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An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding
- akoumjian 15y agoI've met a couple of the developers and they seem knowledgeable and excited.
- parsnips 15y agoI can echo this enthusiastically.
- philipkimmey 15y agoExcited? Definitely. Not sure about knowledgeable. ;)
- jnt8686 15y agoThis looks silly, but it is actually a really solid concept in my view. It may even be better than the airbnb for humans.
- jaredsohn 15y agoAnother company in the space is dogvacay (http://dogvacay.com/ http://dogvacay.com/) which recently got a million dollars in funding (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9299700.htm http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9299700.htm)
- cjy 15y agoPretty cool. Example: "2 inground pools, one for people and one for dogs" -$15 night
- philipkimmey 15y agoWe're definitely excited about this and ready to shake up a giant market. And we're looking for more solid developers. If you love dogs and want to talk about software (We're all on a Django stack) send us a quick introduction to tech-jobs@rover.com.
- justinsb 15y agoThis is brilliant; both sides of the market exist and are eager to find the other one. Rover's biggest problem could be that people will happily watch dogs for free / even pay to do so. This is an unusual problem for a market maker (are there any other examples?)
- briggsly 15y agoQue? I would love to find some sweet old lady to watch my dogs for free rather than pay $25-50/night to board my dog in a box not much bigger than my CPU. I would pay a nice commission to the site to connect me with such a benevolent, non-crazy old lady such as this (if it does in fact exist).
- sbov 15y agoProbably depends upon your network of friends. I never would have thought it a problem because in my circle of friends there are multiple dog owners, and when one wants to go out of town the other just takes in their dog for the time.
- justinsb 15y agoSo I presume you've signed up? I believe there are lots of people that love dogs but can't have one full time (travel a lot etc); or who would happily take in another dog for a few days to keep their dog company. I imagine the price will rapidly approach zero therefore. It's a great idea, but it'll be a very interesting marketplace to watch!
- buu700 15y agoa box not much bigger than my CPU Somehow, I don't think any dog would survive in such a box...
- Danieru 15y agoI'm sure you could do it. The trick would be finding the right frequncy to push them in at so they don't get stuck. I think I read somewhere that the resonating frequency of the average dog was ~2GB.
- smokey_the_bear 15y agoI'm really excited about this. I've had a really hard time finding boarders for my dogs. The going rate seems to be around 60/night per dog here, but tends to include things like aromatherapy, which I'm not particularly interested in. I just want someone to feed, walk, and pet them.
- polyfractal 15y agoI'm inclined to agree. Growing up, we always had to find hotels that would accommodate our dogs since my parents didn't feel right leaving them in kennels, and trustworthy friends were not always available to come over and take care of the dogs in our house. I imagine this will be a pretty awesome service for those who need it.
- ktizo 15y agoAromatherapy for dogs? Does this involve extract of bin juice, with just a whiff of fox droppings and dead pigeon?
- biot 15y agoNext up: Baby.com. When you go on vacation and don't want to take your infant child, just check out a few profiles, pick one, and drop your baby off at the stranger's house. All members are community vetted to ensure quality care. Was your experience less than satisfactory? Simply "thumbs down" the user's profile and write a review to let other members know.
- jaredsohn 15y agoMy first thought in seeing this post was to make a site for finding babysitters but a quick search at google shows that many such sites already exist (although maybe there is a way to do it better.)
- mechanical_fish 15y agoDo you come from a society where people don't use day care? This sounds like a potentially great idea for a Facebook app, actually: Install the app, and it searches your social network for local friends-of-friends who have advertised baby-sitting services and have been hired at least once by one of your friends. Then the app helps you to direct-message the sitter, as well as some of the sitter's customers that it knows about. Surely something like this already exists…?
- biot 15y agoThere's a huge difference between someone operating a daycare and "Airbnb for Babies". What you propose could be fairly decent and avoids the "handing your baby over to a stranger" problem, which is something that "Airbnb for Dogs" would need to overcome as well.
