 All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Joe, the founder of Dutch. Thanks for joining. Before we get into this, I want everyone to know we're using Riverside. Nick and I have been trying to figure out the best platform for doing these video teleconferences, podcasting, and we haven't found anything. We've been a fan of Riverside for a long time. And Joe, I'm happy to announce you're our first guest using Riverside. And I think, I think this is going to be the new platform we use moving forward when it comes to remote pods. But Joe, tell us what your company does. Sure. Thanks for having me on. So Dutch, Dutch.com, we are a leading veterinary health care platform. Basically, we make it super easy for pet parents to see a veterinarian right away. Most of the time people find us because their pet is having an emergency and we're there within an hour. You can talk to a vet about your pet's issues. And what made you want to start the company? What was like the problem you saw on the market? Maybe you have a pet yourself. What was the thing where you were like, OK, this is the time to do it and this is the way to do it? So prior to Dutch, I was co-founder of Hims & Hers, which is a direct to consumer company on the human side. And as a co-founder, I set up our operations pharmacy. Once the pandemic hit, so many Americans got a pandemic puppy. And as I started to go through the process, I realized that veterinary health care is completely behind human health care in ways I never imagined. And as I started to look further into it, just realized there is just not an easy telemedicine solution for pet parents at all. At least here in California, there's AB1399 that was passed, which probably unlocked a lot of things for you. But walk me through when you first had the idea and then you're pitching this maybe to some investors, obviously. And what are some of the main things you're getting? What are the questions, the concerns? I think everyone understands a couple of things. One, we know there's been a lot of people have gotten pets during the pandemic, so we know there's going to be a demand. What were some of the challenges that maybe an investor would have asked you as you were going through your journey around? Why now? Why this legislation? So when I first was fundraising, this was two years prior to California legislation changing. I definitely received a lot of rejections because anyone who started to look through the state by state law, and especially if they didn't have the surgical familiarity with how all this works, I think many of them did pass because they would have said, wait a minute, we've not human telemedicine advances and none of this caught up in vet care. Like, why is this guy going to do it? And then I think the other problem is also Dutch right now is doing things that have never been done before, and it's the largest player in the space. But up until we actually did it, most people looked and said, well, a bunch of people have tried, hasn't really worked. And so, yeah, the pet space might be big, but I'm just not sure that this is something that is going to be successful. So for sure, we had lots of rejection because of the ability to execute at the end of the day was a concern. Walk me through your, I guess, your first initial offering when you came on to the scene. What was the one thing you guys were specialized on? What problem were you solving? A lot of what I did was inspired from things I did at Hymns, which was a mistake, actually. The first couple areas we focused on were pet anxiety, so dogs who bark and go crazy, and then allergies. So that's when your cat or dog get a rash. So we really just had those two items as solutions. And similar to Hymns, we had an all-in pricing for pet anxiety and all-in pricing for pet allergy. And we actually realized that was not the right way to go to market at all, because in so many ways, pets are different than humans, but that was a go-to market in the first six months of Dutch. I was recently at a, this is going to sound crazy, but I was at a party and there was a farm, someone working in pharmaceuticals there in Germany. And she was telling me how they're working on specifically like a pill that pets can take that's almost like a flea tick collar, and it protects them for six months to a year. They're working on the efficacy of it, but they're pretty close. And so the way she, you know, this is sort of the other side of the sort of the problem you guys are solving, where everything is becoming more approachable. But it was interesting because she was like, this is something that is a real focus for huge, massive pharmaceutical companies, and they're going to partner with companies like yours in an effort to just in a simple way create, okay, this is the issue, maybe brand new puppy, great, let's get, this is the pill. How much time do you spend, like, obviously you have to get your customers, you have to get your pet owners, but how much time do you spend on that side of it, on sort of the discovery, the research of what drugs are coming to market and the efficacy of that? I think that a lot of times the beauty is pet parents love to talk, so we certainly learn a lot from them. And then we have pretty amazing advisors in each of the categories that we focus on. So we have behaviorists or certified allergy veterinarians. So I think we learn, you know, the greatest from them. I think one thing that's actually been interesting in this business is how much the pharmaceutical companies are extremely protective of brick and mortar veterinarian as a channel. It's not something I encountered in human healthcare at all. And frankly, it smells of protectionism and antitrust, but it's been really interesting to see how much the big pharma players are actually wanting to keep everything inside of a brick and mortar system. And it certainly doesn't follow, you know, our number one value, which is putting pets first, because in human healthcare, a doctor doesn't care where you get your medicine, you know, as long as you're taking care of. And that's been really a huge difference here that's been really surprising and eye-opening for me. Give people a