About a year ago, Dogster, the social networking site for dogs, made some eyebrow-raising news: It had turned profitable.
Now Dogster has raised a round of $1 million from a group of accomplished “angel” investors, to help it step on the gas.
In talking with founder and chief executive Ted Rheingold, we began to discover the real magic behind the site: It is all about the dogs, but then it isn’t really. Sure, dog owners are flocking to the site so that they can post pictures of their dogs, and check out the profiles of other dogs of the same breed, or of other owners in their neighborhood.
But more interestingly, owners are pretending they are the dogs, and writing little diaries, and the diaries are often becoming more about themselves, as seen through their dogs eyes. Take, for example, the “dog of the week,” a dalmatian/labrador retriever (pictured here) named “TK.” You can see all kinds of things on his profile, including character traits, hobbies, and you can also check out his diary. And this is where it gets interesting. As is typical elsewhere on the site, TK’s diary quickly becomes more about “Mommy” or “Daddy,” less about TK. Under pretense of their dogs doing the talking, owners are expressing themselves in all kinds of ways that they wouldn’t normally. See snippet below by the owner of TK:
In fact, owners may find it easier to say things they wouldn’t be able to say on dating sites. Rheingold is seeing all kinds of things — for example, one post was about a dog whose Mommy came home after something called a “date.” The dog said he didn’t know what a date was, but that Mommy said it didn’t go very well, this date, and so the dog said he stayed by her side and tried to make her feel better.
Now that Rheingold has the recipe, he wants to extend his empire, beyond Dogster, and Catster (his second site, also launched in 2004) to cover every pet — horses, birds, fishes, reptiles, you name it.
In April, Dogster and Catster combined raked in $100,000 revenue, a new milestone, and enough to start hiring more people. A three-man team in 2004 has already grown into a ten person team, and more hires are in the works.
It also gave Rheingold confidence to go out and raise cash. He wanted to be sure he had a sustainable business before taking on outside money. While he wants to avoid hiring 16 people immediately and taking $3 million — like some venture capital firms wanted him to do — it is time to pick up the pace.
The lead investor of this round, Michael Parekh, will join the board. Other Dogster investors are Joshua Schacter (of del.icio.us./Yahoo fame), Adam Beguelin (of Truveo/AOL), Michael Tanne (Wink), Jim Young (hotornot), Mike Jones (Userplane/AOL), George Sarlo (Walden Funds), Frank Caufield (Darwin VC), Aydin Senkut (of Google, now Felicis Ventures), Robert Simon (Alta Partners), Brad Feld (Mobius Ventures) and Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC).
Rheingold says most dog and cat owners — 63 percent of households have a dog or cat — don’t know about the sites, and so it’s time to do some marketing, another reason to take cash. There are more than 70 million dogs and 90 million cats in the country. It is a $36 billion industry, says Parekh.
Dogster served 17 million page views last month. It has 290,000 dog and cat members, and is seeing a steady 7 percent monthly growth in these numbers, Rheingold said.
It is making money through creative advertising packages. Disney paid for a campaign around Lady and the Tramp, and at first said it wanted to buy a $13,000 banner ad. Rheingold warned Disney it might not be happy with such an ad, because it didn’t mesh with other parts of the site’s main activities. For a banner to be appreciated, he suggested, Disney might want to advertise all over Dogster’s site, from newsletters, to the messages Dogster sends to new members — and also let members talk with Lady and with Tramp — all so that the Lady and the Tramp branding could be better understood in the overall context of the site. Disney agreed. There was even a flat-screen TV contest. After the experience, Disney pledged to make the Dogster site a preliminary campaign for all dog-related movies, Rheingold said.
Tags: co:Buzzlogic, co:Podshow, co:Podtech, Ted-Rheingold12 Comments
-
Tom said:
Oh my god. this is confirmation that we’re in another internet bubble and that it will burst within a year. Pets.com anyone?
-
Damon Henry said:
How can you compare Dogster to Pets.com? Completely different business models. Oh and Dogster’s profitable. Dogster was doing fine before taking outside money, so I’m sure they’ll continue do well considering their current success.
