See the March issue of Business2.0 magazine for a great article by Tom McNichol about how we’ve been able to succeed on no budgets where Pets.com failed so spectacularly with millions. The online version is up at CNN Money.
Dogster has found a way to turn its mistakes into better features. With virtually no promotion, Dogster (along with sister site Catster.com, launched in August 2004) has become a leading social network for pet lovers, boasting more than 275,000 human members, 340,000 photos and profiles of dogs and cats, and a stable of blue-chip advertisers such as Disney (Charts), Holiday Inn, and Target (Charts).
Dogster has even done something Pets.com never came close to doing: it has turned a modest profit.
It’s true. We’ve made plenty of incorrect assumptions, but we made mistakes we could afford to make. Our goal was to make something that was enjoyed forever and around forever, which isn’t such a common mantra is the business world anymore. For years, we’ve been following the in-vogue strategy of failing fast, so we were making a monthly profit before we had even personally sunk in as much money as the average closing fees on a VC funding round.
I should point out the numbers are a bit out of date. We have 325,000 members, 365,000 dog and cat profiles and 1.8 million photos.
February 15th, my wife and I adopted an eight week old female chihuahua/terrier/dachshund mashup of a mutt from the San Francisco SPCA. Besides all the dogs that have added pages to Dogster, she has got to be the cutest dog on the planet and we love her madly. She’s already spent a good bit of time at Dogster HQ and even though she’s only 8 inches tall she’s real brave and gets along with all the dogs and bipeds.
Four years ago I really did get the idea for Dogster after noticing my wife (girlfriend at the time) was visiting rescue and adoption website to get her dog fix. While it would make her laugh to see the cute faces, it made her sad knowing that these dogs needed homes and she couldn’t give them one. We both lived in apartments at the time which did not allow dogs. I thought it was a shame there was no easy way for people to make websites for their own dogs, so I set out to make one. Four years later we finally have a landlord that agreed to our having a dog and her name is Moxie.
Adopting a dog from a shelter is very purposefully not easy. If I hadn’t been running Dogster I doubt I would have known that though there are hundreds of dogs in every city needing a forever home, shelters and rescue services are extremely careful about giving them away. After spending all that time helping a dog or cat out, the last thi they want is for it to ever be abandoned again. Their pet applications ask surprisingly personal questions such as “how will you ensure the animal’s health if you die” and “how much can you spend on your dog monthly.” There’s also going to be a fee of a couple hundred dollars to pay for the spaying/neutering, vaccines, and for the care of the animals they have that aren’t adopted. I recall a couple years ago thinking it was outrageous the SPCA charged $250 to adopt an unwanted dog. Yet when I wrote the check earlier this month it seemed too small.
I would also like to say a special thanks to Ken White and the excellent Peninsula Humane Society for helping us in our search. In the end we found Moxie at the SF SPCA just 15 blocks from where we live.
If you would like to find a shelter or rescue center near you, I would highly recommend using Dogster Local or Catster Local. Or if you already know great shelters that aren’t in our directory you could add them!
I‘m speaking later today at the VentureOutlook 2007 Conference in San Francisco. The conference’s mission is to “examine the key trends, technologies and business models attracting VC interest today, and the sectors and deals that will provide industry leading returns in the coming year.” So far the speakers and discussions have been lively and worthwhile. I’m an awful live blogger, but here are some impressions and quotes so far.
We have a crisis in the U.S. If you travel around the world and see R&D and technology developments, you’ll know there is a major math and science shortfall the US will suffer under.
Shane Robinson - EVP, CSO, CTO - Hewlett-Packard
We have developed internal sub-companies to oversee development of new products. They have their own executives, board of directors, benchmarks that have to be hit, etc., etc. We are replicating the fast-growth, fail-fast development model of the start-up, and it has been very successful.
Padmasree Warrior - EVP, CTO - Motorola
Public company boards seeking to be completely independent and in compliance will severely limit the actual guidance and support a board can offer. “Compliance Boards” vs. “Guidance Boards” are checklist boards that make sure everything is as it should be. Sounds good on paper, but the downside is that when there is a real problem, the board will not be able to offer strategical guidance, they will only be able to suggest what the lawyers and consultants say they can suggest. (paraphraed)
Thomas Perkins - Founder - Kleiners, Perkins Caufield & Byers, and recent Hewlett-Packard Board Member
We prefer contracting to the simplest terms possible due to the laws of unintended consequences.
Our hedge fund seeks to invest in late-stage private companies with an expectation that they will IPO and we buy shares and become the largest shareholder.
The average age of a start-up before it has a liquidity event is 6 years. In 2000 it was 2 years.
In a comparison of 25 home run hitting start-ups, not one took more than $10M from any single investor.
The more money you take the more you narrow your exit possibilities.
Companies that are not getting huge, but are not losing money should just keep their heads down and keep at it.
Be aggressive with your potential investors. Challenge them to adopt your understandings. Be thoughtful about shopping more broadly for a potential investor.
*The average age is over 40.
*The gender-diversity is near identical to tech-specific gatherings.
*I have not seen more ties worn since the last time I walked through Grand Central Station
*I don’t see any of the VCs that are active in the better web companies these days
*Blackberries and pen and paper are the tools of choice.
*Everyone knows the Dow is down 400 points at closing.
Ed note: If you’re not into coding PHP and MYSQL, you can just skip this one. Otherwise take heed.
If you make two consecutive calls in PHP to a MYSQL database using mysql_connect(), and both pass identical values for $server, $username, and $password, the second connection will not be established, it will silently use the existing one. It’s easy to force the second connection to establish by simply passing an optional boolean true as a fourth value to mysql_connect(), but dog have mercy on you if you don’t.
