We really believe that being better at both is required for that change in behavior to happen. Because it’s such a change of behavior going from friends and family to strangers, we want to provide a higher-quality service at a lower price than typical solutions. Our strategy, at a high level, is to be better in both quality and price. In the early days, we relied a lot on references from people who’d used professional service before, a review system and word of mouth. This is entrusting somebody to take care of your baby in many ways. You know, in the U.S., if you ask dog owners, “Do you consider yourself as the owner of a dog or a parent?” Seventy-six percent would say “a parent.” So this service is very different than Uber or food delivery. Still, letting a stranger take care of your pet is quite scary. But this experience of companion, acceptance and unconditional love is only participated by a minority of the population now. The domestication of animals, particularly dogs, is one of the most important developments in the history of human kind in terms of improving human’s emotional happiness. Our mission is to remove obstacles to pet ownership. I think the biggest barrier to getting a pet is the logistics of care: “I’m single I live in an apartment I work long hours I just went through a breakup, so my situation is unstable.” For the other 10 percent who turn to commercial services, two-thirds would use kennels and boarding services, and the rest would hire professional pet sitters, mostly through Yelp and Google.ĭaytime service, however, is typically all-commercial, because most people can’t count on friends and family for regular dog walks in the middle of the day.īecause most people can’t afford regular daytime pet care, many potential pet owners don’t think they have a demand for this. How did you discover this untapped demand? How did you know that a pet sitting app was something people would fall for?īefore our app came long, most people sought pet care through either family and friends or commercial services, depending on service types.įor overnight care, for example, we found that 90 percent of people would use family and friends. Until Rover and other pet-sitting apps came around, most people didn’t realize this was such a huge market. Last year, pet owners spent $375 million on Rover. After some analysis on this, we found that people like me are roughly 10 times more than people who use kennels. But my view was: I don’t think people like me actually use kennels, because we abhor the idea of having our dogs locked in a cage. My co-founder, Greg Gottesman, originally pitched the idea of Rover as an alternative to kennels. ![]() That little fluff controlled my life in every way.Īs a senior executive at the time, every time I had to go on a business trip, I had to go down a list of friends, family and neighbors to take care of Caramel. My four-pound Pomeranian, Caramel, had me absolutely wrapped around her palms. Then, as I was working on a couple different ideas on online marketplaces in the media space, one of the partners there said, “How about an online marketplace for dogs?” I left Microsoft in 2011 with that desire and joined a local venture capital firm called Madrona as a resident entrepreneur. So, it was natural for someone like me to get back to the startup land and build something from scratch. I love starting businesses and building stuff. But that was kind of an accident, because I joined Microsoft through a startup acquisition (Atlas). I was a general manager at Microsoft for three and a half years. What made you want to leave the corporate world to start a dog walking app? We also encourage pet owners to specify the animal type next to their pet name. Pet owners love that, because it helps them find people who are specifically interested in sitting that type of pets.īefore Rover, you were a manager at Microsoft for several years. ![]() For example, a horse owner can upload a picture of his horse even though he selects “dogs” or “cats” in the first step of the booking system. Before any service provider accepts an order, he/she gets to see a profile of the pet, which includes photos, instructions of care and other details. Those situations are less common now thanks to our “pet profile” function. How do you handle these “hacking” situations? For example, someone would say, “Hey, this is a dog.” But then, it turns out to be a fish. But people have been “hacking” other types of pets into our system for the last several years. But we’ve also had horses, pot-bellied pigs, hamsters, snakes, lizard and even pet shrimp, which I didn’t know was a thing.ĭogs and cats are the only two types of animals you can officially book on our platform. The most common pets are obviously dogs and cats. How many types of pets does Rover’s service cover?
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