-
Kempton said:
I won’t jump to such a quick conclusion that we are seeing a bubble here. Read the last paragraph carefully, “Disney paid for a campaign around Lady and the Tramp, and at first said it wanted to buy a $13,000 banner ad. Rheingold warned Disney it might not be happy with such an ad, because it didn’t mesh with other parts of the site’s main activities.”
A business owner that warns Disney on spending $13,000 in the “wrong” way, deserves a careful look of him. I think Ted may have something here.
Cheers,
Kempton -
mark evans said:
hilarious. weird, but hilarious and an indication people are looking for all kinds of ways to communicate.
-
Jeremy Pepper said:
@Tom
Come on, this is nothing like Pets.com. It’s an active and lively community. Heck I’ve belonged for too long, and have networked thru the site - more out of the love of dog than work, but it’s lead to other things.
-
A Dog Owner said:
I love Dogster
-
Victor Hanna said:
Bubble, no bubble, who knows.. Let the cards fall where they may.
Credit goes to the fundraiser(s)- they made the sale and congrats to them.
What happens next is anyones guess. And so it goes in the land of dreams..
Victor
-
Gregg said:
I have the domain animalster.com and was planning on making it a simple pet website directory. I thought about doing a social networking type of thing with it, but thought that wouldn’t work so well for all types of pets, too broad in its scope. But after reading this, I have to rethink that.
-
Micheal said:
shop for a brand, shop for a fit.
all kinds of Brand shoes in http://www.nikelist.com -
dog said:
This is a great post, I really am enjoying your blog. Just thought I should say you’re doing a great job.
-
Joyce @ Celebrity-Pets.com said:
I thought of doing a ‘general’ pet social networking site a couple years back and I’m kicking myself all the way to the poor house over this one.
-
Albert said:
I think this is a great idea. Social networking has evolved away from the one-size-fits-all stage. A while back you reviewed BigJock.com, a gay social network. That is a great idea as well, as that site along with this fills a need for a large portion of our society. Gays and dog owners both make a lot of money and spend a tidy sum as well.
16 Trackbacks
6:25 am
VentureBeat Wire » Dogster raises $1 million — woof! — but it’s not about the dogs said:
[...] See our story here. VentureBeat Community [...]
8:15 am
Dogster.com raises $1M capital - Chausse.org said:
[...] This is a mindblower. Dogster.com, a site which started out as dog-oriented spoof of Friendster, has just raised $1 million in venture funding. A spoof site. A site created as a joke. Has just raised a million bucks. [...]
9:08 am
Dogster’s Friendster for Dogs Raises $1M - Mashable! said:
[...] (via) Share This Story!These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
12:21 pm
Financing for a Web 2.0 joke » Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work said:
[...] Got any good Web 2.0 jokes? Maybe one of them might be worth financing for a million bucks or so — just like Dogster and Catster. The gang behind the social-networking sites for pet owners just raised some cash from a group of venture investors, including blogger Michael Parekh, Josh Schachter of del.icio.us and one of the guys who founded Hot or Not. As Matt Marshall at Venture Beat notes, the site is devoted to pet lovers — many of whom post journal or blog entries by taking on the character of their pets. [...]
12:36 pm
Dogster - one million woof woof later « Kempton’s blog said:
[...] Ted Rheingold, founder and chief executive of Dogster (a social networking site for dogs), has raised a round of US$1 million from a group of accomplished angel investors. Before you scream and think we have another internet bubble on our hands, I recommend you read Matt’s blog and I quote the last paragraph here, [...]
10:16 pm
Can Dogster Teach the Web2.0 Any New Tricks? at The Blog Herald said:
[...] According to Venturebeat: It is making money through creative advertising packages. Disney paid for a campaign around Lady and the Tramp, and at first said it wanted to buy a $13,000 banner ad. Rheingold warned Disney it might not be happy with such an ad, because it didn’t mesh with other parts of the site’s main activities. For a banner to be appreciated, he suggested, Disney might want to advertise all over Dogster’s site, from newsletters, to the messages Dogster sends to new members — and also let members talk with Lady and with Tramp — all so that the Lady and the Tramp branding could be better understood in the overall context of the site. Disney agreed. There was even a flat-screen TV contest. After the experience, Disney pledged to make the Dogster site a preliminary campaign for all dog-related movies, Rheingold said. [...]
