Hora

Appointment scheduling that runs itself, through the app Latin America already uses every day: WhatsApp.

Role: Scrum Master & Product Designer
Timeline: 2024 (Q3) to 2025 (Q2)
Platform: Web Application, Responsive PWA, WhatsApp chatbot, landing page
Recognition: Top 30 in Reto Zapopan’s acceleration category (~700 projects)

Tools

At a glance

Problem

Independent professionals lose hours every week confirming and rescheduling appointments by hand, and still lose revenue to cancellations.

Insight

The leading scheduling tools had no WhatsApp integration, in a region where almost everyone uses WhatsApp.

My contribution

I led the team’s agile process and designed about 90% of Hora’s screens, plus the identity and the developer handoff.

Hora's booking page for a dental clinic in dark mode: the clinic's details, a November calendar with the 15th selected, and its services.

A WhatsApp chat with Tac, Hora's assistant for clients. It announces a dental cleaning appointment, the client replies Yes, and Tac confirms it with a Manage Appointment button.

The problem

Hours lost to manual scheduling

Doctors, psychologists, stylists, trainers and other independent professionals spend over 5 hours a week on confirmations, reminders and rescheduling. Cancellations add to the cost: in service sectors, studies suggest they can take 10 to 20% of monthly revenue when the calendar isn’t managed intelligently.

5+ h

Per week spent on confirmations, reminders and rescheduling

10 to 20%

Of monthly revenue that cancellations can take in service sectors

Two more factors made it harder:

Low tech adoption.

Many of these professionals aren’t comfortable with digital tools, so the product had to be simple from the first minute.

Clients expect more.

They want instant confirmations, automatic reminders and booking without a phone call.

The insight

Meet people where they already are

Our research focused on Mexico and LATAM, starting with independent professionals (doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, stylists, personal trainers, consultants, photographers and artists) and later reaching small clinics, salons, spas, repair shops and language schools. Three findings shaped Hora:

100%

Everyone is on mobile.

100% of our target users rely on their phones.

High

People will pay to save time.

Willingness to pay was high for simple tools that save time and increase income.

92 to 99%

WhatsApp is the channel.

Between 92% and 99% of internet users in Mexico use it, yet Cal.com and Calendly offered no WhatsApp integration for reminders or confirmations.

That gap became our differentiator: instead of teaching users a new tool, we put Hora in the app they already open all day.

The solution

A calendar that manages itself

An AI assistant on WhatsApp

Confirms, reminds and manages appointments.

Unique appointment links

Sent over WhatsApp, so clients can edit or cancel without involving the professional.

Automatic time zones

For both sides, built for remote sessions.

An installable PWA

Light and dark modes, English and Spanish, a payment gateway and Google Calendar integration, with no app store needed.

A WhatsApp chat with Tic, Hora's assistant for professionals. The professional asks for the day's appointments, Tic lists them, and the professional cancels the 2 PM one after Tic confirms.

An iPad home screen with Hora installed next to the other apps. Tapping its icon opens Hora full screen, with no browser around it, and the dashboard scrolls from the greeting down to the appointments and stats.

The booking page at hora.app/DENTALETY on a phone, scrolling from the clinic's details to its calendar and services.

Integrations

Hora connects to what a practice already uses. Subscriptions are paid through Stripe, and Google Calendar is one install away.

Hora's App Store. Install is pressed on Google Calendar, a spinner runs and it changes to Installed, while Outlook Calendar is marked as coming soon. — Google Calendar: one install from Hora’s App Store.

My role

Process and product

I wore two hats, and they fed each other.

Scrum Master

I facilitated sprints and dailies for a team adopting Next.js and MongoDB, moving from the PHP Laravel and MySQL stack they knew, all against an MVP deadline. Before any code was written, I ran review sessions to analyze results and agree on a plan, which kept us ready to pivot.

Product Designer

I helped build the brand identity from scratch and designed about 90% of the screens using shadcn/ui components. I also owned the handoff: light and dark color modes and CSS variables that let developers build exactly what we designed in Figma.

Tools

How the tools were used

Miro

Feedback meetings, brainstorming sessions

UI UX Design

Designed in Figma using Shadcn/ui libraries

Jira Software

Sprint planning and user stories for development

Confluence

App documentation

Miro

Feedback meetings, brainstorming sessions

UI UX Design

Designed in Figma using Shadcn/ui libraries

Jira Software

Sprint planning and user stories for development

Confluence

App documentation

Iteration

What users taught us

After interviews and research with real users, we redesigned three areas: the PWA experience, the sidebar navigation and onboarding. Each round came from what users told us, not from our assumptions.

PWA experience

Installed from the browser, Hora opens from the home screen like any other app.

Sidebar navigation

It folds down to icons, so the calendar gets the room and every section stays one click away.

Onboarding

A long setup form became an AI-guided flow that drafts the schedule and services for you.

Hora's sidebar expanding from a column of icons into labeled navigation with Home, Appointments, Services, Availability, Days off and Apps, then collapsing back to icons.

Hora's earlier onboarding: a Set up your account form asking for a time zone, business code and business line, next to a preview of the business card.

The AI-guided onboarding in three steps. Choosing Dental Clinic produces a recommended weekly schedule, row by row, and then recommended services with durations and prices.

Recognition

Top 30 of about 700 projects

Hora reached the Top 30 of about 700 projects in Reto Zapopan’s acceleration category.

Black-and-white group photo of Reto Zapopan participants waving from a rooftop around large letters reading #Reto, with the city of Zapopan behind them. — Photo · Reto Zapopan.

What I took away

Speed only helps if it points in the right direction

Hora was a startup product inside a larger company, built against an MVP deadline. Research, validation and honest feedback kept that speed pointed the right way, and acting as both Scrum Master and designer showed me how process and product shape each other.

If one word sums up this project, it’s iteration.

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