Lost My Doggie - Service Helps Find Lost Pets | Hacker News Reader

Lost My Doggie - Service Helps Find Lost Pets

lostmydoggie.com

18 pointssrveit18 comments

I got a call from this service on behalf of one of my neighbors who lost his dog. I went to look at the service and though that this was a great idea. It appears to be a fully automated service that combines a request form, a GEO database, a telephone number database, and an automatic calling service. I think this is a great example of startup that a one or two person team could build by combining several existing web services to satisfy an existing need.

This service seems in line with Magic Jack and WebKinz. Software designed for lower tech experiences people who value utility, but not a pure pixel based experience.

This class of startup is really interesting. From what I've read MagicJack could do $100MM in revenue and WebKinz is a cash factory throwing off $750MM per year. Both utilize software, but it isn't the lead aspect of the service.

These companies really fly under the radar relative to the other hot startups of the day. ReadWriteWeb covers them to some degree, but it is an area that deserves a LOT more coverage.

This is a great example of a business where the revenue opportunity when sold as an insurance policy may be much higher than when sold as a per-incident/per-claim service.

Reposition as lost pet insurance, with differing rates based on type of pet, age of pet, whether or not pet has a homeagain RFID implant, etc. Perhaps also offer a standard response or a premium response, where the standard includes robocalls, craigslist posting, notification to local pet shelters/SPCA/dog catcher; premium level includes posting 'lost dog' flyers in local area using craigslist-recruited 'street teams.'

Sell it through vets, a PetCo partnership, dogster.com, etc. $29/year or something affordable like that. Get a special tag and everything "this pet protected by Pet Guardian" or whatever. See also AAA, TowBoat/US, Lifelock for insurance programs that target unlikely bad things like broken down car, grounded boat, or stolen identity.

"Do you care enough about your doggie to protect him with Pet Guardian?"

Market size is big: 60% of American households own pets. If just 0.50% of these pet-owning households bought lost pet insurance @ $29/year, that's an $8mm/yr business. If you got 3% of the market, it's $50 mm/yr.

In principle you might be onto something but I think the pricing etc. and cost of running this service makes use it when you need it more appropriate.

At $29/year you'd have to hope that only 1 in 5 (perhaps even less) owners actually used your service in a year. What about that lady down the road who's dog gets out each week?

Take a page from AAA: 4 incidents a year are free, after that you pay.

I agree that "insurance" is the way to pitch this for maximum profit. People, including mostly rational people, will pay a [relative] lot to make themselves feel better about the chances of recovering their pet should it ever become lost.

I don't think many people want to buy insurance whose maximum possible payout comes down to a couple of hundred bucks. People generally only insure against risks which they can't afford.

Except for health insurance, where people insure against the risk that they're going to go to the doctor for a routine annual checkup this year. (Other people have said it better than me: its like submitting a claim against your car insurance to pay for an oil change.)

AAA seems to be doing pretty well, and I can't think of too many people who drive a car, could afford the $39-59 for AAA, but not the <$100 to get towed 3 miles or <$350 to get towed 100 miles.

I've been a member for 17+ years, and the convenience way outweighs the price.

A custom mouse cursor on a website! Haven't seen that in a while.

What about the new law about robo-calling? Will they be affected by that?

AFAIK the new law applies mainly to robotic sales calls. Businesses like this shouldn't be affected, but I'm not a lawyer or that well versed in the law.

Well something perhaps relevant from the FAQ:

LostMyDoggie.com, LLC is classified and registered as an exempt organization by the DNC, thus we can phone your neighbors who are on the Do Not Call List.

Looks like an amazing opportunity for spammers to hammer a specific neighborhood ... or for teens to crank call the whole neighborhood.

Except it costs money, so that would be a big deterrent.

The cost would prohibit teenagers.

How effective would: "Your neighbour "Buy lots of Acme products" has lost their dog." be?

Once I had a job in high school I can say that a fair bit of my friends' collective budget was directed into the prank fund. $125 to spread unscrupulous rumors regarding our school principal to 750 homes would not have deterred us.

I've been wondering, couldn't missing pets be tracked with dogs? Like they could find them via their smell?

search and rescue dogs (and bomb/drug sniffing dogs) have to have a lot of training, and i'm sure they are quite pricey to hire out.

also, since a lost pet is probably roaming around quite a bit vs. a missing person that is lying in a ditch, they are probably quite hard for another dog to track reliably.

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