The Exchanges

Q So we're, I, I imagine you looked at a lot of different areas of opportunity. There's pet insurance, there are other directions you could go. What, what became the idea that led to, to Modern Animal?

A About 20 18 is when I started to see what was a pretty clear picture in my mind of what the future of veterinary care should look like. We're not going to go backwards into a world where every veterinary practice is owned by the veterinarian. Um, and so if we could, I think that's probably a better future going backwards, but that's not how the world works. So if we're looking forward, well, what role does technology have? How might we actually achieve that relationship that I wanted to build with the whistle between the veterinarian and the pet owner? Um, and so a lot of these pieces started coming together. And so the vision was, um, let's use technology. Let's build a brand that people can trust, and let's build this thing from scratch to bring the pet owner and the veterinarian together to streamline the work and the practice so that this very difficult job a veterinarian can do with more ease, more consistency, um, the pet owner has more transparency, more accessibility, and how might we create an alternative future for this industry that is not purely a value extraction Private equity roll-up game. It would require long-term focus. It would require capital, and it would require, you know, I think the wherewithal to sustain what is a difficult business.

AI assessment note: “the vision was, um, let's use technology. Let's build a brand”

Q You, you want money? Ask for advice. Um, what exactly was the opportunity? I mean, I, I appreciate it's, it's bringing the, the, the vet care and the customer, the pet owner together, but, but just still still a little bit for us. What, what was the concept?

A So at the most like emotional level, I would say is to bring humanity back to veterinary medicine. It's to that human relationship. The animal is the beneficiary of the strength and the trust that that relationship, uh, is, is founded on. So what will Enable that. For us, it was, you know, really controlling the environment that the doctor works in, um, providing 24 seven access to the pet owner, um, whether that be to the information, the pet's medical record, history, to telemedicine, to triage, to just support, um, but then also making it much more sustainable for the veterinarian. If we go back to, like, who is the person who becomes a veterinarian, right? Someone who deeply cares About the animal. And they're put into this environment where ironically they have to deal with people who are more likely to yell at them than they are to their own doctor. Um, they have to negotiate costs. They're dealing with this broad range of care, right? And that's hard.

AI assessment note: “providing 24 seven access to the pet owner, um, whether that be to the information”

Q So Stephen, how, how do you make it better for the vet? How do you, how do you make that experience better for them? And how do you build a business around that?

A It used to be that you'd have typically male, uh, veterinarian who would buy his own practice or build it. Um, Run it for many years and then eventually sell it. Maybe to an associate veterinarian who worked with, with him typically. Um, now the cost of doing that because of so much private equity money that's come in is unattainable for a veterinarian to buy their boss's practice. Uh, and the, the challenge of coming out of school, having now a lot of debt as the cost of schooling has gone up dramatically. So For us, when we started the business, we said, okay, great. We, we're going to build a better experience with a pet owner. That's easy for me. Just as an entrepreneur, I know what I would want, but for the veterinarian, that was from spending a ton of time with them and going, you know, watching them day in and day out do that work. And it's a mess. So how do we clean up the mess? What can we use technology for to streamline the work, to, um, automate the work, to eliminate, uh, some of the redundancy or the admin work, um, to create a deeper relationship with the pet owner. So when they come in, they don't, Assume that you're out to rip them off, right?

AI assessment note: “What can we use technology for to streamline the work, to, um, automate the work”

Q Okay. So, so what exactly was Whistle and, and how, how did you get it off the ground?

A So Whistle was the idea that we want to connect the pet, uh, the pet owner with the veterinarian. And so what's the best way to do that? Because the veterinarian used to always be the most trusted resource if you're, if you're a pet owner. And this was around the time where we're starting to now Google everything. Right. And in parallel, the veterinarian sort of losing that sway and that role of influence. And so we thought, hey, let's capture this valuable data. And, you know, we're dreaming big. We're thinking we're going to put a device on an animal. We're going to be able to tell everything that's going on with them. Right. Uh, whether or not the technology existed at the time is a separate, separate, uh, point, but, uh, that was the vision we put, put a device on. Capture all this information and translate it for the veterinarian so that there's this connection between the veterinarian and the, and the client, the pet owner, uh, when they're at home.

AI assessment note: “Whistle was the idea that we want to connect the pet, uh, the pet owner”