[tixocloud]

Wow. Had no idea that there would be that much competition in this space. I'd love to learn more about your overall solution - is it essentially an "e-commerce" site for pet boarders so pet owners can book their appointments and pay online?

[rayboy1995]

Yeah I was surprised, though most other solutions are very old and slow so I really only consider us having one or two other real competitors.

The booking and paying online is actually just a small portion of the needs most of these businesses have. In addition to appointment management we also handle keeping track of customers, customer's pets(vaccination requirements, dietary needs, etc), inventory management, employee scheduling and role management, and analytics for it all.

Our competitors seem to handle parts of these but we are looking to be an all encompassing solution while simplifying the UX. We are also targeting multiple location support for enterprise customers, with our competitors multiple locations seem to be an afterthought. On top of that our app is faster and cheaper per month, offering discounts for multiple locations and no setup costs (other than buying optional hardware).

[tixocloud]

Very nice. How do you handle so much development work while balancing scope creep given that you're an all encompassing solution as opposed to handling different parts of it? I've been looking at extending my app to include many other components without overstretching myself.

[rayboy1995]

Really just prioritization. We prioritize everything based on its usefulness/need. We are also in "MVP mode" right now so anything that isn't a part of those core features mentioned or isn't essential is put on the back burner.

[tixocloud]

I would still imagine that an inventory system or analytics would take several months unless you are also stripping those away to the bare essentials?

[rayboy1995]

You would be correct. Our current implementation of those are fairly bare bones, but still encompass the main needs of the businesses we are targeting.

[tixocloud]

That's a great approach. I'll be "stealing" some of this great insight if you don't mind.