window. So if people are listening and they're thinking, okay, I have a pet, you know, maybe I have pet insurance but I haven't dabbled into the world of telehealth, sort of walk them through how they sign up, where they find you, pricing, and then, yeah, tell them just like the customer journey that in your head is a perfect case. What have you seen success with? Interestingly enough, almost half of the folks who come to Dutch actually don't have a veterinarian at all or haven't seen one in many years. And what's happening, or even if they do, because it can take so long to see a veterinarian, the veterinarian may have told them to wait a week or two before coming in. And what'll happen is that rash went from not great to bad and the animal is, you know, kind of crying. And the pet parent is now deciding, do I go to urgent care where I'm gonna have to spend a thousand bucks or what else can I do? And they're on Google searching for stuff and that's where they find Dutch. We've invested a lot into SEO content that's reviewed by veterinarians. And so they are likely to find one of our articles and that's how they'll first discover Dutch. And so what they're able to do is that if they go to Dutch.com, they can sign up for a membership. Our membership, once people find us, it's probably like their best day ever, their biggest lottery ticket that they just found because it costs $11 a month for up to five pets. And that's gonna be, you know, you're about to spend a thousand bucks at urgent care. So again, this is your best day ever. So for 11 bucks a month, you sign up, you put in your pet information and you schedule a call with a veterinarian in your state. So if you're in California, you'd see a California veterinarian and most of the veterinarians are available within 30 minutes to an hour. So within 30 minutes to an hour, you're having a video call just like this with a vet who takes, you know, your pet's medical history and they're able to, to the extent they can, you know, assess what's going on. And the beauty, you know, certainly besides the pet parent, they can actually talk to a real vet right away. But also, you know, the animal is in their home. So they're not having to be dragged into necessarily a vet's office, especially if they're, you know, hurting right now. And through video, you can sort of try to understand what's going on. And then from there, the vet could say, okay, you know, here's a first course of treatment to try and, you know, we have a partner pharmacy that can send medications or we can send a medication to your local drugstore pharmacy for you to pick up. So you're able to get in touch with someone right away. So that's kind of the magical experience of Dutch. I hadn't considered the part where you say the pet can stay at home. I mean, that's kind of amazing. I hadn't actually considered that. I mean, it's like a, I mean, no child likes to go to the dentist. I'm sure no dog, I mean, I had a dog growing up and just taking the dog to the groomer was sometimes, you know, the dog did not enjoy that. Do you have a call center? Do you have to do it state by state? Because of the legislation, how does it work in terms of what people aren't seeing, the behind the scenes of the vets? You know, we have a pretty highly curated vet network where we go through a background check, like, you know, of course license check, but also a lot of training as well because this is kind of a new field for veterinarians. I should also say, you know, on the veterinarian side, this is a boon for them as well. One thing I didn't know is veterinarians have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession in this country because it's a pretty stressful job. People who get into vet care love animals with a passion. And oftentimes you're having to make hard decisions. Veterinarians don't get paid that much according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you can believe it, the average vet makes $100,000 a year, which is crazy considering that they went through almost, you know, the same amount of medical school as a doctor and have typically hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And they are often in a world where people have to wait two weeks to see them. So by the time people show up, they're quite frustrated and angry. And so they're having to deal with that. And oftentimes they work 10-hour shifts, four days a week, you know, on their feet. So the fact that we as a telemedicine company can provide veterinarians an opportunity to have a flexible schedule, work from the comfort and safety of their own home, I think many vets are extremely happy to have this as an option. And so behind the scenes, again, we have this, you know, curated network, but also we're making sure that because it's all digital, we can make sure that the vets are responding quickly, that the vets are available when we have demand. So demand planning can be done better and we get reviews from the customer of the vets' bedside banners. So it continues to help ensure that we're promoting the higher quality vets on our network. We'll continue to train them. All the videos are recorded so that again we can do further quality control that way. But it's been interesting. So California went live January 1st and already, you know, we brought on 15 veterinarians onto the platform. And it's been pretty cool to see the demand, not just from consumers, but from vets in California who wanna be part of this new wave of that telemedicine. I was gonna ask you. So, I mean, you're kinda seeing this in real time where it's almost like legislation changes and so you can get all these new customers per se. So how many vets have you treated just in California based on this new, I know it's early, I know we're still in January. Can you give us some numbers or some growth that excites you? So prior to, it's become in the, certainly in the first two weeks that it's been in operation, California has become our number one state, which is pretty crazy how quickly that happened. And we've been operating now for two years and we're in other states like New York and Florida, but this has become our number one state being anything else. So the