[Applause]
thank you for that
and he’s indeed my name is reka and I’m
the founder for my doggy and bio my
doggy it’s an online platform where we
connect dog owners with dog Boris for
the boys to take care of dogs and this
can be for walk or for weekend or for a
holiday and I’m here to talk a little
bit about how we got started but
building the company based on passion
and some of the learnings along the way
so dog started almost 5 years ago when I
bought a very cute brown Labrador called
Aston and was that the entire day in
parks together and I remember thinking
why are people spending so much money on
dog walkers or kennels all giving their
dog home alone well I would love to take
care of a dog for free and I thought
there should be a website and where
local dog Boris would meet local people
like me and for Boris to help take care
of dogs because this would benefit
everyone dogs would get more love and
attention owners would get some help
from other dog lovers when they couldn’t
be with own dogs
and then I was boys would get the happy
dog time so after that I told one of my
friends about the idea and listen did
you know that around 60 to 70 percent of
startup companies go bust within the
first three to four years so he said it
might be that you want to borrow dogs
but why don’t you go and actually verify
and figure out if there is other people
who have the same problem and the same
needs as you do so he recommended our
joined a start-up weekend and the whole
concept with this weekend was to testing
out ideas so to give an example say for
instance 15 years ago that somebody
wanted to test if people wanted to buy
shoes online so what you could do is
obviously you could go to Italy find a
shoe maker and buy some shoes server
websites that promoting it and then from
there figuring out if the idea worked or
not the alternative thing you could do
is you could go down to your local shoe
shop you can buy say 15 pairs of shoes
take photos of them upload them on a web
site and then if people click my shoes
then you can almost run down to your
local shoe shop buy that pair of shoes
and and send them off so actually and
the whole concept is that you can test
something the very little funding and in
very little time without giving up your
job or spending a lot of money on it so
I joined the Startup Weekend and I
pitched the idea and in the room there
was a lot of people who thought there
was a good idea so we started working on
it and we set up a landing page and
started promoting it and especially we
hung upholstered posters in Hampstead
Heath so in local parks from here and
then the most amazing thing happened
which was that 85 people signed up in a
space of three days and it was literally
everything from an old man down in
Cornwell who just had an operation and
needing help were taking his dog for
long walks and there was also student
who now lived in a dorm in London
missing her dogs at home and then she
really wanted to spend time with one so
she signed over Zipporah and then
finally there was a family with a little
girl who was begging for a dog but she
was still scared of dogs and the family
didn’t want to get one to maybe have to
give it up because that clearly wouldn’t
be fair to the dog and when I read that
story I literally just started crying
and I thought oh my god not another
little girl without a dog because I’ve
always wanted a dog and we were not able
to have one mainly because my mom is
allergic to dogs
so I thought here there’s a little girl
we can help her so it became a very
personal mission for me to begin with
and I must admit I was really amazed
over the passion that there was out
there for for the love of dogs and also
even wanting to borrow dogs and I
realized that the problem it was that a
lot of dog owners can’t spend 24 hours a
day with their dog because a family
commitments a work or travel and dog
camp is expensive and there’s also a lot
of dog owners that go through life
changes this could be friends this just
having had a baby and needing some help
or due to old age needing some help and
or even going through some family
changes
finally lots of us bars we can’t have
our own dog because of maybe the place
where we live or financials or maybe not
even have enough time to have our dog so
after that obviously we had the first
members who’d signed up and we really
wanted to match them up but there wasn’t
any back-end yet to to do them the
matching so what we did was we
relaunched the website and we put in
additional Terms and Conditions and
Privacy Policy and FAQ so the various
things that you would expect a website
to have and then after that I’d
literally started manually matching
people so what I did was I looked at the
people we had signed up looked at a
postcode and tried to figure out where
there was a bar and an owner within
proximity of each other where we thought
there would be a good match and then as
part of their getting to know each other
process like what I would do is I would
most of our members I would even go and
visit them in person I would have Skype
calls with them this also to verify all
our members and really to understand
what their problems were and there was a
lot of emails involved I think whenever
we had the process of in running it was
around 55 emails to get one manually
matched so it was quite time intensive
and then once we found a match what we
would do is we would introduce them and
they would meet and agree just like you
would do with the dog sitter baby sitter
for that matter so it was really around
people getting to know each other well
locally and I was is very important to
emphasize at this part of board my doggy
that there was absolutely no money
involved this was really about just
finding a solution that would work well
for our members and really just just try
to you know to make them as happy as we
possibly could so the next thing that
happened was um I would not put Drake
with one of my friends and she asked me
if Bora my doggy was like yet and I said
yes indeed it is and she said can I
signed up and I went but of course you
can and then she went home signed off
and then she hit that little sweet
button which is fantastic so what
happened was she has a lot of fun to us
and one of her followers is a person who
writes for the mo street so she picked
