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Startup Name: Woofbnb
Tagline: Everything your pet needs
Founders: Anshul, Prodipto Roy, and SupratikGhatak
Year of founding: October 2015
Funding Status: Bootstrapped
Are you finding no time to manage your dog? Office work not allowing you to take care of his walking? Couldn’t find a vet for him? Don’t worry! Take a sigh of relief, Woofbnb is here for you to take care of your pets’ problems and lets you continue with your daily life without worrying about your pet.
What is WOOFBNB?
Woofbnb.com is a one stop solution for all pet parents, who find it difficult to manage and maintain their pets. It offers convenience to pet owners through range of services, delivered at the comfort of their home.
And as the tagline follows “Everything your pet needs”, it caters to every need of your pet.
Woofbnb offers a variety of services and its uniqueness is that it offers its service at your doorstep. Anshul, the founder explains the company is focusing on delivering high quality services which are convenient and affordable with superb customer support. Each of their vertical/service has a unique service model that amalgamates technology, making it scalable.
Features/Services offered by Woofbnb
- Grooming Services: Expert groomers grooming your pet.
- Veterinary Services: Experienced veterinarians providing consultation, treatment, and vaccinations.
- Walking Services: No time to walk your pet? Book a reliable dog walker today.
- Pet Sitters: Connect with a sitter, who can take care of your pet while you are away on a vacation or business trip. Look up & pay online.
- Woof Shop: Range of pet products delivered on same day.
On inspiration behind the idea, Anshul explained that,
“He himself is a pet lover and also have a lot relatives and friends who are pet owners. We all have faced the problem of finding reliable pet services like finding experts to groom, or take the pet to walk or take care of pet when we are on vacation. In our busy days of life, it becomes difficult to dedicate time for our pets; therefore, the IDEA of Woofbnb came into existence. A one stop destination for all your pet needs, delivered right at your home. We researched with over 600 pet owners in the city, collected quantitative and qualitative data and felt there was a huge gap in the market and made our services that could fulfill it.”
The core team comprises of Anshul, Owner and CEO; Prodipto Roy, Advisor; and SupratikGhatak, Tech advisor.
Woofbnb is growing at rate of 20% month-on-month and with recently launched verticals their projections in terms of acquiring more customers’ looks really good. They aim to promote Woofbnb as a trusted brand, as quality plays an essential role in this domain. They are also planning to scale up the operations in other cities (Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore) which has huge market potential.
Woofbnb was launched in October 2015 with only grooming services, in February 2016 they launched walking services as well, in April 2016 they served a clientele of over 1000 clients in Pune who takes their services on demand and on yearly subscription basis and in May 2016 they launched Woofbnb vet, online shop and sitting services. Anushul says,
“The best part in this market is that we get to cross and up sell with high repeat business. We are working on model to leverage technology with an aim to add value to our delivery and the end user.”
They are currently bootstrapped. They raised few amount of initial funding through a business house and HNI’S. Anshul says,
“The services delivered to our clients, fuel up our business and daily operations. Bootstrapping has helped us to prioritize the areas where we need to spend and gain much out of limited resources. This has also helped us to stay lean and focus on the most important areas of our business and make it more sustainable in the coming years. We have had a good product market fit locally; therefore, we are open to external funding to scale up our operations in other cities.”
Anshul’s mentor/role model is his Dad, he explains,
“He has always taught me to never arrive at a conclusion beforehand and never give up. I have learnt from him that the best way to solve your problems is to face them and I follow Elon Musk for numerous reasons.”
There are direct and indirect competitors offering similar kind of services there are well known players like Dogspot.in, Scooby Scrub etc. and other unorganized players as well.
WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES FACED AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THEM?
He explains the challenges faced by the company at the initial stages was to maintain “focus”, while we had ample options in hand, it was very important to identify which one of those needed to be turned over to others so we can scale the business. It takes guts and a huge amount of discipline to say “no” to opportunities that come up, but because you’re constrained it’s necessary for survival. We managed to have some great people around me, people who could identify and communicate those things which hold the business back.
Complaining is never a strategy. Everyone is resource constrained therefore we focus on “resourcefulness” and it proves to overcome all our challenges.
Anshul with his team have plans to create an international outreach in coming future, he explains,
“They have had some interest from companies based in UK to see how we can implement the idea in their market. India is a huge market with a lot of potential, hence once we have significant presence nationally we would then look at other markets.”
Last but not least, he sends a note to all the newbie entrepreneurs
“Take risks, believe in your guts, and keep evolving. You will never repent starting up; you will only repent not starting one”.
The article was first published in The Cofounder. The Cofounder is India’s first print magazine which writes about early stage startups and entrepreneurship.
