Forgot Password

Forgot Password

Forgot Password

Airbnb Platform for Vets Makes Vet Care More Accessible to Pets | VetVet

VetVet Airbnb Platform for Vets Makes Vet Care More Accessible to Pets

Animal Innovations Show - Episode 60 - VetVet

Airbnb Platform for Vets Makes Vet Care More Accessible to Pets | VetVet

Having a hard time finding incredible veterinarians for your pets?

VetVet is a platform similar to Airbnb that makes it easier for you to find and book an appointment with vets.

As per Dean Elgabri, who founded VetVet,

“VetVet aims to make vet care more accessible to America’s pets… And it helps pet parents find great veterinarians. You can think of it as the Airbnb for vets. But rather than looking up a vacation home that matches your exact specifications, we help you find a vet who is a great match for you and your pet.”

What Makes VetVet Different

Whether you’re looking for an affordable vet or a board-certified vet in a particular area, VetVet takes all that into consideration when they give you veterinarian options.

Dean shared,

“What we found is that it’s an incredibly difficult process today (to look for a vet). And because these specialties require additional education, there is actually not a ton of them in the country or even in the world. As a result of that, they tend to be really booked up.”

VetVet Airbnb Platform for Vets Makes Vet Care More Accessible to Pets

With VetVet, therefore, Dean and his team help facilitate the discovery and booking of veterinarians with certain specialties that your pets may need. They do this by helping pet parents match a particular area with a specialty and then book an appointment.

“People are busy, right? And people don’t have a ton of time to call around for different practices, especially when it comes to specialty practices. So, let’s say, your dog, for example, had a skincare issue. Rather than trying to call around different vet hospitals that might have a dermatologist on staff, we actually help automate that. So, we help you actually see very quickly who has availability. And then, book an appointment with that person to help streamline the process. Also, it can help reduce any kind of stress that you might have. And so, you can take one more thing off of your plate to make your life a little bit easier.”

To support pet parents in caring for their animals as much as possible, they also aim to implement some features for ratings and feedback.

This is consistent with the team’s biggest goal, which is to improve accessibility to vet care. Dean wants to make it incredibly easy for pet guardians to access high-quality vet care.

Making VetVet Also Vet-Friendly and Community-Friendly

Aside from ensuring the platform’s pet parent-friendliness, it also has features that help pet moms and dads find different language-speaking vets.

This way, veterinarians can better understand what’s going on with a pet without the added layer of complexity that non-Native English pet parents sometimes experience.

“We found that there really is a very high demand for vets who speak particular languages… (So, we aim) to help bridge that gap and to help, again, reduce that friction there. Also, we want to streamline the connection between what’s happening with the pet and what the doctor or the broader veterinary team can do to support that pet,”

Dean said.

VetVet Airbnb Platform for Vets Makes Vet Care More Accessible to Pets

Although they recently launched VetVet in New York City, the plan is to scale the business nationwide. Hence, they want to create a premium experience in concentrated neighborhoods before expanding into other cities.

“We want to create a custom experience for people. And we really do believe in creating a long-term relationship between the veterinarian, broader practice staff, the pets, and the pet parents…”

Through this, Dean believes that pet parents can build a community, which can also help pets over time. After all, having a community of like-minded individuals gives pets a sense of consistency and a comfortable go-to spot.

 

 

Learn more about VetVet!

Check out their website at https://vetvet.co/.

Have suggestions for who we should interview next?

Send us a message at [email protected]!

Dean:

Hi, this is Dean, and this is The Animal Innovations Show.

Chris:

Dean, tell us who we are and how you’re innovating and helping animals.

Dean:

So, I’m Dean, and I’m the founder of VetVet. And VetVet aims to make vet care more accessible to America’s pets.

Our website is VETVET.CO. And it just launched in New York City, and it helps pet parents find great veterinarians.

You can think of it as the Airbnb for vets. We help you find a vet who is a great match for you and your pet, whether that’d be looking for an affordable vet or a board-certified vet in a particular area that your pet might need, like dermatology.