growth has been pretty fast and big really quickly. I wanna ask you this just from someone who's fundraised before. And so you closed your series B last fall. Was the California legislation on like your pitch deck? Cause it's always tough to do that. I remember one time I was trying to start a biofuels company with a buddy of mine and at the time it was Obama and Mitt Romney. And Obama or sorry, Mitt Romney was very again or four biofuels. And so there was gonna be legislation that was in favor. And Obama was just silent. He hadn't said anything specifically. And so our pro-formal was like night and day based on the presidential election so timely. Obama ended up getting elected obviously. And so our project didn't work, but how much of it just to give the entrepreneurs on it be listening a window into, here you are pitching your series B, what does the legislation look like and was that part of it? So yes and no. I think at the end of the day, certainly the investors that we have on our cap table, one of the biggest reasons they invest is they believe in my and my team's ability to execute. And I think that's a fundamental question that an investor has to answer if they're gonna give you millions of dollars. And frankly, I think that was the dividing line even for the series A. One of the things we say in Dutch like our other big value is behavior not words. So anyone can talk but executing and doing what you're gonna say is what really matters. Results, that's what matters. And so I would say the series B investors ultimately believed in my ability to execute which is why when I would talk about California legislation and even at the time because passing a bill, you just never know there's 20 steps in each step could be a reason for failure. So there's a million things that can go wrong but I would say my investors have seen enough of my execution to believe that this will go through and to believe the things I say will happen. So I think that's kind of the difference. But yeah, for sure it would have massively hurt us this year if it didn't go through. But I also think like as an entrepreneur or me personally, I mean, you have to have a plan B, a plan C, a plan D, a plan E if you're gonna be successful. So I think we had a number of other contingency things we would do if California didn't go through this time. I wanna go back to your personal story. And so Charlotte had emailed us and she said that you came here, you were sort of exiled from your country. Can you give us a window into what that was like for you? Yeah, so I came to America 10 years old as a refugee from the former Soviet Union. And when my parents and I left, it was still the USSR. I'll never forget this, I had one red suitcase full of clothes and we lived in this refugee camp in Italy for several months before ultimately getting political asylum status to come to the United States. And even when we came here, we lived in subsidized housing, we lived on welfare and food stamps. I think I would for sure say that these experiences massively prepared me for the role of an entrepreneur, which is to say I've lived the life where I have nothing to lose or I've been in a place where I had very little and I was okay. And I think that allows me to take big risks and it's given me pretty thick skin because I've just seen some shit and I had tools to, like I just said before, come up with a plan after plan after plan after plan to try to figure things out. It's not an experience I wish on anyone, but I definitely think it gives me an edge as an entrepreneur. So for me personally, my family moved here from Peru, political asylum also. And the way I describe it to people is when my mom moved here, she was a single parent with two kids having to learn the language and figure out the entire sort of US economic structure and finding a place and basically rebuilding a life. The way I look at it as an entrepreneur specifically is I'll never have that problem or foreseeably. And so because of that, it sort of frees me mentally to take these big risks or I guess they're not even really risks, they're just perceived risks because of what people think risks are and in that we're free and we're able to take these big swings because at the end of the day we have the safety and the freedom. It's kind of amazing. So I appreciate you sharing that, that's awesome. Awesome and not awesome, but the way it sort of it's molded you and your mindset is great. It's a great one for sure. Just to go back to Dutch, how big is your team now? How many people do you guys have? We're at 30 people full time and then we have our veterinarian network is about 120 veterinarians and that continues to grow. It's funny because the last probably 20 years of working in startups, I don't know that I've been at places bigger than a hundred people. And so 30 is starting to feel big ish. And then of course there's times when you talk to someone and they manage a small department of 30 people. So it's all, it's just interesting how obviously it's all relative but we try to be in general pretty efficient and make sure we're only working on the high priority projects as opposed to sometimes you end up doing less with more. As it relates to like new technologies and so during the Christmas week, I usually do this thing where I decide not to do any work and I try to learn new things. And so there's been a lot of AI I've been tracking for months and I think rapidly within six months a lot of the AI I was looking at has drastically improved. I mean really, really quickly as you think about your business telehealth it feels ripe and that could be totally wrong but at least feels ripe where AI can help facilitate a lot of things and sort of decrease the need for headcount and just allow your team to focus on what matters. How do you guys think about AI? Are you dabbling with it? Any exciting products that you like? There are so many wonderful and awesome uses for AI that we're already using. So one, I mentioned our videos with veterinarians are recorded. So those are opportunities to use AI to send summaries to the patient of what's discussed and save time for a veterinarian from having to type up notes which can