The Dog Socks Company is rebranding and expanding. We’re expanding in to a full range of clothing for dogs as well as supplying trade at wholesale prices.
As we go through this process we’ll be making changes to our website, blog, online store and all of our social accounts such as Twitter and Facebook.
We’re looking forward to being able to offer a wide range of dog clothing at wholesale prices.
Our new Twitter account is at https://twitter.com/Dog_Clothing
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Apps are very popular. There seems to be an app for just about anything and everything to make life easier and help us connect with friends and share our lives. But did you know there is now an app for your pets social life too?
TextaPet is a great new app that has become very popular in a short space of time. With the app you can take a photo of your pet via your smart phone and instantly add it to your pets ‘social profile’ which is created by the app.
I wanted to know more about the app and the people behind it so I arranged an interview with the creators of TextaPet to get the low down on this fantastic app. Here is the interview with Matt Clevenger from TextaPet.
DS: Hi Matt, can you tell me what TextaPet is?
Matt: Hi Michael, TextaPet is a fun, easy photo-sharing app for animal lovers. We created TextaPet to help make people’s relationship with the animals in their life even more meaningful and enjoyable. We also hope to use the technology to better connect new pet seekers with adoptable shelter pets! We see TextaPet saving thousands of precious lives each year.
DS: Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Matt: Daniel Carpenter and myself, Matt Clevenger, both grew up in Santa Cruz, a small, sleepy beach town about an hour south of San Francisco and became good friends a couple years ago. I’ve always been a big dreamer; starting my first business venture at age 19. I’ve been involved with a few startup companies since and find my strengths being in creative marketing techniques and sales. I have a strong passion to lead others and love dreaming big with close friends over coffee.
Daniel Carpenter graduated from college in 3 years (as well as high school) with a business degree from Seattle Pacific University while playing soccer internationally and at the collegiate level. He’s a master mixologist of outside-the-box creativity, ambition and business sense which makes him really exciting to work with. Dan’s brilliant business ethics and my creativity has fused into a perfect business relationship.
DS: Where are you based?
Matt: Currently our team is separated between Santa Cruz and San Diego, but we have plans to move more of the operations down to San Diego soon. We are stoked on this!
DS: Is this your first startup?
Matt: No, but this is the first startup that we’ve joined forces on! Apples & Bandaids clothing was my first startup I founded, and since then I’ve worked on several other tech startups. Daniel’s first startup, Fonetic Design, also happened to be a clothing company which he created and ran in college. He is also currently involved in another tech startup, Dealzinger http://www.dealzinger.com/, which is set for a beta launch in Q4 2012.
DS: Who is your target user?
Matt: The target user for our iPhone app is anyone who enjoys taking pictures of their pets and sharing them with loved-ones.
DS: Well, that includes me Matt as I have downloaded the app. S0, what is your monetization strategy?
Matt: Our app is freemium, meaning it’s free to download and create an account to follow pet profiles and see the latest pics of your favorite pets, and it is $0.99 to create a profile for your own pet. So, right off the bat we are able to cover a majority of our operating expenses. As far as future monetization plans, we have several great ideas that would not only give our business sustainable growth but also bring huge value to our app users.
We look forward to seeing our community grow and evolve on its own first before deciding which monetization idea(s) will bring the most meaningful value to them. We’ll keep these ideas secret for now, but I can share that we see the app being a huge marketing avenue for the growing pet products & services industry.
DS: Share one lesson you’ve learned in the startup process.
Matt: We have learned a ton in the last year. I would say if you want to launch a start up things always take more time than you think but to keep pushing and pursuing your dream!
DS: What’s the next thing on your plate for TextaPet?
Matt: Right now are developers are working overtime on the next few app updates for speed, scalability and flexibility on a cutting-edge platform which will be setting the stage for expansion onto our website. We are also editing some video spots which we had a blast filming down in Hollywood and can’t wait to show everyone! We’ll also be continuing to grow our community on Twitter [@TextaPet] and looking to extend our reach on the web (blog.textapet.com coming soon) and mobile (Instagram @TextaPet). It’s been great with how much love and feedback we have been getting on Twitter. Having 20k followers in the first 4 weeks of existence tells us we’re doing something right and that there’s a highly engaged market for what we are creating. We are really excited about the future of TextaPet.
You can download the app directly from iTunes at
http://itunes.apple.com/app/textapet/id506588505
The TextaPet Site: www.textapet.com
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