Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/31/greater-fool-theory.html
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$300M? what, are they going to develop self-ambulating dog walkers now?
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Lemme guess… this was pitched to investors as “the Uber of dog walking services”?
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that is so fall 2016.
surely it is blockchain dog walking
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As a dog having person… that uses Uber and occasionally AirBnB… I would never use this service. This is nuts. A dog is not a car or an apartment. And the relationship I have with the professionals I trust with my dogs is more important that any other professional relationship I have, with anyone! And not something an app could replicate!
I cancelled on a dog sitter once cuz she was just a little flaky and I got a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. And she came HIGHLY recommended by other dog owners that I knew and trusted. (That she flipped the frak out on me after I cancelled fully a month before hand was somewhat validating.) There is no way in hell that I would hand over my dogs to some stranger from an app! Thats crazy talk.
I now eagerly away their babysitting app where you allow strangers from the internet to enter your home and care for you child! Give me $150,000,000 I’ll make it a reality! We can call it “Wetnurse”!
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SoftBank is the same company that just bought all that Uber stock at a discount. Is it me or is “SoftBank” a terrible name for a company? Like, I don’t want my monkey kept in a “SoftSafe”…
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Sadly, people are on social media asking for these services without the app…
smh
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Excellent! Then there is a pre-established market!! To the venture capitalists!
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Blockquote I now eagerly away their babysitting app where you allow strangers from the internet to enter your home and care for you child! Give me $150,000,000 I’ll make it a reality! We can call it “Wetnurse”!
Sigh. Today I work on approaching major donors for this domestic violence services program, focusing on the kids specifically. I will not receive anywhere near that much funding. I hate America a little bit today.
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From the initial, spitball session: “Lots of dogs out there! Dogs walk! I smell a winner!”
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CEO: “Dogs are fine, yes, but what about the untapped market?”
Lackey 1: “…Untapped?”
CEO: “Cats! Who’s walking all these cats?”
Lackey 2: “…Cats poop in the house.”
CEO: “…GENIUS.”
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I had only a peripheral brush with Wag: while surfing vet sites to look for ways to comb a mat out of my longhair cat without turning him into the Tasmanian devil (tl;dr gentle, slow, and be prepared to hand out a lot of treats), I was hit by multiple popups for Wag. Get in line now! Schedule walkies for your dog now! Don’t you want someone to walk your dog for you?? First, I’m not in an area serviced by Wag, so this was just annoying. Second, cat, not dog. Third, I had to shut down my browser to make the flyouts and popups cease. With that approach, they will piss off more dog owners than they get customers.
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Also, what fraction of dogs are actually chill enough that they would allow random strangers to come into their home and put a leash on them and walk them? Even if I were a trusting enough human to believe that the gig workers on Wag were all competent professionals whom I should trust, it still wouldn’t work.
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Cheapest is not always best. What happens when you find out that hobo ate your little Rex?
Fixed that for you.
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“Like, I don’t want my monkey kept in a “SoftSafe”…”
You might have meant “money”, not “monkey”, but it’s even funnier as monkey. I get a vision of a monkey sitting service as in “not my circus, not my monkeys”.
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Well where you you keep Your monkey?
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Please, that’s so last year.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Wondersitter-troubles-grow-11743534.php
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It’s an absolute joke that Wag got such an investment. It’s evident that the investors didn’t speak to Wag’s customers before investing into them, since had they done that, they would have obviously not went through with the investment. Wag has so many issues, starting with the quality of the dog walkers they hire, the security of their lockboxes which is virtually zero, and their app which is horrible.