up the story and then on
because of us having that story I think
we had about a thousand people signed up
in the space of 24 hours so that made my
manually matching a whole lot easier
because I obviously had many more
members on the platform and then on the
back of that we got contacted by the PPC
the Daily Mail and independent now with
having over a thousand members on our
platform
clearly my manually matching there
wasn’t very feasible anymore so what we
did was we went out and decided to do
fundraising and to get the website up
and launched and we lost the website in
October 2013 so the way boy my doggy
works is people sign up they create a
profile and they will write a little bit
about themselves or their dog and
including upload very cute dog photos
and then from there people go in and
search for the members base first and
foremost on location and then
availability and then they read each
other’s profiles and then once you found
someone you really like to meet up with
you message each other and then you meet
an agreed just like you would do with a
dog sitter or a babysitter and the
business model behind for my doggy it is
an annual subscription and what we do is
we verify all of our members everyone
has access to a 24/7 bed line and
everyone is covered by various degrees
of insurance – another really key thing
about em about building born my doggy
was really to find out the why behind it
so there’s an excellent video by a guy
called type simon Sinek and which is
called how great leaders inspire and
highly recommend to watch it and it
really talks about finding out the why
of the business so why is it that you
have started up what you have started as
a company and for me and I started
thinking about the background of our
company and I thought well we have
borrowers and we have owners and then we
have dogs and what do they all have in
common
we’ll only sign up because they want
their dog to be as happy as possible and
get extra love and attention from the
borås perspective it’s about getting
that happy dog time and then finally
with dogs is really about getting more
love and attention and exercise so
saying everyone has in common is to
happiness components and then I thought
why am i doing this versus working on
something else and then my background is
my family they are they are very much
believers and we should all make a
difference and that includes every
involved in rotary works and local
community works and even various
different levels of charity work and
then myself but I used to do disaster
relief work I’ve mentor kids from
troubled backgrounds so I really
strongly believe that we all should make
a positive difference on other people’s
lives and dogs lives so the happiness
was the component that that we really
wanted to shine across and as pas de
bourree my doggy and once we had that
well then it was all about getting it
across in our members stories so we love
telling our members stories and even
when we have the lucky opportunity to
friends to speak with the media what we
do first and foremost is just we
literally introduce them to our members
to tell how that how well my doggy or
actually how local communities has made
a difference on their lives it’s it’s
very important to emphasize while we are
platform it’s really all about our
members they’re the one matching up
they’re the ones trusting each other and
they’re the ones you know spreading paw
prints of happiness on each other’s
lives to give you some examples of our
lovely community so the first one you
have here is still Marian and Charlie
and Marian she actually worked supported
by doggie now so and Marian is a
part-time students and obviously goes on
holidays once in a while too so jus her
takes care of of Charlie whenever Marian
is for instance on holidays and I think
Marian now calls her her honorary granny
which is really lovely so they’ve built
an incredible friendship and the next
one you have is Nick Katherine and Otto
so we have a lot of our members and our
platform where on one part of the street
you have a family who just had a baby
and needing some extra help and then on
the other part of the street you have a
family with a little son who is begging
for a dog and then one family and so
boring the other families dog maybe a
few days after school every single week
and then finally you have any Stephanie
or Moxie and where I next he went on her
honeymoon and got married in Australia
Stephanie ended up taking care of Roxy
for six weeks but obviously before that
and Stephanie took care of Roxy they had
known each other for a long time so Roxy
knew Stephanie incredibly well and then
we do always respect all of our stories
across social media too so we love
sharing them on whether it’s Facebook or
Instagram or Pinterest for that matter
and finally to get the passion across to
it’s important that this is impact of
people who are very very passionate
about making a difference to the lives
of dogs and people so you know office
obviously we have lots of dogs
lots of our our team members for dogs
into the office and and as part of even
the whole interview process it’s very
important that we see that element of
passion in in the team so finally some
key learnings across the way I
definitely learned that you can easily
test an idea with very little budget so
easily test a passion with with little
budget and also I think it’s really
important to actually speak with
customers or potential customers and
finding out what their pain points are
and really build something around their
lives that will improve them and finally
the last point is to build something
that you’re really passionate about and
because obviously as an entrepreneur
there’s lots of early mornings and late
nights so doing something that you can’t
wait to get out of bed 1:00 in the
morning is fantastic and then finally as
for stated earlier to the world is
absolutely full of lovely people whether
it is in the startup world with helping
you get something going or likewise you
know our lovely community who has helped
us by giving us so much feedback from
day one and by building up or a my doggy
so again like I can really just
recommend you know reaching out speaking
with people and do something that you’re
very passionate about thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you for that
