In earlier times, pets like dogs were mostly kept as a security option, and exotic breeds (dogs and cats) were used as status symbols in India. But, in the last decade or so, the mindset has evolved for good, and now, people see them as their own family members.
In recent years, particularly during the Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020 and post the pandemic, there has been a huge increase in the adoption of pets, particularly among young couples and senior citizens, as pets offer unadulterated love and compassion. That's not all, they help parents develop a positive mentality in times of stress and also improve body fitness, as they have to take their pets for walks and in a way develop healthy fitness discipline.
People now take care of their pets as their own children and pamper them with premium branded food, and spend generously for grooming in spas.
However, after a year, when the puppy turns adult and it becomes a bit tiring for people to control it. Also, when they get sick, most often than not, first-time parents for lack of proper knowledge abandon them. To help such parents, Garima Kaushal and Arnav Sahni came up with Sploot to offer a platform for pet parents and experts to how to take care of pets more humanely and also offer fresh and healthy food delivery and other related services.
DH had the opportunity to interact with Garima Kaushal, co-founder of Sploot.
Here are the edited excerpts of the interview:
DH: Can you share us the short origin story of how the Sploot app was conceptualized and launched
Garima Kaushal: Sploot started as a side-hustle for us, as a way to educate ourselves (me and Arnav, the founders) and other pet parents on the right way to raise your pet. It started out as an Instagram page with content for Indian dog parents in 2019, where we posted numerous questions about behaviour, nutrition, and health. We progressed to conducting online webinars and courses for puppy training, and nutrition plans for homemade food, with our panel of experts. We would make WhatsApp groups for easy coordination - and stumbled upon the idea for the community when we saw that these groups would stay active with user activity months beyond the actual date of the event.
We added a social app for the pet parent community to the mix in December 2021, building on this insight. As we started seeing concerns pouring into the community feed, we picked up on the fact that daily dog care in India is broken. Specifically, daily chores like walking and healthy food were an issue. This is what we picked up as revenue streams in April 2022. You can now order our fresh meals for dogs across India, and get a dog walking subscription in Gurgaon and Noida.
DH: The advice and educational content offered on the app for new pet parents, is it from professional doctors or experienced dog parents
Garima Kaushal: Pet parents can get advice from both dog parents as well as canine experts on the Sploot app. The discussion feed and groups are where you can find experienced dog parents and experts adding to the discussion. We also host weekly AMAs and webinars with experts like canine behaviorists, nutritionists, and veterinarian doctors.
DH: How the dog walkers are assigned to the pet parents? Does the company do any background checks before hiring?
Garima Kaushal: We do two levels of background checks for dog walkers - one, a police verification, and two, an in-house training and certification. Potential walkers need to pass both tests before they are added to the pool of walkers that are assigned to customers.
Pet Parents can sign up for a walking subscription on the Sploot app where they add their preferences for time and details about their dog(s). A walker is assigned to them based on the area they are in, and the slot availability. Walkers receive information about upcoming walks on a separate walker app and reach the customer location at the time they are meant to. When a walker "starts" the walk on their walker app, the customer is able to track the live location of their dog on the walk and gets a summary of the walk when the walk is "ended" on the walker app. This helps customers keep track of how many km, the exact time, and the route that their dog is covering in the walk.
DH: In how many cities, are fresh dog meals available for delivery?
Garima Kaushal: Sploot fresh meals for dogs can be ordered from anywhere in India. You can choose between our five recipes, and select the number of meals you'd like to get. Delivery is done to your doorstep within 3-5 days.
All five recipes are made using the freshest human-grade ingredients, and contain no artificial ingredients or preservatives. You don't need to refrigerate fresh Sploot meals because the retort packaging we use ensures that the fresh food inside stays fresh till opened.
DH: Does Sploot offer Kennel boarding for pets, if the parents go on a vacation? Or is there any plan for that aspect?
Garima Kaushal: We don't have boarding centers for pets - but we do work with a network of boarding centers (recommended by pet parents in the Sploot community). You can access their details and contact them through the Sploot app.
DH: Currently, how many are actively using the Sploot app
Garima Kaushal: The Sploot app is available through Google Play Store and iOS App Store to anyone in India. We have 100,000 plus app downloads and users from metro cities as well as tier-2 cities.
DH: Is there a plan for global expansion?
Garima Kaushal: We're focussing on India for the next 2 years. Our goal is to make Sploot the one app all pet parents in India have on their phones.
DH: What new features or services can we expect on the Sploot app in the near future
Garima Kaushal: Lots of fun stuff planned! We're doubling down on improving community experience, as well as nudging pre-emptive care for pets. Stay tuned.
Also, Garima said that the company received mentorship from Google. "Majority of our users on the Sploot app are Android users. Google Play has played a critical role in distribution to these users, of course. The seamless way in which I can track performance across acquisition, engagement, retention through the Google Play dashboard has helped us narrow down on the metrics that matter.
Garima added that 50 per cent of the company's tech team has been associated with Google developer clubs in their undergraduate colleges and this helped greatly in building a user-friendly app.
Garima and her team attended Google's mentorship programme Appscale Academy and they received good feedback and tools to improve their app in terms of increasing user engagement and how to scale their business and monetize their service.
"Appscale Academy helped us with a framework to think about growth and retention for the Sploot app. The program and curriculum are structured in a way that is super simple to grasp and have mentors from the industry and Google along the way. We built our experimentation muscle thanks to Appscale Academy (and A/B tests on Google Play). We were able to improve onboarding conversions by 4x, and app engagement by 160% all thanks to the discussions we had as part of Appscale Academy," Garima noted.
A message from Sploot founder Garima Kaushal to women app developers
App developers are app developers - regardless of gender. But, I do believe that women have different lived experiences and that we shouldn't be afraid of borrowing from those experiences as we think about creating our apps and growing a business.
We're not just building apps - we're building mini-worlds that resonate with certain sets of users. That's why we need to be thinking about many different perspectives that a user may have to be able to create an experience they value and keep coming back to. The more diverse our team (and therefore our thinking) is, the better our chances to get this right.
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