Bringing the “name your own price” model to vet services.

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Pitch Video

The idea began in 2012 when my father’s friend, a vet, began talking about the vet care industry. As he described the industry, it became apparent that this old-school industry still had large barriers to competition and a very opaque pricing model – 20th century holdovers. The industry was beginning to show signs of change, adapting to technology – vets that spent significant money maintaining their web presence, i.e. a website and Google Adwords, were able to attract many new customers. The vet also described how pet owners often called many vets to get quotes on pricey services, knowing that vets’ prices are often arbitrary.

It became clear to me that there was a clear mismatch between supply and demand in this market. By bringing the ‘name your own price’ model to the industry, we hoped to generate value by finding matches. We’d extract some value by charging lead generation fees to vets. More than 40% of American households are pet owners, and they spend an average of $400 a year on vet services. Many pet owners are young people, the elderly, or families – groups often looking to save money.

Vets would register, providing basic details about their business, a short biography of their experience, and a list of services and their charges. Consumers would arrive at our site and fill out their requirements – animal type, ZIP code, distance from ZIP code, and type of service. They would be presented with a list of matching vets, and their quoted prices. They could schedule an appointment immediately, or they could click ‘Name my Price’ – and tell us a number they’d be satisfied paying. We’d alert nearby matching vets of the opportunity. Vets could accept the offer, or counter-offer to the consumer. Once a deal was accepted, we’d charge vets a lead fee of $35.

There are a few concerns with this business model:

• Repeat usage. We are not sure if customers will come back again and again to our site. Will customers be regularly looking for new vets?

• Cost to acquire a customer. This relates to our earlier point above – if the cost to acquire is high, then we need repeated usage.

• Revenue model. For simplicity we’ve proposed the $35 flat fee referral. But a high cost to acquire and low repeated usage could make the business unprofitable.

Marketing effort:

Q: It’s a peer-to-peer local marketplace. The likes of which have failed to take off many times in the past. How will you make sure you have a critical mass so your business model makes sense?

A: It’s a challenge, but in this two-sided marketplace, one side is very motivated. We expect there to be significant pet owner usage of the web site. Consumers looking to save money are very motivated. To promote adoption on the other side, we want a very low barrier to sign up for vets – we will offer the first month of service for free, to prove our site can generate leads.

Q: How will you get word of your service out to the vets?

A: We have a few strategies to use. Firstly, we will attend veterinarian conferences across the country. Secondly, our product rollout will be region by region. We will engage in guerrilla marketing in that region.

Q: Will vets be willing to offer even their list prices on our service?

A: We’re not sure. Some vets put these numbers (which are really nothing but a ballpark figure) on their sites. Some don’t, advising you to call instead.

Over the summer, I was working on building a prototype using Django. I had designed the relatively complex database. I never got around to implementing the rest of the website though, and the prototype is on hold. We also began to informally survey pet owners if they would be interested to use the service. We got a very positive response.
We were working with a vet from the Milwaukee area. However, he left the project because of personal reasons. We need to bring another vet onboard to continue the project in earnest.