.

 

“Go without a plan (想玩就玩 想走就走)”

The idea of Momenday originated from a gathering. Once, after Mavis, Vivian and their friends had finished a reunion lunch, they wanted to continue with their conversation and find a place where they could chill and relax. They spent much time and effort calling various karaoke, party room, café…etc. to check for vacancy. They then came up with an idea, which was a centralised platform that allowed people to make appointments anytime anywhere, even for the most ad hoc idea. After conducting a thorough market validation and research process, they discovered that there had to be off-peak hours for merchants; no-show and last-minute cancellations also happened often. Hence, offering preferential prices on the platform during non-peak hours can help increase customer flow and fill the gaps. So with this flexible mechanism, it allows more convenient transactions between merchants and customers.

“Entertainment should be enjoyed by everyone in the society.”

Meeting social needs is one of the important visions for Momenday. Marvis and Vivian pay great attention to people with disabilities. They think the disabled should also have channels to choose entertainment that best suits them and allow them to experience diverse leisure activities just like anyone of us. Because of this, Momenday encourages merchants with barrier-free facilities to join them. It is hoped that, through Momenday’s platform, more varieties of entertainment will be available to the community.

“Day one or one day”

Funding must be the biggest difficulty on the road to entrepreneurship, Marvis and Vivian need to work and participate in competitions, at the same time, sustain their living and wait for more opportunities and funding. The most memorial pitching competition for them would be “Good Seed 2018” which they only had five minutes for the pitching. After this experience, they see storytelling and personal qualities as two crucial elements in pitching. Story helps them attract audiences’ attention and that is why they try to interact with the audience whenever they pitch. Moreover, the greatest gain for them in joining the competition is always the advice and the appreciation received.

“You will recieve a lot of criticisms during the journey, some will often doubt your abilities that make you feel lost, however, this is a part of the learning process, and I can reassure you that these experiences are priceless!” said Vivian.

“I would rather be spontaneous than smart (寧願衝動也不聰明)”

Momenday is not the first proposal they initiated. They have proposed project ideas related to environmental protection and charities in the past. In 2019, they joined various kinds of competitions with Momenday’s idea, but because of the impact of the COVID-19, many people have doubts about the development of the entertainment industry in the next few years. However, Vivian and Marvis see failure positively. Each failure gives them a clearer direction where Momenday should be heading to and how they should pivot. “Generally, smart people do have ample considerations to start a business in the sense that the failure rates are relatively higher. Yet people often have to take the first step before they figure out their way.” said Marvis.

If you would like to follow Momenday for their latest updates, be sure to check out their Facebook (@momenday.hk) and Instagram (@momenday.hk)!