Chris:

Yeah, that’s really interesting. Because you know—I guess, when you think about it, everybody has a general vet, right?

But, you know, when you got a new animal, you might be looking for one of those. But then there’s all sorts of specialty vets and things that—where do you even begin if your pet needs, like you said, dermatology or eye care, or ear care, or anything else?

Dean:

Yeah. So, what we found is that it’s an incredibly difficult process today.

And because these specialties require additional education, there are actually not a ton of them in the country or even in the world. And as a result of that, they tend to be really booked out.

And so, what we do is we help facilitate that discovery and that booking to match a particular area, and then book that appointment with them.

Chris:

You’re actually helping me to place the appointment as well.

Dean:

Exactly. So, what we found is that people are busy, and people don’t have a ton of time to call around for different practices. Especially when it comes to specialty practices, right.

We actually help automate that. So, we help you actually see very quickly who has availability, and then book an appointment with that person.

Any kind of stress that you might have, and to take one more thing off of your plate to make your life a little bit easier.

Chris:

Yeah. I love that because I may not be able to get in.

So, if there’s 5 of them around, you’re helping me to find when is the one that’s got the most availability, right?

And I’m guessing you’re probably going to do ratings and feedback and things like that as well.

For us and for VetVet, our biggest goal is to improve accessibility to vet care to make it incredibly easy for you to access high-quality vet care.

When it comes to—whether it’s looking for an affordable care provider, we help people do that, whether it’s helping to find an appropriate time that is a match for them. We help them do that.

And we also believe—in addition to long-term care, we really do believe in helping people get vet care as early as possible to prevent longer-term health issues that might occur later on in your pet’s life.

For a vet to understand what’s going on with a pet is much more difficult than a human doctor just simply because a pet can’t communicate.

When a person can’t speak the same language as their doctor, there’s an added layer of complexity there.

And so we found that there really is a very high demand for vets who speak particular languages to help reduce that friction there.

And to streamline that connection between what’s happening with the pet, or the broader veterinary team, and what they can do to support that pet.

Chris:

Yeah, and I got to imagine that’s hard, right? Because there’s no resource where you can just go buy a list of all the nuts, right?

So, you’ve got to be curating this list for people, as you said, kind of go neighborhood by neighborhood, trying to find all of the vets that are out there.

Dean:

And we really do believe in creating a long-term relationship between the veterinarian and the broader practice staff and the pets and the pet parents.

And as a result of it, I think the community is very important. And I think this is somebody who’s most likely going to have a relationship with for more than 10 years. It can really, really help.

Chris:

I know you guys just launched. I mean, take us back to the point where you came up with this idea.

Was it you or were you experiencing a problem? How did you come up with this?

Dean:

Prior to creating VetVet, I was working in venture for a large company. And as part of that, I was researching marketplaces. So, a two-sided marketplace to reconnect one party with another.

So, you can think of it like an Airbnb or Uber or anything like that. And around that time, I got my first dog as an adult, and it became clear very quickly that there were no solutions to help you find a great veterinarian.

Other industries that we saw were in therapy and all sorts of things.

And after facing this problem firsthand, I started to speak with both pet parents as well as veterinarians. And then I found out that neither side was happy with the existing system around matching great vets with great pet parents.

So, I started to build up VetVet to connect pet parents with great vets. Through that process, I started to learn more and more about the needs so that both sides really do find benefits from the platform itself.

Chris:

So, you’re now actually going to be able to help bring them new clients, and even help them distort through what type of client these people are.

And like you said, it’s a relationship. So, it’s got to work both ways, if you’re going to be working together for the next 10+ years.

Dean:

Because it is a long-term relationship, really understanding what is unique about whether it’d be something like the amount of time that a practice allocates for a certain kind of appointment, or their pricing, or generally how they treat pets.

