And we’re back with more!
When I started StartThis, I wanted to make sure that I only ever shared ideas that were fully flushed out. There are lots of newsletters and blogs with a brain dump of ideas; the goal for StartThis was to share startups that I could see myself actually building if I had more time, so someone out there (maybe you!) could pick it up and run with it. This means if I don’t have an idea that’s ready, or have the time to properly research it, I won’t send anything out. Hopefully that works for you!
In good news, I have some new ones that are ready - so watch out for them over the next couple weeks! Idea #15 is…
An app and plugin for current and prospective pet owners to create verified, universal adoption profiles that can pawsitively improve the adoption process.
Categories: Pets, Software, Trust and Safety
Skills Needs: Web development (or possibly no-code)
Background and Pitch
My partner and I just adopted our second dog. For anyone who has adopted, the adoption process is likely a familiar story: we came across lots of well-meaning rescues with exhaustive pre-requisites, lengthy applications, interviews, and in-home visits. It’s a tiring experience that I am certain deters many would-be pet owners. In our case, we were eventually fortunate enough to find a small local rescue that was easy to work with, and allowed us to visit them with our dog to make sure he was a good fit for us. We got lucky!
The problems of the adoption process stem from an obvious cause - there are 14,000+ shelters and rescues in the US alone, and almost all of them operate independently. Shelters want to make sure that they place pets in loving homes where they will be cared for; they don’t want to be a revolving door for displaced pets. As a result, they each develop their own - often extensive - screening processes that are focussed on weeding people out. The pet adoption process is built on trust, and everyone is starting from zero.
Most adoption sites focus on the supply side of the problem, serving as marketplaces to find pets available for adoptions - very few focus on the humans at all.
There’s a reasonably simple solution to this: create a universal profile and application for aspiring pet owners. Pet owners could fill out their information in one place, and then apply to any rescues or shelters with the option enabled. This could be offered as a plugin-style solution, the same way social logins allow you to fill in a profile on a new app using your existing information. A less technical version of this would be that pet rescues could ask for your profile URL (the same way sites often ask for your LinkedIn URL to verify your role). Adopters are more likely to provide detailed information if they only have to fill out one profile instead of many, and it significantly reduces the amount of friction in the application process when you can one-click apply. Shelters get more comprehensive information on adopters, and can make better decisions without asking people to jump through dozens of hoops. Win-win.
An endorsement feature could allow other pet owners to vouch for people they see as good potential fur parents. Vet records or references for current pets could be added to establish a track record of responsible pet ownership. Connections with animal abuse and other registries could help weed out bad actors. Links to social profiles could help adoption centres learn more about you and your lifestyle to find the right match. Paid add-ons might include full reference checks, or in-home visits which are done by a gig-style workforce.
The goal is to make something that is so easy for shelters and rescues to adopt that you become the go-to solution for streamlining this process.
Strategy Notes
The first step here would be to find a few local rescues or shelters and interview them. Find out what kind of information they usually ask for in an application, how they review them, what kinds of problems they run into. From there, distill down to what information should be core to a pet profile and create an MVP for these groups to try out.
Skip the heavier technical aspects, and just create a basic web application where people can create their profiles - many no-code solutions would do the trick. The profiles need to be publicly accessible with a URL. Then, all the shelter has to do is prompt people to create their profiles by linking to your site, and then ask them to come back and paste in their profile link when done.
If you can establish some traction with this small sample set, the next thing is to see what big fish you can land. PetFinder and other large adoption sites might be open, or look for the largest or most well-known shelters. Some social proof will help get this moving - you want other shelters to see this and realize they are likely losing people by not have your solution (the same way an e-commerce vendor is losing by not supporting Apple/Google Pay, for example).
Don’t complicate with a revenue model too early. An obvious one if to ask pet owners to provide an optional donation of a few bucks. There may be an opportunity to optimize later through the shelters/rescues, but doing this too soon might hurt early adoption. One possible avenue is to add-on payment processing capabilities later on, and take a cut of processed adoption fees. Advertising is also another clear option.
In theory, the execution of this is relatively straightforward, but I think the biggest landmine is going to be trying to please everyone. These shelters are often stuck in their own way of doing things. Just keep it simple, and focus on the most important pieces of information.
Research
I used to think that pet startups were a bit of a joke until I learned that there are more households with dogs than households with children in the US - by a factor of almost 3.
Several states and counties have legislation pending for Animal Abuse Registries - which could be an obvious source to pull from.
Revenue for animal rescues tops $3b per year in the US alone. This isn’t a cottage industry, there’s some real opportunity here.
Name Ideas
PetProfile, PawApply/WagFile (.com’s available), Paws.Space, PawPlace… you get the idea.