Blabu technology is for sale

Acquire Blabu technology

Our five-member product development team has spent two and half years developing a marketplace platform for an instant conversational
English practice. From the very beginning, we focused on building a robust product that will be able to handle thousands of calls a day from around the world and will comply with all legal requirements. The Covid-19 pandemic turned us in another direction, which in the end did not prove to be viable. We therefore decided to close Blabu.com down and offer the entire technology for further use.

blabu-strejcek-kovacik-1640x872.jpeg
 

Blabu in figures

20k calls

Blabu has successfully connected 20,000 real calls from around the world.

23k Hours

It took 23,000 hours of work and constant iterations to develop Blabu product and technology.

17k Users

Thousands of registered students and professionals were using Blabu.

 

Use of technology

Marketplace for Gig Economy

Connecting two parties, where one provides skills, advice or time to the other, who is willing to pay for these skills. Blabu was built for an international environment with different time zones and currencies, fulfilling the conditions of PSD2 for marketplaces.

Example:

Consulting, tutoring, various counseling services (coaching, psychotherapy, …), yoga, and fitness training.

Video call integration

If you already have a running application, you can easily add a video call and chat module connecting individual users.

Example:

Extending an existing discussion forum by consulting an expert online.

Booking systems

Blabu works as a booking system, where one party lists its availability and the other party books available times. Bookings may be charged at the same time. Blabu supports different time zones, different languages and different currencies.

Example:

A website featuring hairdressers gives customers an opportunity to book them and pay directly online.

Transactional portals

Blabu has a sophisticated system of transactions between individual users, fees for payment services, tax payments, etc. The entire system works with multiple currencies, can automatically convert them, and at the same time keep one basic currency for reporting.

Example:

Gig economy portal such as Fiverr or Upwork, where activities are ordered without a specific date and are paid exclusively online

Not sure if Blabu is the right fit for you? Contact us and we can talk about it.

 
BLABU_call.jpg

Application previews

 

How does Blabu work?

 

Marketplace

A marketplace enables users who provide services to meet people who want to pay for them. Blabu ensures order and uniform rules in these relationships. At the same time, Blabu is strictly an intermediary enabling professionals to provide their services, not the end service provider responsible for the delivered quality.

blabu flows.jpg
Blabu cash flow.jpg

Clarity in transactions

Blabu collects payments for services from clients, deducts fees from the payment provider, deducts platform fees, and immediately deposits the rest on the professional's virtual account. Thanks to this setting, it fully complies with the strict conditions of the PSD2 directive.

International platform

Every aspect of Blabu takes into account the international environment. Blabu works with users' time zones and automatically translates them into local times. It can work with multiple languages and multiple currencies and automatically convert them.

img-plan-schedule.png
hp-img-02.png

Individual price lists

All professionals set their services and pricing. In addition, Blabu supports individual price settings according to individual clients. As a result, the same service can have different pricing and visibility for different clients.

Instant calls

Blabu is the only system that supports instant calls with no need to book in advance. The client calls the professional instantly without previous agreement, just as if making a regular phone call. At the same time, Blabu can combine instant calls with pre-booked calls.

hp-img-01.png
 

In addition you get

 
blabu-admin.png

Admin

The entire application has an administration system used by the internal team to set up and manage key entities, especially serving customer support activities.

 
blabu-storybook.png

Storybook

Our design is clearly structured and all elements are based on defined rules. We build on material design.

 
blabu-miro-wireframes.png

Wireframes

We have wireframes for the whole project with descriptions of logic behind all the functionalities. It is easy to understand the context and connections from the documentation.

 
Young Businesswomen

Legal documentation

We will provide know-how and general terms of use for the proper functioning of marketplaces in an international environment. We've spent hundreds of hours with lawyers and tax advisors on this topic alone.

 

About the technology

Node.js, React, Google Cloud

Scalable platform is written in Node.js and run in Kubernetes in Google Cloud with the frontend written in React.

Infrastructure provides

  • Google Cloud Platform - two environments - production, staging

  • Gitlab - code repository, backups, orchestration, pipelines

Infrastructure tools

  • kubernetes - main component, container orchestration manager

  • terraform - tool for scripting and setup of infrastructure

  • sentry - monitoring and alerting (self hosted, can be in cloud)

  • grafana - visualization tool for infra dashboards

  • loki - log collection and analysis

  • prometheus - metrics collection, analysis and reporting/alerting

3rd-party tools

  • Twilio - video webrtc technology

  • Mailgun - e-mails

  • StitchData - ETL PostgresQL -> BigQuery

  • LogRocket - problem resolution / user session recording

  • Intercom - ad hoc popups, support chat

Architecture

  • Fully automatically scalable via Kubernetes/kops/GCP

  • GraphQL + REST based microservices exposed via Schema stitching

  • API first design - everything is exposed via GraphQL API with authorization layer

  • JWT based auth

  • Built on top of PostgreSQL/Redis

  • Timed events via delayed message queue or cron

  • Typescript

  • Mocha/Cypress/Jest tests everywhere

  • FE Analytics layer -> Google Tag Manager

  • Partial PWA support

 

Who are the founders?

 
petr_1200sq.jpg

Petr Kovacik

CEO

Petr started as a developer 20 years ago and has worked in many positions in the development of internet projects. He founded his first company 13 years ago and in 2017 he sold his last company Skrz.cz to British Secret Escapes. Petr has a master's degree in Management in IT from the University of Economics in Prague. 

tomas_1200sq.jpg

Tomas Strejcek

CTO

Tomáš is a Senior Software Engineer with 12+ years of experience in all positions in a software/product workflow. His experience includes working at iflix and Mall Group.
He loves to build challenging products composed of many technologies, learn new stuff and solve problems. His current passion is Nodejs.

Blabu recordings

We prepared several videos presenting the main scenarios and functionalities to facilitate a better understanding of the system complexity. There are, of course, many times more logic and gadgets in the application, which we have developed in several iterations during almost 2.5 years of work on the project.

 

Tutors

Signup for tutors and tour through their interface.

 

Students / Clients

Signup for students/clients and tour through their interface.

 

Call booking and cancellation

A student books and then cancels the call.

 

Call invitation

A tutor suggests a call to a student.

 

Instant call

A student calls without a prior booking.

 

Booking cancellation

A student cancels a previously booked session.

 

Chat

The permanent chat between a tutor and a client.

 

Tutor's services

Tutor's service settings and price list

 

Tutor's Schedule

Tutor's availability setup for potential bookings.

 

Our offer?

We offer the entire program code, including additional documentation in the form of diagrams and wireframes. We offer initial launch in your Cloud and long-term advice in case of implementation ambiguities. Further development of the application will be fully in your control.

 

Code?

The program code will be fully in your control. You can freely modify it according to the needs of your product.

License?

The license is time unlimited for one specific project. Program code must not be reproduced/multiplied.

Team?

We only offer the initial implementation in your cloud. Subsequent development must be handled directly by your team. If you do not have your own development team, we recommend Ackee developers or DEVIX developers who know our technology. 

Blabu?

The Blabu.com brand and domain are not intended to be part of the sale. If you are interested in this brand, please let us know.

 
RV1_6908.jpg

Contact

Petr Kovacik

Cell: +420 777837194

Mail: petr@blabu.com

 

Thank you for your support 🙏