Show HN: Wagstarter – just launched after 6 wks dev, feedback needed
wagstarter.org
wagstarter.org
I would appreciate any and all feedback, no matter how harsh, especially on design, copy, and overall feeling you get from the site.
It's really hard getting initial traction on something like this, so if you like Wagstarter, I would appreciate you sharing it with your friends.
For $40, I could cover a single exam fee for a single pet, or I could cover one month of premiums for the Healthy Paws plan with the lowest deductible. That's how I pay for my own pet's care, and my net savings are in the range of several thousand dollars.
With insurance, you're also able to save pets with time-sensitive (or even emergency) problems.
If that were combined with proper preventative care (similar to the Banfield plans, where people essentially pre-pay for checksup/vaccines/etc.), then you'd have comprehensive coverage for a pet at around $80/month.
Going one step further, if you raised enough money, you could pay for these things using the interest without touching the principal. Each ~$15k raised would cover one additional pet (assuming, let's say, high-dividend index funds).
I understand that your business model is to inspire people to donate by seeing sick pets, but I'm not sure many people go out looking for that kind of thing.
Pet insurance is certainly an option for low-income pet owners, but for whatever reason it hasn't taken hold in the US, where less than 1% of pets are covered. Vets have a somewhat negative impression of it, as it tends to be overly restrictive and, of course, doesn't cover pre-existing conditions.
Crowdfunding healthcare for pets is a fairly popular thing on GoFundMe (50M monthly users, only slightly lower traffic than Kickstarter), Indiegogo, and YouCaring. We think it's a unique and active enough niche to deserve its own, dedicated site, where the funds go directly to vets so as to better avoid scammers who just "claim" their pet is sick.
As with any crowdfunding model, most of our marketing is done by the pet owners (to their friends and family) and the vets providing the care (to their other clientele), so we're not dependent on inspiring strangers to donate.
Shitty companies like VPI have those problems. I have Healthy Paws, and it's excellent. They cover everything without argument. They seem to have no problem paying out on the things their policy is supposed to cover. I've heard similar things about Trupanion. My friend is a vet and raves about both companies.
Charity is great, and I'm sure it could impact thousands of pets a year, but I have a hard time believing it's going to fix pet care in a meaningful way.
I'm probably cynical but the 100% of proceeds donated sends up red flags. If that's the case and you are donating your time and money to run the service, you should explain that somewhere.