This post is very inline with what I experienced with VetPronto, and I wondered how they remained in business.
I've used VetPronto a couple times and the only value they really provided over regular vets is that you could get an appointment same day and they would come to your home. Because they didn't have mobile labs, you would have to wait days to get back results, while at the regular vet, you would have the results in a couple of hours. The VetPronto vets were always very nice and knowledgeable but the cost premium was way too much. Our vet in SF charges ~65 for a visit, while VetPronto was around ~200.
Non fungible service provider — Most pet owners believe that they need to see a certain vet, usually the ‘best’ one in their area or the one they previously saw.
It's a healthcare provider, of course people want to see someone they "know".
And it's not just the humans that like to stick with a certain vet, but the dogs too. We went through several vets until we found one our dog liked (well, at least he didn't hate).
> We believed that the veterinarian is the most trusted partner for a pet parent (vs. the walker, grooming, trainer) and that owning the vet relationship would create the most value. We have since learned that more value may lie in the networks that have higher frequency (i.e. walking, grooming, boarding, etc.)
I wonder whether it would have worked to develop trust at walking, grooming, etc, and then try to upsell to vet services?
I'm skeptical it would have. They say at one point in their article:
>The more successful marketplace businesses (i.e. Uber, Postmates, Instacart, Rover)
I chuckled at the inclusion of Rover.com in there. I don't know whether they're successful or not, but I have used their service and hate everything about it. I found the one pet sitter that I ever want to use for my dog, and I no longer have any real need for Rover. But because I found the sitter through them, I now have this useless third party inserted into all my transactions with the sitter, and they often screw it up. (My messages to the sitter either don't go through, don't go through quickly, or go through but are garbled.)
I'm under the impression that rover isn't doing too well because I'm starting to see the annoying little upsells and desperate growth hacking attempts every time I log in. There's the "tell other people about us and we'll give you a discount," pop overs when trying to perform a transaction. There's little 2 and 3 dollar add-ons suggested at every step. There's the constant attempts to get you to give them more information in every interaction. (You know the ones, "Your profile is only 72% complete - click to complete it!")
Frankly, the only service I want is a 1-time flat fee finding service for the actual providers. I don't know if they could make money at that, and I don't care. But I actively avoid rover whenever possible because it removes value from the proposition for me.
The continuity matters. Our vet remembers our cats from one visit to the next. They're not just a note on a card (though of course they have those too). So it is like your own doctor, in that once you have a relationship that works for you, there is a high bar to change it.
It wasn't until I had some extended dental work and had to wait around a dental surgery for half a day that I realised just how useful a good memory is for health practitioners.
Of course they have notes. But it's so much easier and more reassuring to remember key facts about patients beyond the immediate medical issues.
It's also easy to forget they see a lot of patients - every day.
So being able to remember names, relationships, interests and prior sessions with hundreds of patients - all the social glue that makes non-trivial reassuring smalltalk possible - is a hugely useful skill.
I wonder why they didn't try to pivot towards selling all that in-house software they built out to clinics directly. I'm sure some of it would have been useful. Also, presumably pet health records wouldn't have the same constraints of HIPAA, so it would be easier to scale and use a generic subscription SaaS model than if they had been making a human medical record company.
I can't speak to the quality of most available vet software today, but as a client, I would love to have my pets medical info in one place. Especially because I have relationships with both a local, general vet, and a specialist after my older cat got diagnosed with lymphoma. It was hard to even get those clinics on the same page at first since they were faxing ultrasounds around, and I'm still not sure if all records through. I have no way to verify. At best, I'll receive a PDF after a visit with some test results. But I don't have a comprehensive set of records online anyhwhere.
Maybe that space is already saturated or vet clinics don't have much incentive to pay for it. Still, I switched to a doctor with a better online records system (not based on the system alone though) and it definitely makes me happier with the service and less likely to switch again.
Vet practice management software (Saas) is a pretty competitive field already. If you think about it, if someone has built a platform for traditional MD / GP practices, it's fairly trivial to turn around and also offer it to vets. The bigger challenge is probably getting them to switch off their legacy paper systems.
There's a lot of vet management software, but really only two that matter - Cornerstone and IDEXX.
All the vet schools use one or the other, and so do the vast majority of large vet clinics and corporations where young vets get their first jobs. If they ever start their own practice, they've already gotten use to Cornerstone/IDEXX, so there's no reason for them to switch.
There's little demand from clients to see their records online or transfer their records electronically. Sorry, HN crowd, but that's just the way it is with non-techies. The practices that do offer it use a number of third party integration services. However, the demand is so low, those companies hardly make any money because they can't charge very much.
Consolidation is also a big issue. Regional specialty hospitals are buying up local GPs. Companies like Banfield are also buying up specialty hospitals and GPs. This reduces the number of software buyers and obviates the need to "transfer files" because all the files are already within one system.
We originally believed all the reasons sudosteph points out as being a good reason to enter the vet tech space. It didn't quite work out for us.
Source: Previous startup helped vets/owners transfer records electronically.