- tptacek 15y agoTo preempt an impending flood of "bubble!" babble: It may surprise you how sensible this business idea is. As someone who has had to alter vacation plans due to (reluctant) dog ownership: dog boarding is very expensive, and commercial dog boarding facilities are not great, requiring careful reviewing and inspection before selecting; even then, your preferred venues are likely to book up exactly when you want to be out of town.
- earl 15y agoOur corgi broke his spine 18 months ago [1] (enormous incision [2]), and was fully paralyzed from the midsection down. We had an operation performed and he's now kind of ok, but permanently restricted from going up or down stairs or any kind of high impact activities. He, of course, is not willingly restricted. Boarding for special needs dogs starts at $120/night and often costs $150+/night, and is very hard to find. Instead of boarding Linus, we bring him. Many hotels will let you bring a dog for an extra $15 - $20 per night. Unfortunately, you can't leave a dog in your room if you aren't there, so you have to bring dog everywhere. This essentially means no traveling in the south or for much of the summer because it will be too hot to leave dog in the car. [1] http://danceswithcorgis.com/2010/11/18/dog-laminectomy-update/ http://danceswithcorgis.com/2010/11/18/dog-laminectomy-updat... [2] http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad93/Danceswithcorgis/surg7.jpg http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad93/Danceswithcorgis/sur...
- djb_hackernews 15y agoSo maybe there is an opportunity for folks like you. You bring your dog with you, and We pick up your dog at your hotel in the morning, care for it while you are sight seeing, and drop it back off in the evening. Contract out with hotels that allow pets, mostly dealing with small breed dogs, no overnight hassle. I bet you could use the service from the OP for such a thing, maybe.
- Maro 15y agoBubble was my first thought, but then I read the article and this actually sounds pretty sensible. In cases like this one must keep in mind that $3.4M for a company isn't that much, you can spend that easily on salaries and marketing.
- tbod 15y agoGreat concept - as a dog owner (and father of 2 young kids) always hard to solve both sides of the equation (babysitter + dogsitter, often they are mutually exclusive)... when will it come to the uk... or maybe I will just..
- cgag 15y agoI remember seeing that there was a project pitched as airbnb for dogs at startup weekend st louis last year, and I thought it was an amazing idea. I guess this isn't those guys, but It's still cool to see the idea taking off.
- philipkimmey 15y agoNope - it's not that, though we did come out of a Startup Weekend! (It was the June 2011 one hosted at Amazon's new buildings in South Lake Union.)
- cgag 15y agoI remember seeing that there was a project pitched as airbnb for dogs at startup weekend st louis last year, and I thought it was an amazing idea. I guess this isn't those guys, but It's still cool to see the idea taking off.
- DIVx0 15y agoWow, this is awesome. We have two large dogs that we always have trouble finding affordable boarding for when we can't take them with us. A quick search on this site turned up several options that look superior to the boarding we have been using and at half the price. Solid business!
- justincormack 15y agoDespite all the people saying this is not a bubble, it is. Small businesses like this would not have got money a while back. This is not a technology business, it has no first mover advantage, it does not require large amounts of capital to make stuff, maybe it will take off as a product category, but without a bubble it would not get $3 million, or indeed want that amount, being the sort of business you would grow organically. The bubble is people throwing cash around, not a bubble in startups, which have always been created.
- enjo 15y agoI disagree with almost all of that. It's not a technology business? Is airbnb? You need a way to connect folks who are willing to board dogs with those who need boarding. How do you do that without technology? The bulletin board at your supermarket isn't going to make it happen. It may not be particularly novel technology, but that sure as hell doesn't matter. first mover advantage: I personally have no idea if any other options exist for this. I have no idea if they are a first mover in crowd-source kenneling options. It certainly doesn't matter. We've beat this topic to death in the startup community, first mover advantage is rarely an advantage in the first place. without a bubble it would not get $3 million: Says who? Since I see no real signs of a bubble (in the traditional sense), I certainly don't agree. It's a relatively small amount of money for a business that is taking on a big market opportunity. A bubble is not the presence of investment in the first place. It's not even the presence of a lot of investment. Bubbles form when investments (on a large scale) are shoved into increasingly irrational businesses or investment vehicles in order to cash-in on the perceived momentum of a space. When you're investing just because "startups are the place to be right now" then you're looking at a bubble. Here we're talking about a company with a solid (proven) idea, in a big space, taking on a modest amount of money. I don't see the problem.
