The Accidental Entrepreneurs

E3: How Forgetting to Give Your Pet Their Medication Led to an Unexpected Startup - Stacee's Story

Ira Gordon & Stacee Santi Season 1 Episode 3

When Stacee Santi traded her veterinarian scrubs for the innovative world of tech entrepreneurship, she didn't just create an app—she sparked a revolution in pet care communication. On our latest podcast, Stacee shares her inspiring journey from observing pet owners' struggles with heartworm prevention to developing Vet2Pet, a game-changing app that bridges the gap between veterinary services and technology. Her tale is a testament to how a single idea, fueled by passion and perseverance, can transform an entire industry.

Her journey is not just about overcoming adversity but a story of how relentless innovation can make every listener believe in the power of determination and the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Mentions:
Karyn Ekola
Mobile App Loader: Zvika (Dave) Ashkenazi
Zoetis rep: Tim Lara
Zoetis rep: John Barrier
Website developer: Duffy Brook
Martin Traub-Werner
VetPartners
App developer: DEVersity
Milan Boričić
Mihailo Jovković
Veterinary influencer: Eric Garcia
Vetsource
Dominos

Ira:

Hi everyone. I'm your host, Ira Gordon, and you're listening to the Accidental Entrepreneur, a show about the ups and downs and ins and outs of the journey of starting a company when you have no idea what you're doing. Today, we're going to hear the story of our co-host, Stacee Santi, we started a technology business after years in practice as a veterinarian and tried to figure it all out along the way. And, stacy, I would love to hear about how you even first had the crazy idea to think about building an app for a veterinarian.

Stacee:

I mean, I've been practicing for a long time, years and years, and doing the daily grind, and I came out of my third wellness appointment for the afternoon and I had noticed a pattern of every single exam is, I would tell the client, it's time to get you your six pack of heart worm prevention, which, for those of you that don't know, if you have a dog, you're supposed to give them a prevention pill every month to help ward off really horrible heart worm disease and parasites. And every single client of mine had said, oh, don't worry, I still have some left over from last year. And I'm like, oh my gosh, so people were forgetting to give the medication, which is understandable. If I'm being honest, I too often forgot to give my own dogs their medication, but it's really important to do it. And so I was like why can't you just remember? And I started thinking about that more and quizzing my clients. It's because our only way of remembering were these stupid stickers that come in the box of the heart worm prevention and you're supposed to go put them on your paper calendar.

Stacee:

But it was 2010,. People were already starting to adapt more of iCal and Google Cal, and it wasn't. It wasn't working. And so at the same time, I actually got a popup notification on my phone between appointments and it was from Domino's Pizza and I started thinking, like maybe I do need a double pepperoni and cheese pizza tonight. I hadn't thought about that, but now maybe I want that. And it just all hit me at once Like this is what I need to do as a veterinarian. I need to be sending them an interrupting push notification on their phone. They have to do nothing and just reminds them hey, it's time to give your buddy their heart worm prevention. So that was my big idea. That's the extent of my idea. Honestly, I didn't dream any bigger than that. I just wanted to send one of those push notifications to people.

Ira:

I feel like so many great ideas, in the veterinary space at least, come from this feeling that why is the customer experience at Domino's Pizza or Chick-fil-A better than what we feel like? Sometimes our customer experience is like in our clinic and it feels like it shouldn't be that way, right.

Stacee:

Oh, totally. I even went to my hospital manager and I said Karyn, listen, we have to send everyone an email at the first of the month to tell them to give their heartworm medication. She goes that's not possible. I'm like how can that not be possible?

Ira:

So you had this great idea to send people pop-ups to remind them to give their medications. Your practice manager and people said, nope, we can't do it. So why didn't you just give up at that point, like what was next?

Stacee:

It just seemed so simple. How hard can it be? That's just what I was thinking. So I started Googling around. How do I send a push notification? I didn't even know how. When did this? And I found out you needed an app to do it. So then, how does one get an app? And where can I get an app? And I found out there is no way to get an app for my practice. It didn't exist. You could get a pet portal computer thing, but there wasn't really an app and I really felt like that's where I needed to be for my practice. So I found a company in San Francisco called the Mobile App Loader, and it was an engineer that had his own little company building apps for small businesses like hairdressers, automotive dealerships, realtors.