So, there are some people who genuinely want to spend a lot of time with their doctor, and they want to—or they, maybe, want to have a 30-, 45-minute, or even potentially a 60-minute appointment with their doctor where they can ask a lot of questions. They can really dig deep and understand what’s going on.

There are other people who prefer a fast appointment. Maybe they’re busy, and they just prefer a very quick appointment. Maybe they prefer a 15-minute appointment, so we must be able to find somebody who matches that.

And so, for the practice as well. They also want to find somebody who is a match for them there.

We just want to create these positive relationships that ultimately direct into creating a great health care experience for the pet.

Chris:

That’s not something I hear a lot of times with people and pets.

They’re busy trying to roll this out across the world, but it sounds like a community, and that bond is really important to you in this.

Dean:

It really does take a team of people to really create a great pet for a vet.

And we want to make sure that people are able to find the resources that they need to really raise a happy and healthy pet—or several, if they’re lucky.

Chris:

What’s the vision? What’s the future look like? Where do you want this to go?

Dean:

Going back to our core, we want to do whatever it takes to make vet care more accessible to pets.

One really important element that we’ve discovered, as we’ve been building out VetVet is: practices are really time-constrained, and we believe that the VetVet platform, as it continues to grow, is actually going to help practices manage their time better because we’re able to fill in empty appointment slots.

If there’s a cancellation, we can automatically refill that using the technology.

And so, what we’re doing is we’re trying to find how can we stretch a veterinarian’s time as much as possible, and trying to find technology solutions to really help do that. So, that’s really our core.

Chris:

Very cool. It’s been quite a journey for you just to get to this point, to get it launched in your first city.

What have you learned about yourself along the way?

Dean:

Tons and tons of stuff.

One big thing is: I think that you really want to find people to work with for this specific space, and understanding who you really, really want to provide better care for animals.

And so that’s what I’ve learned.

Having that added layer of passion can really make a huge difference, as far as whether it’s putting in time, or energy, or whatever it is that can really help you go beyond.

Chris:

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more.

Having people that work with you and that are passionate about what you’re doing, and believe in what you’re doing.

It’s something that’s so key to making this a success because you’re going to pivot, you’re going to learn, you’re going to adapt, you’re going to adjust, but you’re still going to stay true to your mission. And making sure your team can support you in that.

Excited to see where this goes, once you get past the first city, of course, and it’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap things up today?

Dean:

So, if you have any thoughts or feedback on the platform, feel free to send an email to [email protected]. And I really would love to hear from everyone.

I mentioned this several times during the discussion, but because community is really important, hearing what’s important to people is really key. We really do honestly want to hear from everyone.

So, please, even if it’s one line, you know—just send any thoughts that you have over so we can try to create a better life for pets and pet parents.

Chris:

Great! Well, I’m glad you came on today. And I’m going to remind our viewers and listeners, as we wrap things up.

If you’ve got a great idea, like Dean did, for solving a problem, for making life better for animals and people, let us know about it.

If you know somebody that’s got an idea or is trying something new, let us know.

Just go to INNOVATIONS.SHOW, and we’ll get them on the show, and talk to them.

So, thanks again, Dean. It’s a great time talking to you today.

Dean:

Thanks. Thank you so much. It was really my pleasure.

Recent Posts

Leave A Comment

Topics

Share this blog post

Related Posts

Natural Healing For Animals │ The Hound Healer

Natural Healing For Animals │ The Hound Healer

Fun Tech-Based Mental Stimulation Game Developed By Dog Experts │ Go Dogo

Fun Tech-Based Mental Stimulation Game Developed By Dog Experts │ Go Dogo

Facebook Youtube Instagram Linkedin Twitter

Get Involved

At Doobert you can choose how you want to help the hundreds of organizations we serve.

Transport

Foster

Lost Pet Support

Pet Photography

LEARN MORE

Special Thanks to

Case management ideation from Dallas Pets Alive! and Spay Neuter Network

© 2022 Doobert.com | PRIVACY POLICY | SITEMAP