Show HN: Petset.Life – Toolkit for becoming a nomad petsitter

Show HN: Petset.Life – Toolkit for becoming a nomad petsitter(petset.life)

4 points by philjw 1 year ago | 3 comments

Ever since I started working from remote I took the chance to become more nomadic. I do enjoy the company of pets though - and saving on rent is a plus. So how to combine it? Pet sitting!

The problem? Existing matching-platforms feel like gated communities—paywalls, intermediaries taking a cut, and a sea of applicants for every listing. My theory: Platforms (be it dating, real estate or petsitting) are like icebergs: Many connections happen below the surface, outside these platforms—through serendipity, personal and extended networks. I found my apartment by dropping flyers in 30 mailboxes, my last relationship started abroad and most of my petsitting jobs emerged through friends and colleagues abroad.

So I thought about building something else: a "non-platform"-platform. A simple and interactive way for petsitters (or aspiring ones) to create a shareable old-school business card with prefered pets, locations, description, photos, suitable introduction text and hashtags. No logins, no data collection — just a Vue 3 app that runs locally in your browser and allows to export in WebP, JPG, PNG and JSON to save & restore. Post it where you already have trust—LinkedIn, Instagram, local Facebook groups or wherever your network lives—and let the right connections happen naturally.

It's an experiment - but who knows? You could be petsitting next week.

The tool itself is for free - but a donation gives access to a sheet of local petsitting communities, a LinkedIn group and the Telegram chat / saves some time to get starting :)

julianbgr 1 year ago |

This is a cool idea, and I totally get the frustration with existing platforms. How do you ensure your card gets seen by the right people, especially when starting out? It relies heavily on having an existing network already interested in pet-sitting, which might be a barrier for some. Still, I appreciate the fresh thinking and the focus on privacy – definitely worth exploring!

philjw 1 year ago | |

Thanks for your thoughts! Yes, it does to an extent rely on your direct / extended network having pets - and just as with the established platforms there is no guarantee :) - but also nothing much to lose^^ Worst case get is a solid foundation that you can print out and plaster all across your city and facebook groups. Most of my petsitting jobs didn’t come from the established platforms so it can work as a cure for those who are underwhelmed by the platforms.

When you create a card you get a personalised message containing all the relevant location hashtags and pet preferences as hashtags e.g. #catsitting or #reptilesitting . People who have those interests (pet owners, travel-affine) would then see it more likely (besides your own connections who might know someone etc.).

Another idea would be to share the card on an Instagram profile and run targeted ads to wherever you want to sit next - so pet owners from there can reach out to you directly. And if there is no luck through direct connections, there are still the good old local facebook groups :).

Especially on a place like LinkedIn however which otherwise is full of "I have a new job"-posts, pet content serves as a good antidote - and LinkedIn's algorithms are very much in favour of showing content to 2nd and 3rd connections. I think LinkedIn is a good place to experiment since there are many professionals in stable life situations who do travel abroad once in a while and maybe even create lasting personal connections across countries.

In general it is more meant to break the ice, get the word out, leave an impression and maybe next time your 1st, 2nd or 3rd connections need a sitter they think of you.

I actually had the backend built, with user access, password etc so users would have a live card on the page they could share - but the larger the project grew, the longer changes took - and I did not like the idea of becoming a middleman myself, be in charge of the data and user account / database management. It would have become yet another platform.

This was really the result of recycling the idea and re-empathising the M in MVP and making it more accessible for people to spread the message :)

KomoD 1 year ago |

You listed paywalls as a problem but then paywalled the list of communities yourself