Ira:

And so.

Stacee:

I just Googled. Just Googled like how do you?

Stacee:

get an app for your business. There were so many points of this story that could have taken a very hard left. So I emailed this person, this company, and I'm like can you build an app for me as a veterinarian? I need some of the language to change to be more suitable for pets. And he said, sure, you have to become a registered Apple developer and a Google Play developer and you have to have a logo and business, llc, and all this. And so I'm like OK, I don't know how to do that at all, but how hard can it be? It can be harder than vet school.

Stacee:

So it took me a few months to figure it out and I got myself in the app store, in the Play Store, and then he built my app and he dropped it in there. He loaded the code and it went live. I mean, did you ever see that movie, the Jerk, where Naven is like looking and he finds himself in the phone book and he's like I am somebody? That's how I felt. I just was so happy my little app was in. It was just Riverview Animal Hospital in the App Store.

Speaker 3:

The new phone books here. The new phone books here. Well, I wish I could get that excited about Nothing. Are you kidding? I'm in print. Things are going to start happening to me now, so I started telling all my clients.

Stacee:

So I started telling all my clients that we're all forgetting to give their heart room medication. Just download my app and I'll send you a push notification at the first of the month so you don't forget, and I'll also be sending you messages about other things I think are important for you. They said great, we love that. Now the app could do other little things, like people could request an appointment and they could look at our business hours and very, very basic. There was no back end. But I asked the guy too. Like you know, I got this other problem at my clinic where people are just walking in for refills, like they'll just call or walk in. That's the only way to reach us. It's so disruptive to my workflow. I would really like it if they could use my app to request a refill ahead of time and then I'd have the time to get it ready. They said, no problem, we'll build it for you. Add that feature in for 500 bucks. I'm like, okay, that sounds fine to me. So he did it and it worked.

Stacee:

Then I came up with this idea to put a loyalty program in the app. Because I live in a very competitive ski resort town. It's very packed with veterinarians. I wanted a way to get clients to think about me and be ultra loyal to my clinic. So I came up with this thing where you could get a stamp in your app for every $100 you spent and when you got 12 stamps you'd get $100 credit on your account. And man, I've never dealt crack cocaine, but I think I know what it's like because people lost their mind. They wanted their stamps. They were like what else can I buy here on this place?

Stacee:

I'm like oh, my gosh, these aren't normal things you hear in veterinary hospitals. So I realized at this point I'm kind of onto something and I tell my colleagues about it, other vet friends, and they'd say I want that, can you build that for me? And I'm like I guess I could, so I would get their logo. And then I'd go to my friend, dave at Mobile App Loader. I'm like, can you do what you did for me but for this person? And he said, yeah, that was the beginning.

Ira:

So you had some friends and colleagues that liked the app and you were building it and they were benefiting from it and liking it and at some point you must have said I should be selling this to people beyond just my friends and colleagues that are asking me for it. How did you take that leap?

Stacee:

Well. So again, just weird random stuff happened. My drug rep my Zoetis' drug rep was a really longstanding business relationship for us and he loved it. And he's like will you come to Arizona and talk to my key account meeting in Phoenix and show them what you're doing? And will you come to Huntington Beach and talk to my key accounts and tell them what you're doing? And I'm like, ok, I mean, who am I? Like, I don't know how to talk in front of people. I was so nervous. I was in the bathroom right before I went on stage at Huntington Beach and I'm like, pull yourself together, you're going to totally blow this. But I just told them what I was doing and they lined up after I was done speaking to sign up. They just were like, yeah, this makes sense for us too.

Ira:

The drug company must love it, because having people actually remember to give their medications means they're going to need to reorder their medications.

