I’m curious how founders here approached growing two-sided marketplace/platform businesses in the early stages?
Would genuinely love advice from founders who’ve scaled marketplace-style businesses from scratch - especially around what actually moved the needle early on.
Hi everyone, I’ve been building a platform to help rehoming pets
The idea came from seeing how stressful and honestly heartbreaking private pet rehoming can be. UK rescues can also list pets on the platform too.
So many owners are overwhelmed, rescues are full (turning people away), and amazing pets end up overlooked, misunderstood, or passed around in Facebook groups or traditional pet listing websites with very little support, transparency, or safety.
One thing I noticed especially was how much people tend to choose pets based purely on appearance, without always thinking realistically about lifestyle compatibility, behavioural needs, routine, energy levels, or what type of home the pet actually needs to thrive.
So I started building a platform focused more on:
- lifestyle compatibility
- safer communication
- emotional storytelling
- helping the RIGHT people find each other
One thing I’ve become especially passionate about is helping “overlooked” pets get seen, particularly nervous dogs, older pets, or animals people scroll past too quickly online.
Realistically, what do you think a platform like this would need in order to grow into something genuinely useful on a larger scale?
I’m genuinely trying to build something meaningful that helps both pets and people long term 💛
Thanks so much!
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently.
feels like a huge part of the problem isn’t that people don’t care… it’s that they end up choosing a dog that just doesn’t actually fit their life.
Not intentionally - just how the process works.
People tend to go for:
• a certain look
• a certain breed
• a dog with a story that pulls at them
But not necessarily bein honest with themselves :
• their working hours
• energy levels
• home environment
• experience with dogs
And then a few months down the line, it’s not working out and the dog ends up being rehomed again which is even more heart wrenching for the dog.
Mind you, I’ve also seen really great potential adopters miss out, just because they weren’t first or didn’t stand out straight away.
It makes me wonder if the whole process is a bit flawed.
It still feels like there are mismatches happening, and also good adopters getting ruled out quite quickly (for example for having kids), even when it might depend on the dog.
Makes me wonder if the process could be more about matching the right dog to the right lifestyle overall.
Curious what people think.
When you got your dog (or if you were looking), what mattered most to you?
I'm starting to think a lot of people love the idea of adopting but not the reality.
Everyone says the want to 'adopt not shop' but when it comes down to it, they want :
perfectly trained
no behavioural issues,
good with kids, dogs, cats
low maintenance
...which basically rules out a huge number of dogs that actually need homes.
I've also seen genuinely lovely dogs get completely ignored because they don't look a certain way.
Genuinely curious what people prioritise most when getting a dog ?
I'm starting to think a lot of people love the idea of adopting but not the reality.
Everyone says the want to 'adopt not shop' but when it comes down to it, they want :
perfectly trained
no behavioural issues,
good with kids, dogs, cats
low maintenance
...which basically rules out a huge number of dogs that actually need homes.
I've also seen genuinely lovely dogs get completely ignored because they don't look a certain way.
Genuinely curious what people prioritise most when getting a dog ?