Last week on Global Startup Report, Founder Institute was pleased to be joined live by Vetsie Co-Founder & CEO Alex Chieng to learn about the Canadian pet tech company's startup journey and latest updates.
Vetsie, a Calgary Founder Institute portfolio company, is a trusted all-in-one marketplace ecosystem for pet parents, professionals, and vendors. The company was among just 6 Pet Care startups selected to join Mars Petcare's Leap Venture Studio 5th cohort earlier this year, has raised ~$700k in funding to date, and as CEO Alex Chieng explains, is growing its reach quickly across Canada, as well as growing the platform's breadth—from initially just a B2B platform for veterinary clinics, to now an increasingly consumer-facing ecosystem of professional services and vendors for pet owners.
Watch our full June 2022 interview with Vetsie Co-Founder & CEO Alex Chieng here, or read the highlights below:
Key Founder Insights & Highlights:
- Telehealth for Pets: today's 'pet parents' want fast answer when they need them—these owners view their pets as members of the family, and demand a prompt response when pets experience health issues or owners have pressing questions
- Launching an MVP during the early days of the 2020 pandemic—and launching with a solution to a very specific problem
- Broadening MVP scope from a B2B feature, to an increasingly B2C marketplace for pet owners to find vetted services and vendors
- Veterinary care professional shortage and worker burnout - and how remote and telehealth solutions can help to mitigate the need for consumers
- Special guest appearances by CEO's dogs / unofficial Vetsie mascots: Casper (Pomsky) and Bentley (French Bulldog)
In our livestreamed conversation, Vetsie Co-Founder & CEO Alex Chieng shares his startup story and his vision for Vetsie, to become THE place where pet owners can go to get quick and trustworthy answers to their urgent questions and solutions to pet challenges, right away. As CEO Chieng explains, Vetsie was first launched during the early days of the pandemic, when telehealth was suddenly becoming very prevalent for humans, but was still largely absent from pet care,
It's sort of a personal story for me [as a Founder]—I first started Vetsie actually during the pandemic, when it was extremely extremely difficult for pet owners to get into the veterinary clinic, or even speak with veterinary professionals. They were backed up, they were weeks and weeks away, before you could actually go in to see a veterinary professional.
Vetsie's initial product launch in 2020 was strictly a B2B MVP—but over the past 2 years since launch, the company's marketplace scope has widened, to increasingly become a consumer-facing site where pet owners can go to find all the answers, services, or products they need. Chieng elaborates on the customer need, explaining,
In our early beginnings, we created a platform for veterinary professionals and veterinary clinics to be able to conveniently speak with their clients—basically, a tech enabled platform where they can do video calls, audio calls and instant messages. That was really my inspiration for the very start: there has to be a better way for pet owners to conveniently speak with veterinary professionals.
During that same period of time over the past 2+ years since initial launch, the Vetsie team has also grown, from initially Alex Chieng being a solopreneur, to now a full team of 8, including four co-founders and four advisors. In the marketplace's widened scope, Vetsie focuses on providing a digital continuity of care—a single place where pet owners can go, not just for finding veterinary professionals, but also to book remote services like pet training, or in-person services like pet sitting, dog walking, or pet grooming. All vendors and service providers on Vetsie are licensed and personally vetted, by the Vetsie team which itself consists of 50%+ veterinary professionals—so users can feel confident that products and services found through Vetsie are truly trusted providers.
Vetsie today is focused primarily on domestic pets (companion animals like dogs and cats), and CEO Alex Chieng's own very good doggies do make special guest appearances in the video—but Chieng also sees future opportunities in veterinary care and services for livestock and agricultural animals, including through a new partnership with a care provider focused on such larger agricultural animals. The team is also heads down focused on its upcoming V2 platform launch, as well as its expansion across Canada nationwide (and hopefully next onto the US market).
Vetsie monetizes through charging a small convenience fee for services that are booked through the platform—it is otherwise completely free to use for Canadian pet owners at this time, charging no consumer subscription or additional fees. CEO Alex Chieng emphasizes towards the end of the interview his willingness to connect with other founders around the world, as well as Vetsie's openness to potential partnership proposals of all kinds, even those outside the veterinary space.
To learn more visit Vetsie.com , or connect with CEO Alex Chieng on LinkedIn.
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