Dog owners worried about the relationship status of their single pets can now heave a sigh of relief. Thanks to DogSpot, a capital-based web portal, owners can now upload a profile of their canines and search for the ideal partner for their pets.
The brainchild of three young entrepreneurs - Rana Atheya, Shailesh Visen and Gaurav Malik - DogSpot is one of India's first dog websites. The owners, of course, are beaming with pride.
"I have been an extreme dog lover since childhood and my wife is equally interested in pets. Given this background, I evolved my passion into a business. Later, Shailesh and Gaurav came on board. This makes the core team of DogSpot," Rana Atheya told IANS.
What started as a hobby, in a span of three years, became one of the leaders in the online pet market, offering its unique services like dog dating and matrimony.
"We have a section called dog gallery, where you can showcase your pet and choose mates for your dogs. While building a dog profile, the user has an option to make the dog available for dating. Other users can browse by breed and select the dogs available," he says.
Pet owners would know how difficult it is to find a suitable female dog for mating. There are more male dogs than female ones. Hence the importance of this portal, says Atheya.
The site commands 17,000 unique hits every day and has 12,000 registered users, according to Google Analytics, the most widely used website statistics service.
The web portal also features experts who offer tips on rearing dogs.
"DogSpot works as a social networking platform, more than a portal. We frequently feature experts and conduct discussions, where users share, ask and advise as per their real life experiences with dogs. We believe this is the most scalable business model," he says.
"We interact with users regularly to understand their needs and issues. We also have regular meetings with dog enthusiasts at various events and have a feedback system in place where we let these people know once we bring a solution for them," he says.
DogSpot was also featured as a successful startup in the popular business magazine Outlook Money.
Even though the portal has grown substantially, Atheya is wary about competitors and is equally confident of his users.
"We believe that the opportunity is big enough for a handful of players. We believe in healthy competition, because that only helps us innovate and also expand the market.
"Over the past three years, we have collaborated with offline pet players like Kennel Club of India, Gurgaon Kennel Club and many others in the industry. We are digital partners to most of the big dog events. We believe that the pet industry is growing at a rapid pace. There is still a long way to go," he adds.
One can almost hear the pets bark in approval.
Source: Prantick Majumder/IANS
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