and he’s indeed my name is reka and I’m
the founder for my doggy and bio my
doggy it’s an online platform where we
connect dog owners with dog Boris for
the boys to take care of dogs and this
can be for walk or for weekend or for a
holiday and I’m here to talk a little
bit about how we got started but
building the company based on passion
and some of the learnings along the way
so dog started almost 5 years ago when I
bought a very cute brown Labrador called
Aston and was that the entire day in
parks together and I remember thinking
why are people spending so much money on
dog walkers or kennels all giving their
dog home alone well I would love to take
care of a dog for free and I thought
there should be a website and where
local dog Boris would meet local people
like me and for Boris to help take care
of dogs because this would benefit
everyone dogs would get more love and
attention owners would get some help
from other dog lovers when they couldn’t
be with own dogs
and then I was boys would get the happy
dog time so after that I told one of my
friends about the idea and listen did
you know that around 60 to 70 percent of
startup companies go bust within the
first three to four years so he said it
might be that you want to borrow dogs
but why don’t you go and actually verify
and figure out if there is other people
who have the same problem and the same
needs as you do so he recommended our
joined a start-up weekend and the whole
concept with this weekend was to testing
out ideas so to give an example say for
instance 15 years ago that somebody
wanted to test if people wanted to buy
shoes online so what you could do is
obviously you could go to Italy find a
shoe maker and buy some shoes server
websites that promoting it and then from
there figuring out if the idea worked or
not the alternative thing you could do
is you could go down to your local shoe
shop you can buy say 15 pairs of shoes
take photos of them upload them on a web
site and then if people click my shoes
then you can almost run down to your
local shoe shop buy that pair of shoes
and and send them off so actually and
the whole concept is that you can test
something the very little funding and in
very little time without giving up your
job or spending a lot of money on it so
I joined the Startup Weekend and I
pitched the idea and in the room there
was a lot of people who thought there
was a good idea so we started working on
it and we set up a landing page and
started promoting it and especially we
hung upholstered posters in Hampstead
Heath so in local parks from here and
then the most amazing thing happened
which was that 85 people signed up in a
space of three days and it was literally
everything from an old man down in
Cornwell who just had an operation and
needing help were taking his dog for
long walks and there was also student
who now lived in a dorm in London
missing her dogs at home and then she
really wanted to spend time with one so
she signed over Zipporah and then
finally there was a family with a little
girl who was begging for a dog but she
was still scared of dogs and the family
didn’t want to get one to maybe have to
give it up because that clearly wouldn’t
be fair to the dog and when I read that
story I literally just started crying
and I thought oh my god not another
little girl without a dog because I’ve
always wanted a dog and we were not able
to have one mainly because my mom is
allergic to dogs
so I thought here there’s a little girl
we can help her so it became a very
personal mission for me to begin with
and I must admit I was really amazed
over the passion that there was out
there for for the love of dogs and also
even wanting to borrow dogs and I
realized that the problem it was that a
lot of dog owners can’t spend 24 hours a
day with their dog because a family
commitments a work or travel and dog
camp is expensive and there’s also a lot
of dog owners that go through life
changes this could be friends this just
having had a baby and needing some help
or due to old age needing some help and
or even going through some family
changes
finally lots of us bars we can’t have
our own dog because of maybe the place
where we live or financials or maybe not
even have enough time to have our dog so
after that obviously we had the first
members who’d signed up and we really
wanted to match them up but there wasn’t
any back-end yet to to do them the
matching so what we did was we
relaunched the website and we put in
additional Terms and Conditions and
Privacy Policy and FAQ so the various
things that you would expect a website
to have and then after that I’d
literally started manually matching
people so what I did was I looked at the
people we had signed up looked at a
postcode and tried to figure out where
there was a bar and an owner within
proximity of each other where we thought
there would be a good match and then as
part of their getting to know each other
process like what I would do is I would
most of our members I would even go and
visit them in person I would have Skype
calls with them this also to verify all
our members and really to understand
what their problems were and there was a
lot of emails involved I think whenever
we had the process of in running it was
around 55 emails to get one manually
matched so it was quite time intensive
and then once we found a match what we
would do is we would introduce them and
they would meet and agree just like you
would do with the dog sitter baby sitter
for that matter so it was really around
people getting to know each other well
locally and I was is very important to
emphasize at this part of board my doggy
that there was absolutely no money
involved this was really about just
finding a solution that would work well
for our members and really just just try
to you know to make them as happy as we
possibly could so the next thing that
happened was um I would not put Drake
with one of my friends and she asked me
if Bora my doggy was like yet and I said
yes indeed it is and she said can I
signed up and I went but of course you
can and then she went home signed off
and then she hit that little sweet
button which is fantastic so what
happened was she has a lot of fun to us
and one of her followers is a person who
writes for the mo street so she picked
up the story and then on
because of us having that story I think
