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Decision trail · Pet care · marketplace and services

From group chats to two real-time apps

I was the only PM at an early-stage in-home pet health and grooming startup. Booking happened in WhatsApp groups, with the team answering every customer by hand. The challenge was building two apps that talked in real time, one for pet owners and one for vets and groomers, so the operation could grow without adding people to customer service.

80%
of orders in the app in the first month, up from 20% on the website
100%
of field routines digitised
70%
average monthly repeat booking in year one
90
NPS at the end of year one

Context

A startup brings pet health and grooming services to customers' homes in São Paulo. Booking was manual, over messages, and only about 20% of orders came through the website. I was the only product manager, reporting directly to the CEO, working with a freelance designer and 2 developers.

Problem

The team had to answer each person and check the schedule by hand. Every step of growth depended on more people in customer service, and the operation became the bottleneck.

Evidence

  • I spent 2 full days with the operation in São Paulo and joined the WhatsApp groups where the work happened, before designing a single screen.
  • It became clear the problem had two sides: owners needed to book on their own, and the people doing the work needed to receive that booking without someone relaying it.

Hypotheses

  • If owners could book on their own, seeing availability in the app, most orders would leave manual customer service.
  • If a booking landed straight in the schedule of whoever does the work, no one would need to relay orders, and the operation could grow without customer service growing at the same pace.
  • If vets and groomers logged their field routine in their own app, the operation could see the day without relying on messages.

Metrics

North Star Metric

Orders booked in the app

The share of orders that skip customer service. From 20% (website) to 80% in the first month.

Secondary

Monthly repeat booking

Whether owners book again. 70% on average in year one.

Secondary

NPS

Whether service stays good as the operation grows. 90 at the end of year one.

Decision

Two apps: the owner's app, to book and follow the service, and the operations app, for vets and groomers, synced in real time from the first version.

Execution

  • Defined and launched both apps, synced in real time.
  • Digitised 100% of field routines in the operations app.
  • Took customer service out of the middle: a customer's booking lands straight in the schedule of whoever does the work.

Outcome

  • Digital orders from 20% (website) to 80% (app) in the first month.
  • The field operation doubled since launch.
  • 70% average monthly repeat booking in year one, and NPS 90 at the end of year one.
  • 100% of field routines digitised.

Learning

The owner's app only works if the operations app keeps up in real time; without it, someone goes back to confirming everything by message. Today, on a two-sided product, I design both sides together and sync goes into v1.