Cornerstone and IDEXX? I think you're mixing something up. Cornerstone is a product, IDEXX is the vendor.
The software is almost secondary for IDEXX, though. They're primarily a national chain of veterinary labs -- bloodwork, tissue sample analysis, that sort of thing -- so they've got some pretty huge hooks into the industry.
Correct, the "big three" are Cornerstone, Avimark and Impromed. There are already several saas solutions as well, such as Neo and countless small vendors. It's telling that the top three are all now owned by either a lab services company (Idexx owns Cornerstone, DVMax and Neo) or a major supplier (Henry Schein owns both Avimark and Impromed). These products are probably no longer seen as strong businesses on their own but rather they provide a value to the parent company from integrations.
It sounds like they didn't really research their industry deeply enough - because recurring revenue to veterinary providers comes from from agriculture. Who is going to need more vet support -- a homeowner who owns a cat or a dog or two, or a hobby farmer with 6 horses and a few goats, even ranches with livestock? In particular if you add on the non-medical services that small farms tend to need done a few times a year, but the new hobby farmers of the world haven't yet picked up the skills/tools to do it -- Disbudding goats, shearing sheep, etc. In particular if the business model already is based on home visits, the small ag market just makes more sense.
Farm veterinary care is generally on-site. You're not going to load up your sick bull in a trailer and sit with it in the waiting room of the vet's office, the vet comes out to the farm already.
This is spot on, only time we drove an large cow/bull to the vet was when their onsite vet was out or busy with other clients. (Think winter when some farmers don't properly time and have calfs hitting snow)
The wording of that article is in rather poor taste. If they wanted to use that metaphor, they could at least have written "VetPronto is being sent to a nice farm in the country"
I understand 'euthanization' may be a sad process, and it might have very negative connotations especially in American culture. It is however sometimes the best available choice to make, as it probably was the best choice to end their startup.
It also might serve as a hint to the emotional connection they formed while building their enterprise.
You could view euthanization as desirable and good. As mournful and difficult, but good nevertheless. And considering humans specifically, of your own choice, under the supervision of a team of supportive physicians (and friends and family).
Respectfully, you're missing the point. It is often the best (and only, in my mind) choice, and it is always sad. It's not the word or even the concept that's the problem. Using it in a post about euthanasia is fine; using it as callous euphemism for shutting down your business is pretty terrible.
Definitely agree. I just had to euthanize my beloved dog two days ago and reading that truly hurt. Between that and several aspects of the post other commenters have already pointed out, it doesn't seem like these people had a very good understanding of pet owners or pet ownership.
Reading the article, what I got more than anything else, is that the owners did not understand veterinary care. The biggest source of income for vets is the springtime heartworm season when they will see every dog in their practice for preventative care. That they seemed to plan around non-routine care was problematic. Also, there are plenty of vets already who do in-home care (including my brother before he bought his vet hospital and two of my ex-girlfriends)--they generally charge LESS than the clinic does for the care, not more, since they have less overhead.
I agree. I got my friend (who's a medical resident and doesn't have a ton of time, but has an awesome dog) a subscription to Fuzzy. They do exactly what you're suggesting with preventive care. Their service includes an in-home well pet exam and all the vaccines, flea/tick and heartworm medication the pet will need until their next preventative visit. Obviously, outside of a clinic with equipment, they're not really able to do anything too involved: giving vaccines and taking blood/stool samples is about the limit, but that's all that's necessary for a healthy pet.
We had a good experience, and my friend's dog loved the vet and the assistant who came to examine him. I think the pricing was similar to what it would have cost for an in-office appointment.
> The biggest source of income for vets is the springtime heartworm season
Pretty sure that's a pretty regional thing - my pets, and all of the others I see at my vet office, are on heartworm meds year round, and there's never once been a 'spring heart worm season' appointment....
Might sound a little morbid, but one of the best things about having a vet that made regular house calls as my dog was aging, was when it came time to euthanize him. It happened in his home, instead of at a vet clinic.
If they're willing to make fun of one of the saddest experiences a pet owner will have in order to try to construct a cute title for an article, I'm not going to click the link.
Interesting look-back. I'm not sure I agree with this point though"
>Not inherently social — Most people don’t like talking about medical care. We usually come into a person’s life when their pet is sick. The client is experiencing a range of unpleasant emotions (stress, worry, etc.). Even if we provide an amazing experience, there is still some negativity associated with our service. I believe that this negativity limits the virality of a health care service.
Warning - anecdote ahead.
When we had a pet that was suffering and nearing the end of his life, I had to take him in to be put down. We hadn't used the vet I took him to before, but the way they handled him (and me) not only won them a customer for life, but my wife recommends them to everyone she can - all because of the worst possible experience one can have with a vet.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 71.7 ms ] threadI've used VetPronto a couple times and the only value they really provided over regular vets is that you could get an appointment same day and they would come to your home. Because they didn't have mobile labs, you would have to wait days to get back results, while at the regular vet, you would have the results in a couple of hours. The VetPronto vets were always very nice and knowledgeable but the cost premium was way too much. Our vet in SF charges ~65 for a visit, while VetPronto was around ~200.