12:29 am
Michelle MacPhearson » Blog Archive » Dogster: Open Wide… said:
[...] Ok, seriously, 203k dogs on the site, and it just received $1 million in VC to expand it’s reach. And you’re too late if you’re thinking Catster - it’s already around. [...]
11:00 am
PetLvr.com - [The Blog] » Dogster In The News Again - A Website For All Earthlings, Who Love Animals said:
[...] Dogster In The News Again Filed under: . By Hartley, :. PetLvr Community Corner, :. PetLvr Cutest Pet — HART @ 12:59 pm Print This Article Tony Hung from The Blog Herald writes a good article based on a story found in TechMeme blog from Venture Beat .. about Dogster.com’s recent $1,000,000 angel financing it received. [...]
8:10 am
Laughing Squid » Million Dollar Dogster said:
[...] During his talk on Thursday at The Future of Web Apps conference, my good friend Ted Rheingold, “Top Dog” of Dogster and Catster (a social network for dogs and cats), announced that they just raised $1 million round of angel funding. Congratulations Ted, Steven, John and the rest of the pack. This should help keep the web kibble flowing and allow for the development of more treats. [...]
4:06 pm
Sneakerplay Launches with Nike Campaign - Mashable! said:
[...] Sneakerplay, the sneaker-based social network which has been in private beta for the past few months, has opened up so that anyone can browse the site. As mentioned previously on Mashable, Sneakerplay is an incredibly simple network that lets you create a profile, add pictures of sneakers and put two pics head to head using the “battle” feature. They’ve also landed a promotional deal with Nike Air: Nike has its own profile page where they’re promoting the new Nike Air Max sneakers (this is the same thing as MySpace marketing). The profile includes promotional videos, wallpaper for your desktop, a list of stores where you can pick up your new kicks, and the ability to embed the videos on your profile or external sites like MySpace and Piczo. It seems that some niche social networks have enjoyed success with promotional campaigns - VentureBeat mentioned that Dogster has an agreement to promote all Disney’s dog-related movies, for instance. [...]
5:36 pm
Dead2.0 » Secret to why you should invest in Dogster revealed… said:
[...] I’ve waited a couple of days to comment on this one, because I really wanted to see the rest of the coverage from the blogosphere. I have to say, everything about this story is fun to report. Here’s a line from Matt Marshall’s coverage: Now that Rheingold has the recipe, he wants to extend his empire, beyond Dogster, and Catster (his second site, also launched in 2004) to cover every pet — horses, birds, fishes, reptiles, you name it. [...]
12:50 am
What We Can Learn From Dogster » Conversion Rater said:
[...] Dogster is one of the most recent success stories, but not because they’ve received $1 million in funding from a notable group of angel tech investors, in fact that’s almost a negative in my mind. [...]
11:10 am
VentureBeat » Chris Sacca latest Google angel investor said:
[...] Will frustration with SF force Sacca to exit Google to launch an angel career, similar to ex-Google Aydin Senkut, who has been investing all over the place, and rivaling angel Ron Conway as chief sponsor of Web 2.0 companies? No. Sacca said in an email: “I wish I had the ammo that Aydin has. However, I joined Google in 2003 and therefore my investment in Photobucket makes no rational sense with respect to my net worth. :)” Tagged google, Aydein Senkut, Chris Sacca, Ron Conway VentureBeat Community [...]
7:27 pm
which whitening toothpaste works the best said:
which whitening toothpaste works the best
Good observation, your ideas are right on.
7:13 am
VentureBeat » Pet site rivalry begins: United Dogs vs. Dogster said:
[...] ago and runs popular sites Dogster and Catster. Dogster has been growing steadily, having last year raised $1 million from angel investor Jeff Clavier and others. That company has essentially been profitable, but has poured resources into growth, and so is [...]
7:13 am
VentureBeat » Pet site rivalry begins: United Dogs vs. Dogster said:
[...] ago and runs popular sites Dogster and Catster. Dogster has been growing steadily, having last year raised $1 million from angel investor Jeff Clavier and others. That company has essentially been profitable, but has poured resources into growth, and so is [...]