Stacee:

Yeah, and it's exactly super synergistic for them as well. So I just started the company that way and I found I was at a soccer game watching one of my kids play soccer and sitting on the bleachers and one of the soccer dads there builds websites. I'm like, can you build me a website? He's like sure. So he built me this website so I could take business and people could sign up. And then it started growing just from these little events or word of mouth, and people in veterinary groups would tell each other and soon enough I had like a hundred accounts signed up. What were you?

Ira:

charging in, like those early days, to build an app?

Stacee:

I was charging $100 a month, but if you signed up for the whole year in advance I would give you the whole thing for $900. So people would do that and then I would get $900. And that allowed me to pay that guy, Dave, to build the next one, cause he was charging me. I believe he was charging me $19.99 a month, so I was able to kind of use that money to grow and build out the next person's app without going hugely into debt, cause I was just funding this myself. So it was all working out really well and except for I was getting so busy out, I had a whole real job, like I was on the floor 40, 50 hours a week.

Stacee:

I was running the clinic. I mean nights and weekends, I was building apps in my spare bedroom. And I'm like, okay, this can't go on anymore. Cause I remember the day I was scrubbing for a dog spay in the phone ring at the clinic and one of the receptionist came and told me she said Stacee, Dr. so-and-so's on the phone, he needs to send a push notification out and he doesn't know how. And I'm like, okay, I can't be doing this.

Ira:

Let me just sew this up real quick and take that call and come back and resume this procedure.

Stacee:

I know it was like that. So I decided to make a big jump. I was like getting less happy in my job, if I'm being honest, because it got bought by a corporate and I was losing my ability to run the show which turns out. I really like being bossy, I like calling the shots. So I just decided I'm going to go all in, I'm going to do like charting, I'm going to go all in. So I decided to quit my job and to just Vet2Pet 100% on and I got a little tiny 300 square foot office in town. My hospital manager, Karyn, decided she wanted to come with me and we just started trying to market more, build the company, build the product. Along the way. I knew I needed to connect with the practice software, like that was a big hurdle for me and that was kind of a do or die moment and that was when I decided I'm going all in.

Ira:

Yeah, so I have a friend who oftentimes looks at companies that are innovating in the space and trying to integrate in some way with practice management systems, and his line is seeing so many good companies die on the hill of practice management system integration. So, yeah, how did you go about tackling that?

Stacee:

I ended up meeting a guy named Martin Traub- Werner at a veterinary meeting. Vet Partners is the organization and he knew how to do this, like he had a technology company that was doing this and he had the magic. So we hung out a little bit, we had some Zoom calls, we met in person a few times, decided we were a good fit and I gave him 40% of the company to help me connect to the PIMS. And at the time it's funny we laugh because I just threw that number out there to him one day over dinner. I'm like I don't know 40%. And he later told me he's like you were crazy.

Stacee:

You gave me so much equity that you didn't need to do and I was like I had no idea how to value the company at that point. It just seemed like a reasonable bound of equity for a really tough job. But the thing that did happen looking back is he says, had I given him less, he would have been less committed to helping me because he had a big enough stake in it. Now I became a priority for him and it ended up working out really, really well for us.

Ira:

Yeah, I feel like when you find the right partner like those things that feel like big deals, like how much equity did you decide to give them they kind of become little details because things have a way of just sort of balancing themselves out over time when you're working with the right people.

Stacee:

Well, and he became a huge mentor for me, right Because he taught me how to do my finances. He taught me how to think about my goals and trajectory for the business. He introduced me to a distributor that got my app going in lots more practices. He was very personally and professionally like such a good mentor for me. Because this journey is hard. There are days, many days, you think you waver in the same span of one day, like this is the best idea on the planet to this is the dumbest thing anybody could ever do with their life, and I was cycling between these two mindsets. But he was really helpful. He also is because of him that I met my amazing engineer team that's called DEVersity in there in Serbia. You have to hear his story. His son was taking piano lessons

Stacee:

this guy was trying to build an app for people to learn piano and he had been on a bus in Budapest and he met this guy, Milan, that had just left Blue Cross Blue Shield in US with his best friend, Mihailo and they had given up on the corporate healthcare and they were going to start their own company and Serbia is amazing source of engineers and Martin met Milan, liked him, partnered with him and he said, hey, do you want to meet his buddy, Mihailo? He's looking for business and you need an engineer. And I'm like, yeah, so we hit it off, man, and we would meet every day on Zoom and he'd code all day and I'd wake up in the morning and he'd have something new for me to look at. And he started building an engineer team for me with designers and the whole thing, and started rebuilding Vet2Pet to be synced to the practice management software and its own IP. It was amazing.