we had about a thousand people signed up
in the space of 24 hours so that made my
manually matching a whole lot easier
because I obviously had many more
members on the platform and then on the
back of that we got contacted by the PPC
the Daily Mail and independent now with
having over a thousand members on our
platform
clearly my manually matching there
wasn’t very feasible anymore so what we
did was we went out and decided to do
fundraising and to get the website up
and launched and we lost the website in
October 2013 so the way boy my doggy
works is people sign up they create a
profile and they will write a little bit
about themselves or their dog and
including upload very cute dog photos
and then from there people go in and
search for the members base first and
foremost on location and then
availability and then they read each
other’s profiles and then once you found
someone you really like to meet up with
you message each other and then you meet
an agreed just like you would do with a
dog sitter or a babysitter and the
business model behind for my doggy it is
an annual subscription and what we do is
we verify all of our members everyone
has access to a 24/7 bed line and
everyone is covered by various degrees
of insurance – another really key thing
about em about building born my doggy
was really to find out the why behind it
so there’s an excellent video by a guy
called type simon Sinek and which is
called how great leaders inspire and
highly recommend to watch it and it
really talks about finding out the why
of the business so why is it that you
have started up what you have started as
a company and for me and I started
thinking about the background of our
company and I thought well we have
borrowers and we have owners and then we
have dogs and what do they all have in
common
we’ll only sign up because they want
their dog to be as happy as possible and
get extra love and attention from the
borås perspective it’s about getting
that happy dog time and then finally
with dogs is really about getting more
love and attention and exercise so
saying everyone has in common is to
happiness components and then I thought
why am i doing this versus working on
something else and then my background is
my family they are they are very much
believers and we should all make a
difference and that includes every
involved in rotary works and local
community works and even various
different levels of charity work and
then myself but I used to do disaster
relief work I’ve mentor kids from
troubled backgrounds so I really
strongly believe that we all should make
a positive difference on other people’s
lives and dogs lives so the happiness
was the component that that we really
wanted to shine across and as pas de
bourree my doggy and once we had that
well then it was all about getting it
across in our members stories so we love
telling our members stories and even
when we have the lucky opportunity to
friends to speak with the media what we
do first and foremost is just we
literally introduce them to our members
to tell how that how well my doggy or
actually how local communities has made
a difference on their lives it’s it’s
very important to emphasize while we are
platform it’s really all about our
members they’re the one matching up
they’re the ones trusting each other and
they’re the ones you know spreading paw
prints of happiness on each other’s
lives to give you some examples of our
lovely community so the first one you
have here is still Marian and Charlie
and Marian she actually worked supported
by doggie now so and Marian is a
part-time students and obviously goes on
holidays once in a while too so jus her
takes care of of Charlie whenever Marian
is for instance on holidays and I think
Marian now calls her her honorary granny
which is really lovely so they’ve built
an incredible friendship and the next
one you have is Nick Katherine and Otto
so we have a lot of our members and our
platform where on one part of the street
you have a family who just had a baby
and needing some extra help and then on
the other part of the street you have a
family with a little son who is begging
for a dog and then one family and so
boring the other families dog maybe a
few days after school every single week
and then finally you have any Stephanie
or Moxie and where I next he went on her
honeymoon and got married in Australia
Stephanie ended up taking care of Roxy
for six weeks but obviously before that
and Stephanie took care of Roxy they had
known each other for a long time so Roxy
knew Stephanie incredibly well and then
we do always respect all of our stories
across social media too so we love
sharing them on whether it’s Facebook or
Instagram or Pinterest for that matter
and finally to get the passion across to
it’s important that this is impact of
people who are very very passionate
about making a difference to the lives
of dogs and people so you know office
obviously we have lots of dogs
lots of our our team members for dogs
into the office and and as part of even
the whole interview process it’s very
important that we see that element of
passion in in the team so finally some
key learnings across the way I
definitely learned that you can easily
test an idea with very little budget so
easily test a passion with with little
budget and also I think it’s really
important to actually speak with
customers or potential customers and
finding out what their pain points are
and really build something around their
lives that will improve them and finally
the last point is to build something
that you’re really passionate about and
because obviously as an entrepreneur
there’s lots of early mornings and late
nights so doing something that you can’t
wait to get out of bed 1:00 in the
morning is fantastic and then finally as
for stated earlier to the world is
absolutely full of lovely people whether
it is in the startup world with helping
you get something going or likewise you
know our lovely community who has helped
us by giving us so much feedback from
day one and by building up or a my doggy
so again like I can really just
recommend you know reaching out speaking
with people and do something that you’re
very passionate about thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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