
The startup world’s cuddly, cutthroat battle to walk your dog - themakermark
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/12/17831948/rover-wag-dog-walking-app
======
bko
> While millennials may not own cars or homes, three-quarters of Americans in
> their 30s have dogs. A little more than half own cats

Does anyone else find this very hard to believe? I tried to track down the
source [0, 1, 2] but I'm unsure how reliable "American Pet Products
Association". It's describes itself as "The leading not-for-profit trade
association serving the interests of pet product manufacturers and importers"

[0] [https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/12/17831948/rover-
wag-d...](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/12/17831948/rover-wag-dog-
walking-app)

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/09/13/m...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/09/13/millennials-
are-picking-pets-over-people/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.65444adc954c)

[2]
[https://americanpetproducts.org/Uploads/MemServices/GPE2017_...](https://americanpetproducts.org/Uploads/MemServices/GPE2017_NPOS_Seminar.pdf)

~~~
nytesky
It’s in WaPo, which should be doing fact checking.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/09/13/m...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/09/13/millennials-
are-picking-pets-over-people/)

~~~
Retric
These things often get cited over and over again, that does not make them
true.

I assume vaccinations could make a reliable sanity check for pet ownership,
but I am having trouble getting annual numbers.

~~~
clieber
Hey. I'm the reporter from this story, a friend directed me to this comment
thread. This data was sent to me by research firm Mintel.

~~~
nerdnumerouno
You work for an e-rag.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines.

------
elektor
I'm curious. After the initial matchup, what stops these "independent
contractors" and dog owners from cutting out the middleman (Wag/ Rover)?

~~~
jbob2000
Absolutely nothing, which is why these companies are a flash in the pan. You
can sign a contract with them, but it means nothing if someone on the other
side of the country is violating it and you have no idea. Also, this is a
petty cash business. Even if someone violates the contract, are you going to
take them to court over $45? No, you'll just ban them. And the customers who
liked that person will leave your service and phone them up privately. These
companies die by a thousand cuts.

Some people have this idea that all human processes need to be mirrored in
software. This type of gig work is best left to ad-hoc job boards like
craigslist or kajiji or facebook marketplace. Why do we continue to try to
force this into software?

~~~
Analemma_
> Some people have this idea that all human processes need to be mirrored in
> software. This type of gig work is best left to ad-hoc job boards like
> craigslist or kajiji or facebook marketplace. Why do we continue to try to
> force this into software?

I think part of it is that the dumber VCs out there are in such a rush to get
in on the ground floor of "Uber for X", that they don't bother checking
whether Uber's business model is valid for X. Uber doesn't have to worry about
getting shut out by drivers and passengers making deals directly with each
other, because people need rides at random and going directly to the driver
means basically hiring them full-time. But that logic doesn't apply for
someone coming on a fixed schedule to walk your dog or clean your house:
middlemen provide no value beyond initial contact.

It's investing by fad and it's all going to come unraveled soon enough.

------
always_good
Dog walking is a good example of how over-regulated Canada is.

To walk a dog for money in Vancouver, you are required to have a $2 million
insurance policy.

[https://i.imgur.com/ZEVBBuD.png](https://i.imgur.com/ZEVBBuD.png)

Saner cities covered this liability with the $10 dog muzzle.

------
beaconstudios
> Wag and Rover are two of the newest and largest players in the booming pet
> industry, each with more than $300 million in venture capital funding.

If you didn't think we were in the dot com bubble 2.0 and the re-emergence of
the Pets.com strategy won't show you, I don't know what will. I wonder which
one will get the superbowl ad.

~~~
aphextron
>If you didn't think we were in the dot com bubble 2.0 and the re-emergence of
the Pets.com strategy won't show you, I don't know what will. I wonder which
one will get the superbowl ad.

This is a silly, meaningless analogy. Every grown adult on earth was not
walking around with a computer connected to broadband internet in their pocket
in 1999. There were less than 500 million internet users _total_.

~~~
beaconstudios
$600 million in venture capital... For dog walking. It's even more stupid than
Pets.com because at least Pets.com was an ecommerce site so it could scale
out. It doesn't really matter that Asia, Africa and Latin America have all
come on line (I would bet that the 1999 internet was primarily Europe/US given
its roots) if you're selling dog walking in California and New York now, does
it?

~~~
askafriend
You can't make blanket statements like that without looking at the numbers and
the unit economics.

Just because you think walking a dog is trivial doesn't mean that there isn't
a huge need for a service like this.

A marketplace that can capture a majority of the marketshare in the US in the
dog walking category will be _minting_ money. Some of the back of the envelope
calculations posted here easily show this.

Analogies from 1999 are no longer useful and haven't been for some time now.
Just because Pets.com didn't succeed in 1999 doesn't mean Pets.com can't
succeed today. Timing matters. Some of the early dot coms were just too early.
The internet as a whole didn't have enough penetration for those kinds of
businesses to work out the economics so early on.

Your perspective seems outdated.

~~~
didgeoridoo
Pets.com IS succeeding today. It’s called Chewy.

~~~
askafriend
Acquired by Petsmart for $3.35B no less! (After raising $451m in VC).

Great outcome, and great example of what I was trying to convey in my post.

People still underestimate the headroom that the internet has to transform how
we live and behave in the world. The last 20 years was really only the
beginning.

------
nradov
The idea of buying a dog when you don't have time to walk it yourself just
seems bizarre to me. Why do people do that?

I also find the recent notion of "pet parents" rather offensive. My dog is my
property. I have a responsibility to take good care of her, but ultimately I
am her _owner_ not her parent.

~~~
ohazi
I agree with your first statement.

I find your second statement a little bizarre. People are going to feel
varying degrees of attachment to their pets. Why would you care? You can think
it's silly or weird, but who are you to take offense at something like that?

~~~
jsonne
I'll chime in. My first child is due in 3 months. I find it offensive when my
friends compare the burden of pet ownership to that of raising a child because
there is so much more work, preparation, and much higher stakes. I think
that's the reason people react so strongly to sentiments like that.

~~~
cabaalis
No need to be offended. It's probably just ignorance of the difficulty (in the
nicest use of the word), as well as a desire to be feel included as their
peers begin families. There is obviously no comparison.