- justincormack 15y agoAirbnb is not a technology business. The internet is simply one of the major marketing and communications channels we have now, that does not mean that all businessess that use it are tech companies. Dog kenneling businesses did not get millions of pounds in equity investment based on very small revenues and the idea in the past. They self funded and grew. This is a less capital intensive way of providing the same service, so it has even less need for external capital. But it is taking it because the bubble means that its valuation is vastly inflated, because there is so much money chasing startups.
- Sujan 15y agoNon-native speaker here: It took me quite too long to figure out that the boarding you are all talking about has nothing to with planes *doh
- kurtvarner 15y agoSpotwag is in the same space. They're differentiated by leveraging your Facebook friends and friends of friends in order to find care takers. Pets are like children. Do you really want to trust them with anyone? http://spotwag.com/ http://spotwag.com/
- jaredsohn 15y agoOne thing that differentiates this from AirBnB (besides being for dogs) is that they are booking locally. This means that once owners find a place that they like, they are likely to try to book the same place multiple times, assuming availability. Also, it makes it more likely that people might try to make future transactions directly without using the site, unless booking through them provides value beyond discovery.
- aaronblohowiak 15y ago> it makes it more likely that people might try to make future transactions directly without using the site If they make life better for the host, this shouldn't be a problem -- "oh hey sally, glad to hear you and spot are doing well, we'd love to have him stay with us. just go online and you can find all our availability and we'll see your reservation right away. call us back if you have any problems."
- melarobi 15y agoI agree this is a risk in the business model. However, given how annoying it can be to coordinate schedules, an online scheduling feature could be useful enough to bring them back to the site. (And if your preferred sitter isn't available... you'd need the site for a new one.) I guess it depends on the extra perks of the site vs the cost of use ie. the percentage of revenue Rover keeps for themselves. I'd pay $2 just to avoid a chain of emails asking what day/time works best for any calendar event.
- rprasad 15y agoI can totally see them getting their a$$e$ sued off for skirting kennel licensing laws. There's a reason that kennels are expensive: they have to take steps to make sure their pet hotels are safe for pets, and more importantly, that they have taken appropriate measures to prevent the transmission of diseases. Describing this as AirBnB for dogs is very accurate, as it has many of the same problems. It's only a matter of time before someone's dog dies and the first thing the mainstream public hears about this site is a horror story. This site has some merit, but not $3.4 million worth. Maybe in SV people might be willing to leave their dog with unlicensed strangers. In the rest of America, people will leave their dogs with family, friends, people recommended by their family or friends, or a kennel (in that order).
- georgemcbay 15y ago"It's only a matter of time before someone's dog dies and the first thing the mainstream public hears about this site is a horror story." Unfortunately this is the first thing I thought when reading about this. The story of the Airbnb-using lady whose apartment was trashed by a bunch of meth-cooks is likely to look absolutely quaint when compared to the first Rover.com horror story.
- melarobi 15y agoI love this idea. Yet, if I were the founders, this is the issue that would keep me up in the night, not just for what could happen to the pets, but for what could happen if a dog bites a child. I don't think the site is for every pet owner, but with a $4 billion US market in pet services and plenty of pet owners who hate kennels, I think there is sufficient demand to make this a success. It will be interesting to see how they offset the risks.
- rabidsnail 15y agoAnd spends all of it on their domain name.
- JVIDEL 15y agoYes I have a dog, I know getting where to leave my pet during trips can be a pain, BUT I also know how DANGEROUS it can be to leave it with ANYONE. This is not a room that can get trashed, and my dog can't tell if the guy or girl is an ass and just leave. My neighbor once left his dog with a woman he thought he could trust, and when he came back from vacation his dog was starved to death and covered in hundreds of ticks. It had to be put down... Airbnb horrors stories are too many to risk your dog becoming a cautionary tale in some blog.
- antihero 15y agoExactly. Dogs are something that you should have a much deeper connection to than an apartment, there's no way I'd let mine stay with some random person.