It's a healthcare provider, of course people want to see someone they "know".
And it's not just the humans that like to stick with a certain vet, but the dogs too. We went through several vets until we found one our dog liked (well, at least he didn't hate).
> We believed that the veterinarian is the most trusted partner for a pet parent (vs. the walker, grooming, trainer) and that owning the vet relationship would create the most value. We have since learned that more value may lie in the networks that have higher frequency (i.e. walking, grooming, boarding, etc.)
I wonder whether it would have worked to develop trust at walking, grooming, etc, and then try to upsell to vet services?
>The more successful marketplace businesses (i.e. Uber, Postmates, Instacart, Rover)
I chuckled at the inclusion of Rover.com in there. I don't know whether they're successful or not, but I have used their service and hate everything about it. I found the one pet sitter that I ever want to use for my dog, and I no longer have any real need for Rover. But because I found the sitter through them, I now have this useless third party inserted into all my transactions with the sitter, and they often screw it up. (My messages to the sitter either don't go through, don't go through quickly, or go through but are garbled.)
I'm under the impression that rover isn't doing too well because I'm starting to see the annoying little upsells and desperate growth hacking attempts every time I log in. There's the "tell other people about us and we'll give you a discount," pop overs when trying to perform a transaction. There's little 2 and 3 dollar add-ons suggested at every step. There's the constant attempts to get you to give them more information in every interaction. (You know the ones, "Your profile is only 72% complete - click to complete it!")
Frankly, the only service I want is a 1-time flat fee finding service for the actual providers. I don't know if they could make money at that, and I don't care. But I actively avoid rover whenever possible because it removes value from the proposition for me.
Of course they have notes. But it's so much easier and more reassuring to remember key facts about patients beyond the immediate medical issues.
It's also easy to forget they see a lot of patients - every day.
So being able to remember names, relationships, interests and prior sessions with hundreds of patients - all the social glue that makes non-trivial reassuring smalltalk possible - is a hugely useful skill.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapport
I can't speak to the quality of most available vet software today, but as a client, I would love to have my pets medical info in one place. Especially because I have relationships with both a local, general vet, and a specialist after my older cat got diagnosed with lymphoma. It was hard to even get those clinics on the same page at first since they were faxing ultrasounds around, and I'm still not sure if all records through. I have no way to verify. At best, I'll receive a PDF after a visit with some test results. But I don't have a comprehensive set of records online anyhwhere.
Maybe that space is already saturated or vet clinics don't have much incentive to pay for it. Still, I switched to a doctor with a better online records system (not based on the system alone though) and it definitely makes me happier with the service and less likely to switch again.
There's a lot of vet management software, but really only two that matter - Cornerstone and IDEXX.
All the vet schools use one or the other, and so do the vast majority of large vet clinics and corporations where young vets get their first jobs. If they ever start their own practice, they've already gotten use to Cornerstone/IDEXX, so there's no reason for them to switch.
There's little demand from clients to see their records online or transfer their records electronically. Sorry, HN crowd, but that's just the way it is with non-techies. The practices that do offer it use a number of third party integration services. However, the demand is so low, those companies hardly make any money because they can't charge very much.
We originally believed all the reasons sudosteph points out as being a good reason to enter the vet tech space. It didn't quite work out for us.
Source: Previous startup helped vets/owners transfer records electronically.
The software is almost secondary for IDEXX, though. They're primarily a national chain of veterinary labs -- bloodwork, tissue sample analysis, that sort of thing -- so they've got some pretty huge hooks into the industry.
This article is spot on: http://avc.com/2014/07/the-dentist-office-software-story/
VetPronto Being Put Out to Pasture.
It also might serve as a hint to the emotional connection they formed while building their enterprise.
You could view euthanization as desirable and good. As mournful and difficult, but good nevertheless. And considering humans specifically, of your own choice, under the supervision of a team of supportive physicians (and friends and family).
We had a good experience, and my friend's dog loved the vet and the assistant who came to examine him. I think the pricing was similar to what it would have cost for an in-office appointment.
Sorry, I'll go back to reddit now...
Pretty sure that's a pretty regional thing - my pets, and all of the others I see at my vet office, are on heartworm meds year round, and there's never once been a 'spring heart worm season' appointment....
In the Midwest you don't need heartworm pills half the year. Vets will tell you that you do despite scientific evidence. Awesome industry.
I, uh, don't know if this is the right way to pick your market.
>Not inherently social — Most people don’t like talking about medical care. We usually come into a person’s life when their pet is sick. The client is experiencing a range of unpleasant emotions (stress, worry, etc.). Even if we provide an amazing experience, there is still some negativity associated with our service. I believe that this negativity limits the virality of a health care service.
Warning - anecdote ahead. When we had a pet that was suffering and nearing the end of his life, I had to take him in to be put down. We hadn't used the vet I took him to before, but the way they handled him (and me) not only won them a customer for life, but my wife recommends them to everyone she can - all because of the worst possible experience one can have with a vet.