Ira:

Fantastic. So you know, invest in some engineers and a partner and an, a vision. At what point did you really feel like you know this, like we kind of like made it over the hump, like this is, this is working, and we've sort of made it as a business.

Stacee:

You know, I think a pivotal point for me was going to a trade show. I was at the American Animal Hospital Association show in Tampa, Florida. This would have been like 2016. Like all these things were happening in 2016. It was such a big year and I'm at my little booth. And Eric Garcia was one of these. He's a very famous speaker in our circles and he speaks to practices at the big shows about how to see one of the top consultants, I would say yeah.

Stacee:

Yeah, very big thought leader, and he said you need to go buy this booth in learn about Vet2Pet. They're doing amazing things. He said this to an audience of like I don't know thousand people and one of my clients ran to my booth at the trade show and she was out of breath and she's like they're coming, they're coming, and I'm like who's coming? And she's like the whole class is coming to your booth right now. I'm like what? And here they came, like this whole entourage of people came and they stood there and I they're like, yeah, we'll sign up, we'll sign up, we'll sign up. And I think I signed up like a hundred people that day and I couldn't believe it. Like I knew at that point, this is something amazing.

Ira:

A lot's happened since then I would assume seven years. So what were sort of the next sort of pivotal changes or things that happened with you in the business?

Stacee:

So the next thing that happened which was probably I mentioned, just because it was nearly nearly killed the company is Apple. Apple changed their policy and they made it so that in order to have a privately branded app in the App Store, you had to be a developer in the App Store, which meant that I could no longer take all these vets and put them under my developer account for Vet2Pet, and a lot of my competitors struggled so bad they folded right here on that idea, but I was so. I was just so passionate that it needs to be branded to the vet. It needs to be a relationship between the veterinarian and the pet owner. That's why I named the company Vet2Pet. We're here to promote the vet, the independent veterinarian. We had to figure it out Like we had just signed up all these people and they said you can't build their apps, they have to all become developers, and it was a hard, hard hurdle.

Ira:

What'd you do?

Stacee:

We were like bulldogs, you know. We were like we're not gonna give up and we would hit an obstacle and we'd send a bazillion support emails to Apple and be a thorn in their side. And I finally kept saying, like, can I talk to your boss? Can I talk to your boss, can I talk to your boss? And I got up high enough with an Apple executive, I guess, and he had a dog and we bonded over that a little bit and I told him what I was trying to do. We ended up figuring out how to get the practices signed up as developers and then we figured out how to become admin on their account so we could do the updates and stuff. It was pretty tough.

Ira:

That's a pretty tall hurdle to leap to get Apple to cave on anything, so congratulations.

Stacee:

Well, we almost caved, but we were pretty much like we can do this, like why can we not? Like come on.

Stacee:

So, we just kept on till we got our way. So finally, like this company is really growing, I've got a big team now. I've got like I don't know about 20, 25 employees plus 10 engineers and it's really going and I needed money. That was my deal At this point. I needed some pretty big money and so I went around and pitched the company to a bunch of other companies that are bigger than me and I narrowed it down to two that were, I thought, strategic for us, that were willing to give me I needed. I decided I was going to raise like 1.5 million and I narrowed it down to two and it ultimately went with Vetsource, the company that ended up buying all of us, and they turned out to be a real, real, great partner for me.

Ira:

Got to be wild to sort of look back at those days when you didn't have any way to send a push notification to your clients, right, and to look at what clinics can do now because of you being the one that said you know what. Like, how hard could it be? Probably a lot harder than you thought, but you did it. So that's really an incredible story, Stacee. Thanks for sharing it.

Stacee:

Yeah, it's a fun one. It's hard to believe that happened to me.

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