Pet Story - Solving Real Life Problems at Scale

Ryan and Luis met in the Fall of 2017 while Ryan was teaching an introductory course to web development. Luis was taking some time off from his career path to learn web development and programming. Luis and Ryan developed good rapport and they started working together outside of class because they shared many of the same long term goals. Luis being a dog owner, had firsthand experience with the challenges of caring for two two large dogs in a small apartment in San Francisco. Also during his time off from classes he made extra money by providing to others the same pet services that he often needed while he was working his corporate full-time job.

Luis became a part-time dog walker who found clients on Rover. After demonstrating accountability and gaining their trust he would take their business privately. A benefit for Luis since Rover takes up to 40% commission (a walk costs $25 and the pet caregiver gets $15) per service. Luis ran his pet care business for 6 months but it was difficult to demonstrate the full value of his services without the digital tools aside from text messages.

Ryan and Luis discovered in social media, YouTube, and blogs that many other dog walkers were leaving Wag and Rover for the same reason. There are frequent posts on the Rover and Wag subreddits complaining about the cut that is being taken. They decided to combine their professional skill sets and domain experience to build a product that addresses the pet owner-caregiver needs. Pet Story validates the caregivers services, builds trust, creates long term relationships between pet owners and caregivers. This generates repeated business and more income for the caregiver.

They believe the current on-demand business model is not well suited for the pet care or the care industry in general. Caregivers that are part of on-demand apps such as Rover or Wag are being charged excesive commission fees that result in caregivers churning. Pet owners and caregivers alike are looking for consistency and want to create long term relationships.

Ryan and Luis interviewed with Y Combinator in April of 2019 with the intent to secure funding to launch their solution at scale. They were not able to secured the funding due to the early stage of the product at that time. Since then Ryan and Luis have been working rigorously in the app and learning more from early users that serving private clients in different cities of the US.