Why I built this
I'm building Petworking for every emergency I've had with my beagle away from home or after hours. I mean, our first vet trip was at 1 A.M. during the pandemic, and I had to sit in a trailer outside the emergency vet for 3 hours. I will also confidently mention all the busy work days when I forgot to go to the pet store, so she got to experience the beauty of human food. Being a pet parent is rewarding for the love, but also when you get it right, that feels just as amazing.
What annoyed me is that nobody made a tool to make it all easier and cheaper. From crazy pickup and delivery fees to having to download a new app every time I moved vets, groomers, and boarders. I even used to run dog daycare and boarding, and the fees that professionals get charged just to run their business were baffling to me. I mean, 20% just to book a client is insane.
So I'm building Petworking to make the work easier for pet people so they can focus on love. I bring 7 years of software experience and 5 years of 12 years of pet parent experience, so I think I'm definitely the guy for the job. And the team is made up only of pet owners who truly care about making the pet world more connected and simpler for everyone involved, considering the pet world is our world. So welcome to the pack, or school, or murder. Actually, welcome to The Petwork.
Raymond Chizanga
Principles
What Petworking will not do
01
Never gate a pet's records
Passports, medical history, vaccinations and emergency information stay free with or without Pet Parent OS, permanently. Pet Parent OS analyses that data. It never controls access to it.
02
Never show two fees
Payment processing is one named rate on every plan and the marketplace commission is 7% on every plan. Neither is tiered to look smaller, and the business never sees a second line.
03
Never charge a rescue
Registered rescues pay no subscription on any tier, and always the lowest rates in the product. Permanent policy, not a promotion. No paywall, no upgrade prompt, no countdown.
04
Never file an animal as Other
Every species is first-class. A ball python, an African grey and a rabbit each get the same standard of record as a labrador.
05
Never blur verification
A document we checked with the body that issued it, and a document a business uploaded, are two different things with two different badges. They are never merged into one tick.
06
Never hold your data hostage
Exports are free, unlimited and complete. Leaving is a supported action, not a support ticket.
07
Never rank one business above another for money
Search order is distance, availability and fit. No business can buy a higher position, and none is demoted for being on a cheaper plan.
08
Never make a rescue prove itself twice
One registration check, then the fee is gone. No annual re-application, no renewal paperwork, no reminder that the fee could come back.
09
Never lock a record to one business
A passport belongs to the animal and travels with it. Changing groomer, vet or household does not start the history over.
Open letter
To the people who do this work
You are the reason the after-hours call gets answered, the reason a nervous dog gets groomed without being pinned down, and the reason a rabbit that stopped eating gets seen the same day. None of that shows up in software.
What does show up is the admin. Eleven tools that do not talk to each other. A client history that lives in a notebook, a group chat and someone’s memory. A vaccination record you have to ask for three times.
Petworking exists to take that off you. Not to tell you how to do your job, and not to rank you against the business down the road. To hold the record properly, take the payment cleanly, and put the animal’s history in front of whoever needs it next.
If we get something wrong, tell me directly. This is a small enough company that it will reach me.
Raymond Chizanga
CEO & Founder
