Wag, the ‘Uber for Dog-Walking,’ Is Drawing Uber-Like Scrutiny | Hacker News Reader

Wag, the ‘Uber for Dog-Walking,’ Is Drawing Uber-Like Scrutiny

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45 pointscoloneltcb49 comments

Here's why I'd never invest in the Uber for dog walkers: Once someone finds a walker they like, they'll just do a deal with them. Dog walking isn't like needing a ride. Usually when you need a ride, you need it now, and you don't care who provides it.

With dog walking, it's usually at a scheduled time each day, and you care a lot about who is providing the service.

Dog walking is not a good candidate for the Uber model.

Rover.com is doing pretty well [1] with a similar service. In my area at least, these dog sitters (and, I assume, these dog walkers) are young, and take it on temporarily as an alternate source of income. They may not stick around for long, and you'll soon be looking for another. Also, their schedules may change frequently - your preferred walker/sitter may not be available on the date of your vacation or other cause for needing the service. And for the price, both the sitter and the walker may find keeping track of billing and payment through the app to be simpler.

[1]: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2016/10/r...

My sister does rover and it suffers from the same issue the parent comment talks about (which is also the reason homejoy probably failed).

As soon as she builds a relationship with the person they transact outside the app.

Also: Rover offers insurance. This probably has an effect on customer retention.

Sounds like the same reason Homejoy failed: https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/31/why-homejoy-failed-and-the...

Indeed, dog walkers are even listed in that article (from over two years ago) as being prone to "platform leakage". From the fourth-to-last paragraph:

"As soon as you find that cleaner, that dog walker, that landscaper who’s right for you, you want them in your pocket, at your disposal at all times, without needing to go through a searching-platform process again."

To be fair Homejoy spent WAY more per customer than what they were making. Combine that with the finding someone you like and it was DOA.

This business model will fail horribly. Unlike Uber where you provide rides from random people at random locations each time. Dog sitting/walking is a pretty consistent endeavor. Walkers/Sitters will just build up a clientele of about 5-10 consistent dog owners and go to them directly. They bypass the app, removing the fees that they otherwise would have to pay to the company.

I don't use Uber, but if I did, I wouldn't really care who was arriving as it'll be a one-time interaction to get me somewhere.

I love my dog more than most of my family tree, I wouldn't just hand him over to anyone. Finding a dog walker is about meeting them and making sure you trust them, and once that relationship is in place it's going to be paid in cash or invoiced, an app is just another middleman wanting a cut.

Agreed, especially when an incident with a dog can be a death sentence for the dog even if the human was at fault. If someone is going to be walking my dog I need to know who they are and know that they know how to handle dogs and know that my dog isn't going to act aggressive towards them.

Not necessarily. If you have a dog walker he may not always be available.

I have been with pet owners and they would leave a bar early because of their dog. They may be using that as an excuse but I think there may be a market for flexibility. Especially when it comes to spontaneous work happy hours.

The second problem here is trust, though.

I know it sounds a bit odd to trust strange drivers more than strange dog-walkers, cars aren't exactly safe, but it's pretty true. For someone to take care of my dog, I'd want at a minimum for them to meet the dog with me present and go over some basic care instructions.

So: yeah, I've left events I genuinely wanted to stay at to go take care of my dog. But my general solution to this is "ask a trusted neighbor to come by"; since trust and familiarity are required, I'd probably still end up going out-of-band even if I had to keep in touch with multiple people.

Anecdote in support of your claim: A friend of mine who now lives in SF was recently visiting and this 'uber for dog walking/sitting' business came up. He said that it's very common for people (himself and his friends with dogs who live in the city) to do exactly what you state: Find someone who doesn't suck using the service and make a deal on the side with them for cheaper than what they would pay through the service.

Also regulation will not work. In Vienna for instance certain dog breeds need a “license” which is for the human/dog pair. So you can’t get any random walker, the walker needs to do a license with the dog once.

Dog boarding, on the other hand, is pretty irregular. So rather than Uber I think the correct analogy should be AirBnB.

Yep; it's a way better case for a coordination website. That site is Rover, which to my knowledge is doing just fine. (Wikipedia suggests they cleared $30 million in revenue last year.) They offer dog-walking too, but are probably a bit safer because the boarding offer is a good incentive to just stick around and use one site for everything.

(Rover also provides insurance on each deal, a very un-Uber approach that's actually more protective than most low-tech arrangements.)

Yes and I think you just described Rover.com

At the place I board my dog, there are plenty of regulars the he gets to play with. Seems like a lot of people around me will board their dog(s) every other weekend or so.

I'm not sure that that is true. I always board my dog with the some place or a friend.

I'd also liken it to child sitting. Once we went through several trial runs with urbansitter folks we found a few we can fully trust and just use text and venmo to handle our on-going sitting needs.

This is literally why AirBnB is getting beaten in China - the Chinese competitor realized people are going to do this, and is happy making a little less money and acting as more of an introducer.

What's the name of the competitor that does that?

Tujia

This is exactly what happened to Homejoy. They couldn't close the loop consistently. There was reportedly a ton of drop-off from the initial transactions.

Same with cleaners, car wash, landscaping, etc. These are all services that people put more scrutiny into.

