Project description, objectives:
DogLog is a pet tech company that has been completely bootstrapped up to now. We have reached over 36,000 downloads with 5,000 monthly active users based on word of mouth, a facebook page and a couple of short media articles. Marketing has been very limited up to this point in time.
DogLog feature ideas mostly come from feedback we receive from our users. Our team consists of dog owners who work in the tech space, which means that most of our internal resources are currently focused on feature development.
Because of this, DogLog currently does not have team members who are experienced in marketing or growth strategy.
Objective
DogLog's objective is to accelerate our growth rate and reach 1 million downloads in 24 months.
Users
The majority of our users are based in the US (72%), with the rest of the users coming from Canada, the UK, and Australia. Our users generally fall into one or more of these categories:
- Users who recently got a puppy and want to analyze their behavior for training purposes.
- Users with a sick or aging pet who need to track symptoms, behavior, and medicine schedules.
- Users where multiple people are taking care of the same pet(s) and need to coordinate care between them.
Deliverables:
Intended outcome:
Growth strategy:
- What verticals should DogLog focus on
- Who are the potential partners who will benefit from our platform - food, insurance, vets, connecting people in the same area for dogs playdates
- Finetune our mission statement and value proposition
- Automation ideas to help DogLog provide better user experience
Marketing plan:
- What platforms (newspapers, social media, etc) are the best to bring DogLog to potential users attention
- Marketing plan with marketing tactics/campaigns to acquire and retain user base.
- Provide breakdown of marketing budget
Additional comment:
VISION
Our vision for DogLog is to become a pet owner’s all-in-one pet care app, combining day-to-day care, long term health tracking, and aggregated data and services from other pet care providers.
FOUNDING STORY
DogLog was inspired by our family’s life in San Francisco. Living in a city means that we didn’t have a backyard for our dog, Joy, to do her business whenever she wanted. We had to develop a system to coordinate every family member’s care of her to ensure she never went too long without being taken outside. This and other problems, like being tricked by Joy to give her double feedings, went on for some time before we realized we needed an easier way to verify what she had and hadn’t done yet. After attempting to keep a log with sticky notes and texts, we developed DogLog to have all dog-related information in one centralized place that was accessible by all family members.
As Joy got older and we were tracking her activities daily, we noticed one day a trend where her number of daily stool was above normal for quite some time. This triggered us to go to the vet to get her checked out. It was then that we realized she was sick with cancer. As sad as this still makes us, it amazes us that DogLog’s health tracking ability actually worked and prompted us to investigate.
What excites us is the number of people and dogs we can help with this app. Every time we get a review like “we have a large family and this app is exactly what we needed to keep track of our new puppy's care,” it validates the fact that DogLog is solving a real problem that so many dog owners experience. This inspires us to continue improving the app so we reach more people who can benefit like our family has.
MARKET
DogLog belongs in the diverse pet care app market. The smart tech products market is set to grow to $1B by 2023. And with 90% of pet owners saying they see their pets as part of the family, services like DogLog ensure their pets get the best care.
