Y Combinator Application — Pet Story
Note: this is just the raw application that we submitted to Y Combinator for the Summer 2019 cohort. We were accepted for an interview. Actual discussion can be found in the following blog post.
Company name:
Pet Story
Company url, if any:
If you have a demo, what’s the url? For non-software, demo can be a video.
Describe your company in 50 characters or less.
Rover for long term caregiver/owner relationships
Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube or Youku video introducing the founder(s).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoD8_Jzr2RQ
Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?
San Francisco, USA
Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.
We built Memoir Share (https://www.memoir-share.com/), a website that provides questions that encourage users to write their memories and print them in a physical book that they can give to family and friends.
This interested us because people accumulate valuable experiences throughout their lives that often end up lost or forgotten. We realized that we didn’t have the domain knowledge and connections and decided to focus on Pet Story.
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?
Ryan and Luis met 1.5 years ago while Ryan was teaching at Code Tenderloin. Luis stood out in the 4 cohorts that Ryan taught because of his ability to quickly pick up concepts and his self-motivated approach to learning. Luis and Ryan developed good rapport and they started working together outside of class because they shared many of the same long term goals.
Which category best applies to your company?
Other
How far along are you?
- Released a beta iOS and Android apps for pet caregivers
- Released a beta web app for owners
- Primary focus at the moment is acquiring users(pet caregivers) for feedback
How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.
We’ve been working on Pet Story for 6 months. Ryan has been full time since January 2019. Luis will be full time at the beginning of April.
Are people using your product?
Yes
How many active users or customers do you have? If you have some particularly valuable customers, who are they? If you’re building hardware, how many units have you shipped?
- We have two heavy users on the pet caregiver side.
- We have 20 users on the owner side. They spend an average of 4 minutes on the web app after new content is generated for them. They are vocal and positive about the content they receive.
- After sharing the product with a reddit user, they name dropped Pet Story in a thread which led to 20 installs and 10 registers (pet caregivers).
Do you have revenue?
We are not charging for the beta but we intend to charge a monthly subscription fee to pet caregivers.
If you’ve applied previously with the same idea, how much progress have you made since the last time you applied? Anything change?
We have not applied previously.
If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, “accelerator” or “pre-accelerator” program, please tell us about it.
We have not participated in any other programs.
Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you’re making?
Luis was a dog walker who found clients on Rover. He would leave the platform after building a relationship with his clients because Rover takes 40% commission (a walk costs $25 and the pet caregiver gets $15). 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 asides from text messages.
We saw caregivers in social media, YouTube, and blogs leaving the platform for the same reason. There are frequent posts on the Rover and Wag subreddits complaining about the cut that is being taken.
The on-demand business model is not well suited for the pet care or care industry in general. People that provide their services in on-demand business models want to make more money.
Pet owners are looking for consistency and want to create a relationship with a single pet caregiver.
What’s new about what you’re making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn’t exist yet (or they don’t know about it)?
- We will provide pet caregivers digital tools with a subscription fee. Existing products charge a fee per transaction
- People currently use text message and email to transfer information. That information is not in a concise location that is always accessible
- Pet caregivers use Instagram to share content but is not personalized towards a specific owner
Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?
Rover and Wag, both walker services are the biggest competitors. They provide on demand walks and sitting services. Care.com focuses on discoverability, but not on building the relationship and trust afterwards.
What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don’t get?
Pet owners seek a long term relationship with a pet caregiver who they can trust.
You don’t care who drives your Uber, but you do care who you’re letting into your home to take care of your pet.
How do or will you make money? How much could you make?
- Charge a monthly fee of $20 to $50 for single and small teams. We estimate that there are about 300,000 pet care providers in the US
- Pet care alone in $6 billion industry
- 90 million homes own a pet
- Pet industry was a $72 billion industry in 2018
- The average annual growth rate for the pet industry over the past 20 years is over 5% per year
- Pet caregivers are our starting market, but we plan to expand into owners
How will you get users? If your idea is the type that faces a chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that it won’t be attractive to users till it has a lot of users (e.g. a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you overcome that?
We are exploring ground level channels to start with. Pet caregivers can easily be found during the day at various parks and beaches. There are disenchanted users on Rover/Wag specific subreddits. Nextdoor and Craigslist have frequent posts from pet caregivers looking for new clients. Other channels we will explore include as hosting events, content marketing, and local business partnerships.
Have you incorporated, or formed any legal entity (like an LLC) yet?
No
Have you taken any investment yet?
No
If you have not formed the company yet, describe the planned equity ownership breakdown among the founders, employees and any other proposed stockholders. If there are multiple founders, be sure to give the proposed equity ownership of each founder.
We will split the equity 50/50 between the two of us over a vesting period.
Please provide any other relevant information about the structure or formation of the company.
We are working with a UX researcher, UI designer, and other supporting members. They have expressed interest in joining full time when the company is more mature.
Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? If so, please explain.
No.
Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Please explain.
Both Ryan and Luis write code. Due to priorities, Ryan writes most of it while Luis has been focusing on other responsibilities such as pitches, P&L estimations, business plans, legal, and talking to users in the field. All of the code has been written by Luis and Ryan (excluding open-source libraries of course).
Is there anything else we should know about your company?
No skeletons in the closet.
If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we’ve been waiting for. Often when we fund people it’s to do something they list here and not in the main application.
- The elderly market is underserved and growing with the aging baby boomer population and longer life expectancy. We’ve touched the surface with Memoir Share and Reader Vision (a utility app to help read menus).
- We are both passionate about education/learning, and believe it still has major flaws. High level concepts often escape understanding if a person hasn’t graped core principles. Imagine breaking it down into smaller concepts and focusing on the ones you as an individual need clarity on.
Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered.
(The answer need not be related to your project.)
- There were about 1.1 million pets living in NYC. That is almost the same as the population of Oakland and San Francisco combined
- There are more dogs(130K) than children(110K) living in SF
What convinced you to apply to Y Combinator?
- YC will provide guidance in areas we are weak and will connect us with people whose wisdom can help us grow faster
- The core thesis of “the best builders are not necessarily the best networkers re-iterated by Michael Seibel resonates with us
- Other YC graduates have described it as a valuable experience
- Completing this application was an exercise in critical thinking about what we’re doing
How did you hear about Y Combinator?
First from Rich and Bill @ WePay back in the day