be quite time consuming. And also it just speed matters so much. So that ensures that the pet parent gets a concise understanding of how that visit went. I think in the future there are further opportunities for AI as kind of an initial conversation to triage the pet parent of how serious and is there a specialist that they should talk to on our platform and who's the right for them to talk to. We also are using AI in a lot of our photography. I think, you know, prior really to this year we could easily spend $100,000 and two weeks of time on planning a photo shoot. And while I certainly think real photography matters for our business where we have to do so much to educate the consumer on the many different ways that our business works and who it's for. And the 20, you know, we cover 20 different conditions today. We would have to spend millions of dollars in photography just to get to a baseline. So in those early days when you're still testing what works I think AI photography has been magical for our business. And then I think the last part is being able to use AI for actual, you know, initial like chat back and forth as well as we get tons of images because in the prior to you seeing the vet we asked for photos of the vet and sometimes for videos of the vet. And so I think those are further opportunities to potentially catch things that, you know you may be here for anxiety but the photo or video catches a rash. So I think that's an exciting future use that we're looking at. When you think about that your company let's say in three to four years. So I know this is like a lot when it comes to technology but what does it look like? Like what is your grand vision for the firm, for the company? Obviously data is a play here just in terms of, you know what your company is collecting, being first to market winning all of that aside. When you think about all the new technology three to four you know, that is happening now what does Dutch look like in three or four years or at least ideally to you? To me in general one thing I, you know a lesson from him's it's, you know and the lesson from startup is figure out what you're good at and do that one thing really well don't try to do everything mediocre. So I still think at the end of the day the thing that we do well is telemedicine and all that comes with it but it all comes back to telemedicine. Now I think within telemedicine is that I think telemedicine is another tool in pet health care and the partnership that we can have with brick and mortar veterinarians is I think the long-term opportunity. So can we integrate with their medical records? Can we be their partner for off hours? There's almost a third of pets are adopted through shelters. So how can we better equip shelters who also don't have enough veterinarians to provide care to people? So I think kind of the bigger picture ultimately is also how are we integrated into the overall ecosystem of pet care as another tool that people use. And then I just think, I mean the other thing is we have yet to scratch the surface. There's almost 150 million pets in this country even if we're helping 10 million which would be a pun. There are so many pets who get zero care at all. So I think part of it is we have a lot of work to do of just getting basic care. Like you mentioned in the beginning, flea and tick, basic care to the millions of pets who are out there to begin with. I feel like we have yet to do that successfully. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the flea and tick one got me. I was really, it's sort of an interesting thing where I was like, everybody needs this. And it's interesting that someone's doing it. And then I was like, oh, the telehealth component opens this door rapidly and then they can just go somewhere and pick it up. I mean, it's exactly like the human health. But for some reason, at least for me, it's just a different way of thinking about it. It doesn't come naturally because I don't have a pet today. Hopefully I'll get one soon. Yeah, you should get one. I can join your platform for 11 bucks. So you see outside of what kind of pets do you see on telehealth? Are you focusing on, this goes back to the focus, the planting, the flag. Is it cats and dogs? Is it horses? Yeah, it's mainly cats and dogs. You know, we talked about how hard it is to get a dog to a vet, getting a cat. I mean, there's a reason they say herd in cats. It's very hard to get a cat into a crate, into a vet's office and then back into your house and the cat is not happy to do that. So it's definitely cats and dogs. We have had some exotics like a bird and a reptile, but I think those are just, telemedicine is not necessarily the best for those animals because you really do need a specialist. Although rabbits, for example, get UTIs quite frequently. So again, there's sometimes something there, but if anything, a lot of times, no matter what kind of a pet parent you are, I think you're just looking for a human connection. And so that, again, the video call is something we provide that goes beyond you going on Dr. Google or some other question and answer platform to figure out what's going on. So at least a professional is pointing you in the right direction. Well, listen, as we wrap up, what can people expect for you in 2024? Tell people where they can sign up for Dutch, 11 bucks for up to five pets. That's crazy. Yeah, so fetch.com. That's the best place for you to go. And there's probably gonna be a lot more verticals that we're at. One of the biggest areas we're expanding into is pet nutrition. So that's gonna be an area of growth for us in 2024. Can you give us a window? What does that mean? So like if your dog is overweight or has an allergy, you can talk to one of our veterinarians about that. Joe, thank you for joining the podcast. I appreciate it. We look forward to sharing your story and continued success to you, Joe. Thank you. Cool. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, share with your friends, your family, or anyone you might think might benefit from the conversation we've had today. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. 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