Woof is a startup for buying ethically bred healthy dogs. Starting out with the idea of being a one-stop marketplace for everything dog related (how original, eh?), through our research as well as because of a relatively limited bandwidth, we decided to focus on how people actually get their dogs. Unknown to us prior to starting out, the dog breeding market is highly unorganised and more importantly, dogs are treated as breeding mills, with overbreeding, poor breeding conditions, etc. being rampant. Not only was this wrong from a moral and ethical perspective, this also resulted in health complications for the dogs in the future. We spoke to over 200+ dog owners, vets, groomers, dog boarders, breeders, dog lovers throughout Bangalore; travelled over 500km to visit breeders; spent at least 250+ man-hours overall, and had 5 sales worth over Rs.1 Lakh+. And boy, what an experience it has been! To deal with your assumptions going wrong, people telling us that this has been done before, many more saying that it could not be done and even an early Saturday morning call from an irate breeder berating us for what we were doing (Not the best way to start the weekend)! But to see the difference we were creating, especially when we managed to get two little fuzzballs of love for our first customer, it was definitely worth it.
Being an entrepreneur is not about being a certain kind of person, it is about having a certain mindset. Anyone can be an entrepreneur, and it’s important not only from the point of view of creating new companies but also for existing companies who have to continue to innovate to stay relevant in this age of disruption. With the kind of support being provided in B-schools nowadays, here’s hoping to see many more people taking the plunge in these exciting times!
