PURR-FECTING THE GAME: HOW MEOWTEL BECAME THE CAT'S MEOW IN PET SITTING

Whenever there’s a flurry of media attention on a startup, all eyes in the pet business turn. It’s not often that a team manages to crowdsource a platform specifically for cats. Meowtel, a cat-sitting app, has found a lonely spot in the pet-care realm, an industry that has always catered more to the dynamic life of the dog. But Meowtel, besides being a way for cat owners to make some extra money by watching cats, is a story of ingenuity, perseverance and feline devotion – of how one company started something that’s crucially needed, and is now finally embraced as the purr‑perfect cat-care solution. Here’s how.

THE PURR-OBLEM WITH PET SITTING

For years, indebted to the dog’s louder bark, cat owners have quietly felt like second-class pets. The numbers from the American Pet Products Association indicate that, while dogs may currently be populous kings (65.1 million US households with one of them), cats aren’t far behind (46.5 million). But when it comes to pet product innovation, it’s often as if cats carry the tail of their canine friends.

The gap was brought home to Sonya Petcavich, founder of Meowtel, when her cat Lily died. ‘I’m constantly travelling and always on the road for work, and I was worrying about whether Lily wanted for more,’ she says. Petcavich ran into trouble when she tried to hire a pet-sitter for Lily through services she found online. The most prominent were for dogs, and they were intrusive for a cat. ‘They wanted in the home, and I didn’t feel comfortable with that,’ she says. ‘There needed to be a service for cat people. They’re very different with their needs.

THE BIRTH OF MEOWTEL: A TAIL OF INNOVATION

Back in 2015, armed with $100,000 of her own savings and a ‘rabid team of developers’, Petcavich launched Meowtel. ‘While all of the other pet-sitting platforms are focused on all pets,’ she said, ‘We narrowed in on one and did it right.’ Meowtel’s mission is simple and straightforward: ‘We take cats seriously.’ Their sitters might be there to slip a cat a pill or two, or to care for a senior cat or one with a chronic illness that requires more constant tending. Meowtel sitters know how to sling litter. They also know how to cuddle your cat in their lap and stare into their soul. Before a person gets to be a Meowtel sitter, they have to go through a rigorous vetting process. That culminates with a chat with the Meowtel team – a kind of trust-building measure. ‘It’s easier to get into Harvard than to be a Meowtel sitter,’ jokes Petcavich.

STEALTH MODE TO SPOTLIGHT: MEOWTEL'S JOURNEY TO SUCCESS

For the first nine years, Meowtel flew under the radar, fine-tuning its user experience and trying to build a brand cat parents trusted as much as they trusted their own children. Itinerant felines no longer looked like an insurmountable obstacle. Now it’s a kitty on the cusp, a veritable cat-sitter ninja boasting a kitty of more than 2,200 sitters, fulfilling more than 95,000 sitting requests, and with a paw print on major US cities and many more to come. To put icing on the metaphorical cake, Meowtel was profitable, and did almost the entire thing with virtually no venture capital, an achievement that should grant it sainthood in the tech startup pantheon.

THE VC HURDLE: LEAPING TOWARDS FUNDING

Pitching a cat business to venture capitalists was no easy task. Like the pet industry it sought to conquer, the venture world was dog-centric. But in the end, Meowtel raised nearly $1 million, from investors such as Jason Calacanis’ Launch, Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund and others. ‘I believe in this marketplace model for cat sitting. I believe it’s a venture-backable thing,’ Petcavich told himself. ‘I just need to live long enough to convince somebody that it is.’

INNOVATION IN CAT CARE: MEOWTEL LEADING THE CHARGE

While dog-focused pet tech has been surging – from startups providing gourmet food to health monitors all the way to video companionship on demand – cats haven’t come along for the ride. Despite this apparent failure to imagine technological advancements for cats, few people laughed when Yossarian took the floor. Almost everyone has a story...