Startup offers online pet bookings 24-7

TORONTO (Reuters) - Rising healthcare costs and 10 percent unemployment have many Americans postponing visits to the doctor, but that thinking does not apply to their beloved pets.

"If your back was hurting you might deal with it, but when Fido is limping you're certainly not going to tell him to suck it up," insisted Tina Cannon, who along with co-founder Christi Scovel, launched PetsMD.com www.petsmd.com earlier this year, which they believe, is the first online veterinary booking service in the U.S. "We definitely thought surely someone has thought of this; there's got to be a giant market leader and there wasn't a market leader."

Cannon, an accountant by trade, got the idea for their website a couple years ago while witnessing friend Scovel, a veterinarian, answer phone calls around the clock from desperate pet owners trying to book appointments, or just seeking information about their pets' maladies. Cannon jokingly suggested there should be a website to handle this, freeing up vets like Scovel to enjoy an evening out.

Cannon said 175 million vet appointments are made annually in the U.S. and "they're all done by the telephone," she said, adding: "nobody is offering online integrated booking. We're the first and we're either crazy or smart."

Last year they raised $30,000 from friends and family and registered their website, which includes their trademarked Symptom Checker tool (they also built an iPhone app for it) that helps users diagnose what is wrong with their dog or cat, before calling a vet or booking an appointment. PetsMD is free for pet owners, but charges vets an annual listing fee, ranging from $59.95 to $249, much like an apartment rental site would charge a landlord. So far 30,000 vets have listed their clinics or services on the site.

Cannon admitted one of their biggest early mistakes was using PetzMD, which they quickly found didn't work well in search engines.

"We thought it would give us a little bit more differentiation between us and some other sites, but quickly learned the hard way that SEO doesn't like the non-phonetic spelling of words," said Cannon, whose site is very similar in content and style to both PetMD.com and PetMD.org. Cannon said there's plenty of room in the $45 billion U.S. pet industry for competition and points to the home renovation industry, where heavyweights like Lowe's and Home Depot co-exist.

"There's really nothing in any industry that stops somebody from doing the same thing," said Cannon, who herself owns a border collie and two cats. "So for us, we want to have original content, quality information and be the trusted resource online that sets us apart from anybody else who may try to attempt to do what we're doing at PetsMD."

This summer PetsMD was one of five finalists selected by Austin-based venture capital firm, Capital Factory, as part of its inaugural incubator contest. Cannon said they received some cash and some extremely valuable mentoring that helped them streamline their business model. They also got a deal on office space rental; setting up shop at the Capital Factory headquarters.

THE PITCH

The pet health industry has weathered the recession and Cannon said PetsMD's revenues have steadily grown by 30 percent month over month. At their current pace Cannon said the company should be profitable a year from now.

"We have a really pretty graph that goes from bottom left to upper right," said Cannon. "I wouldn't say any industry is recession proof, but the pet industry is up almost 4 percent this year alone."

Americans will spend more than $12 billion this year on veterinary care - an increase of about $1 billion from the 2008 total - according to the 2009-10 National Pet Owners Survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA).

Cannon said they've already raised another $150,000 and will be seeking to raise an additional $350,000 in the coming year to help grow the site's online traffic. PetsMD currently averages 45,000 page views a month and Cannon wants to boost that to 500,000 over the next few months.

In order to make that jump Cannon said they will need to spend the funds on a new SEO strategy and a big marketing campaign.

In addition, Cannon said PetsMD will be looking to partner with some major pet brands and is already in talks with a few companies. Cannon said right now they only handle bookings for people with dogs and cats, but will be expanding their portfolio to include exotics at some point.

But Cannon said their main challenge is building awareness for the site and the unique content and services it contains for pet owners.

"We've built this really cool car, now we need to tell the world about it," said Cannon "The challenge is marketing what we have."