Landscaping, maybe. Cleaners and car washing are pretty commodity though. I agree with the broader point that there are a lot of tasks you don't want done by a random person who signed up with an app but those aren't the best examples.

I hired a cleaning service through Groupon once. I opened the door to four people walking right by me without saying a word (they didn't speak English), and one "front person" who barely spoke. I had never had a cleaning service come in before, so I had some questions. I was also expecting one person that I could follow around the house to make sure they didn't take anything, but all I could do now was have faith in my fellow humans (in an industry notorious for theft). That was very off-putting, and I can't see how anyone would hire someone to clean their house whom they didn't completely trust. I know people do, but I will never again.

EDIT: Just saw your response to the other comment where you thought it was dry-cleaning. It may well have been, but I'll leave my story here anyway, since it's sort of in context.

> Cleaners and car washing are pretty commodity though.

You'd just let a random person who signed up with an app into your house to clean?

Through an established maid service? Yes. Though, like the sibling post, they did an awful job and I eventually found a private person to do the housekeeping. I have no idea how those housekeeping services stay in business - I tried several and they were all terrible. Nothing illegal or sketchy, just not good at cleaning.

Ah. I read that as dry cleaning. You're right. At worst, I'm going to use a franchised service--and the period I did that I never had a real problem but I wasn't very happy with it either. Now I use someone I hired privately.

It's been a mixed bag with Wag. The app quality is not great, buggy and major usability issues...but also the walk report card warms my heart.

I was worried about trusting my dog to strangers but it wasn't too bad with Wag. Overall most of the people were decent but I'd occasionally get some really bad walkers who wouldn't fill out the report card, or walk the dog for 90 minutes instead of 30. My partner and I decided doggie daycare was the better bet. About $35 a day to have our dog just hanging out with other pups is worth it...especially when the quality of walker is so variable with services like Wag.

My dog got abused at doggy daycare. Paid to play, but instead locked in a cage all day, and multiple shock collars put on his neck to try and get his barking to stop (not approved by me).

So not sure this really applies to wag vs not.. but double and triple check the references of your doggy daycare..

Jesus. I've always been a bit paranoid about this; at the moment I'm sticking to my vet's dogcare program, which seems more reliable.

This would be a nontrivial concern for me with Wag. Uber rides have plenty at risk also, but at least I'm present for those. (And in one case, I have in fact gotten out early for safety's sake.) Coordination services are that much less convincing when the buyer and seller aren't both present.

Ya exactly.. with Uber it's just yourself for risk.

Wag is one stop closer to "I trust you with something import to me, don't break it". I guess the ultimate test would be "uber for babysitting".. some stranger stops by and picks up your kid and takes them to the park.

Where you value your pets varies a lot by culture. But I value them much closer to my children than myself.. which would make Wag a nogo for me.

Edit - Not to make you paranoid, but my event happened at my vet. Turns out my vet abused 100s of dogs. No criminal charges. She is under review to MAYBE have something happen to her license. Or maybe have some additional oversight. After abusing and killing many animals.

Random idea, but here (Italy) it is common enough for hunters to have dogs fitted with a GPS locator when they go in the woods hunting, those are often costly, but there are simpler/cheaper versions intended for use where there is good coverage of cellular networks.

I wonder why - since this service is so innovating/high tech - they don't simply provide their pet walkers with a number of such devices, I believe they cost (at end-user level) in the 50-80 Euro range, maybe 100 for more professional versions.

We tried the Whistle 3 for our do. It only wants to update every 10 minutes unless you're in "track mode" at which point is every 60 seconds. A dog can cover a lot of ground in that time; so it's OK if the dog just wandered out of your yard; but not useful if he's taken off after a deer (particularly because our local park has marginal cell service).

The ones hunters use are only about a 2.5 second delay.

Good application for LoRaWAN, maybe. Potentially a lot cheaper than cellular.

I've used Rover a couple times. Don't ever use Rover. But if you do, be sure to vet the person as you would a random craigslist ad offering to walk your dog. They do no screening, and any qualifications that appear cannot be trusted.

My dog survived with a handful of punctures after being attacked by an off-leash dog at a park. The rover walker neglected to inform me, even when asked if anything happened.

You want your dog walker watching your dog, not their phone to tap a button every time your dog pees. Hire a professional.

I wouldn't trust most Lyft/Uber drivers with my dog. That is a entirely different level of trust.

In fairness, becoming a Wag Walker has more vetting (pun present on original page and likely intended) and requires taking exams.

https://wagwalking.com/dog-walker

I'm unsure if I should laugh or cry that more vetting goes into a dog walker than an Uber driver.

Well... I can demand that the driver pull over and let me out if they turn out to be some kind of reckless bozo. Or worst comes to worst, call the police. A dog has no such option.

I use Rover quite a bit. I have some "usual suspects" for dog walking / dog sitting but they're not always available.

Richard Nixon trusted Checkers with the wrong dog walkers, and look where it got him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_(film)

Any 'X but for Y' company deserves scrutiny

Can't we just build a "X for Y"-framework that allows Y-people to do their work more efficiently while profits are distributed fairly?

Weirdly, I'd be a lot more careful when selecting a dog walker than a person that has me in a (potentially) locked car.

Uber for Dog-Walking??! Good lord, what a horrible image. I sure hope they're not sexually harassing dogs!

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