Twice last year I tried to move a sessions database from a dedicated server onto our newly built monster-sized primary database server, and twice I had to unmount it because I found database handlers were not pointing to the right database. Today we were testing a dev environment where mirrors of all our databases are mounted on a single server and we encountered the same problem again. But today Dog was merciful and sent us a blast of awareness as to why it was happening. And yea, with one quick trip tophp.net, it was there on the mysql_connect(), practically above fold, staring me right in the eye.
new_link
If a second call is made to mysql_connect() with the same arguments, no new link will be established, but instead, the link identifier of the already opened link will be returned. The new_link parameter modifies this behavior and makes mysql_connect() always open a new link, even if mysql_connect() was called before with the same parameters. In SQL safe mode, this parameter is ignored.
And there was great peace across the land. Dogmen!
Feb 27th I’ve been invited to speak on a panel entitled “The Race To Catch Madison Avenue’s Eye” as part of Dow Jones’ annual VentureOne Outlook Conference in San Francisco. The panel represents a very diverse group of companies (Dogster, Inc. is the only one doing anything close to “traditional” web advertising) so I’ve been looking forward to this for some time.
Wallstrip is a seriously funny video producer who take on a new stock each week. They convey serious facts in a very funny format.
They recently took on VCA Antech, a $100 million a year animal health company whose stock just broke $35 and whose stock ticker is WOOF. Wooftastic! The segment is hard biting! Wallstrip’s expert canine pundits are not to be missed.
John, Steven and I spent Saturday on Stanford’s campus at the CommunityNext conference which was an exceptionally well spent day.
We were asked us to convey the Dogster, Inc. story. We tried to sum up 3 years in 25 minutes, so we got right to the heart of what really mattered to us and what we think would matter to anyone doing something similar. It was to a packed house and the reviewswerequitefavorable.
You can download all our slides. They’re licensed under a Creative Commons agreement
The overall impression we got from the gathering is that we’re no longer a lone voice championing the merits of letting your community define what your service should be. We heard it again and again from Threadless, SuicideGirls, Fred Stutzman, even Heather Lutrell, the president of the advertising network IndieClick finds the best sites to connect their advertisers with are those that put their community first. We also got to spend some deep conversation time with amazing people, Biz Stone (twitter), Brian Oberkirch (like it matters), Eric Marcouillier (mybloglog), Markus Frind (plentyoffish.com, (he’s also our newest hero), Heather Champ (JPG), Scott Beale, (LaughingSquid), He-man Shah (Crazyegg), Mike Jones (Userplane), and CommunityNext organizer Noah Kagan.
We’ve very quietly released entirely new feature areas of our sites. They are Dogster Local and Catster Local and anyone can use them to add their favorite pet-related places in their area or find new ones. Dog parks, vets, walkers, boarders, sitters, pet-friendly bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. etc. etc.
Any member can write a review, mark it as one of their regular spots, add photos, rate reviews or bookmark it for later. There are still a couple more features (such as listing your regular spots on your pet page), improved international support and the addition of some more categories.
This is a huge step for Dogster & Catster. While we are great at connecting people all over the world, but being able to support each locally has been a challenge. But not anymore. If someone wants to find a vet in their new town not only can they get names, addresses and phone numbers, they can know what other pet lovers experiences were and even meet and talk with them if they want.
It just went live last week so it’s likely you won’t find that many listings in your areas. The flip-side is that you can have the pleasure of adding your favorite (or despised ;) local places and hear what others think.
As our regular reader, we wanted to make sure you stay in the dog nose.
Michael truly has the hero’s instinct, six years ago he saved a woman by jumping in San Francisco Bay smashing through the rear window of a submerged car and pulling her out.
An account has been established at Wells Fargo Bank to support Michael through his rehabilitation. To make a contribution to support Michael, you may:
Visit any Wells Fargo Bank and ask to contribute to the Michael J. Keenan Support Fund and they will be able to assist you.
Send a check made payable to the Michael J Keenan Support Fund to:
Ms. Sue Ryan
Personal Banking Manager
Wells Fargo Bank
3431 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94118
Make a contribution via PayPal by logging onto www.paypal.com. Enter supportmichael [at] acieventgroup [dot] com as the recipient’s email.
Should you have any thoughts that you would like to share or any questions, you can email supportmichael [at] acieventgroup [dot] com.
Warmest regards,
The Friends and Family of Michael Keenan
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About Dogster, Inc.
When we started Dogster and Catster we never had any idea we could help so many dog and cat owners and guardians find their internet nirvana or just an answer to a quick question. Four years later it's as seriously fun as ever running Dogster, Inc., and being one of the largest pet destinations on the web.
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Adopting a dog from a shelter is very purposefully not easy. If I hadn’t been running Dogster I doubt I would have known that though there are hundreds of dogs in every city needing a forever home, shelters and rescue services are extremely careful about giving them away. After spending all that time helping a dog or cat out, the last thi they want is for it to ever be abandoned again. Their pet applications ask surprisingly personal questions such as “how will you ensure the animal’s health if you die” and “how much can you spend on your dog monthly.” There’s also going to be a fee of a couple hundred dollars to pay for the spaying/neutering, vaccines, and for the care of the animals they have that aren’t adopted. I recall a couple years ago thinking it was outrageous the SPCA charged $250 to adopt an unwanted dog. Yet when I wrote the check earlier this month it seemed too small.
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Old friend Heather Havrilesky sent this message from her dog 
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