An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding • Hacker News Board

Re: An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding

#61

Post by catch23 » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

briggsly wrote: post #25

justinsb wrote: post #9

This 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?)

Que? 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).

If you're in the bay area, I'd probably watch your dog for free even though I'm not an old lady. Mostly, it's because I have a dog as well, and it's hard to find things to tire her out. (she's a very active corgi)

If you're serious, you can find my contact info in my profile.

Re: An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding

#62

Post by avree » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 4:22 AM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #20

Despite 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 o…

I work in at an "Airbnb for X" company. We happen to do car sharing, not dog sharing, which means there's a little more technology involved, but $3M for any company isn't much.

There's a huge amount of operations involved in making any peer-to-peer industry work right. You have to have good anti-fraud, good abusive user detection (how do you weed out the guy who runs a dog-fighting ring and is signing up with fake information in order to steal someone's dog?), good support for when things go wrong, etc.

Word for these kinds of things don't spread organically—to get people on both sides of the transaction (and properly balance supply and demand), you have to do pretty focused local and digital marketing.

Add on software developers to build the site and keep iterating on features, designers to make it look pretty, maybe a PR firm to help get the word out... Things get expensive fast.

Re: An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding

#63

Post by djb_hackernews » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 4:33 AM UTC

slantyyz wrote: post #45

djb_hackernews wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like the argument of "I'd never meet people from the internet in real life". Guess what? Those are real people. The people you trust with your pets are the same people on rover.com.

The people I'd trust with my pets probably represent a tiny subset of the people on rover.com. And I am not interested in a trial and error process that risks my dogs' well being to find out who is as good as they represent themselves to be. It's not like your dogs can talk and rat out the bad people on rover.com, which makes it very hard to trust the reviews. Think about the review criteria. It's based on a subjecti…

Fair enough. Could you provide some sort of criteria or anecdote describing how you found your current dog sitter? It might help rover.com build profiles of trustworthy individuals and make their service a viable option for dog owners like yourself, which can only be a good thing.

I'm imagining that at some point protective pet owners accept that someone from the internet is capable of providing for their pet. That sort of customer feedback goes a long way in shaping useful services.

Re: An Airbnb for Dogs Gets $3.4 Million in Funding

#64

Post by slantyyz » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 4:52 AM UTC

slantyyz wrote: post #45

djb_hackernews wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like the argument of "I'd never meet people from the internet in real life". Guess what? Those are real people. The people you trust with your pets are the same people on rover.com.

The people I'd trust with my pets probably represent a tiny subset of the people on rover.com. And I am not interested in a trial and error process that risks my dogs' well being to find out who is as good as they represent themselves to be. It's not like your dogs can talk and rat out the bad people on rover.com, which makes it very hard to trust the reviews. Think about the review criteria. It's based on a subjecti…

>>Fair enough. Could you provide some sort of criteria or anecdote describing how you found your current dog sitter?

I'm spoiled and lucky. My breeders (who are also my friends) board our dogs when we need them boarded. It just happens that my breeder is the director of the breed organization for my region, and his wife is the director of the rescue organization for the same breed in my region.

They are basically what all the books/guides tell you what to look for in a good breeder. I'm not sure many people are fortunate to have that type of resource available to them.

I myself would be uncomfortable boarding a stranger's dogs, and that's counting the fact that both my wife and I have certifications in pet first aid. Not all dogs are alike, and things like how well a dog is going to integrate into a boarder's home with existing dog(s). Not all people are equipped to handle manifestations of aggression or dominance from a boarding dog towards other dogs and/or humans. Not all people are careful about what food they leave lying around within reach of a dog. Not all people are careful about how escape-proof their back yards are. Some of the people could use your unaltered dog for unethical breeding while you're gone. Lots of stuff can go wrong. You get the picture.

All I can say is that if you're really attached to your dog(s) like I am, then you should be very discriminating about who you choose to care for your dog. Finding a caregiver online is totally different from other types of services, and should require careful consideration. It's nothing at all like selling a good, meeting people or dating. You're leaving a live being in the hands of someone based on some relatively anonymous and not necessarily informed reviews.