Interview with Luca Venturella, CEO of Tacypet
October 21, 2021
Interview with Luca Venturella, CEO of Tacypet, the first small-smart dog house for animals.
Pets, whatever they may be, represent for the human being a source of unconditional love that is difficult to renounce, once discovered and tried. The only way we can return their loyalty and devotion is to try to make their life as good as possible, and Tacypet wants just that. Let’s see what it is!
Tacypet: the first smart kennel for small animals
Tacypet is a real dog house where our little friends can rest and feel safe. Well, what’s the scoop then? The novelty is that Tacypet is not a simple kennel, but a smart, technological and innovative kennel.
This small dog carrier is integrated with a series of sensors able to communicate with a dedicated application for mobile devices. Through these sensors we can not only monitor our friend, but make the “parking time” in his kennel the most comfortable possible. In fact, through the app it is possible to check the temperature and the state of humidity inside the kennel and adjust it at your liking, so as to alleviate the situation of suffering for the animal due to too hot or cold temperatures.
Other functions of Tacypet
In addition to temperature control, through the App we can at any time control:
- the health status of our pet through the measurement and tracing over time of the weight together with the sleep duration.
- the actions of our pet, especially if suffers from separation anxiety disorders, thanks to the HD camera included in option
Thanks to the integration of a GPS device, a backup battery and a SIM card, the Tacypet can be traced at any time remotely, which makes any attempted theft futile.
Which pets can use Tacypet?
Tacypet is designed for any type of pet. The only constraint is the size of our friend. The smart kennel is in fact only available for animals that do not exceed 20 kg – 44 lbs and that stay on the expected dimension (60 cm L x 40 cm D x 50 cm H).
Who knows if in the near future, the boys of Tacypet will not even think about the largest puppies 🙂 Let’s ask them directly!
Today’s interview is dedicated to Luca Venturella, CEO of Tacypet.
Hi Luca, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. Tacypet: tell us what it is
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Tacypet is a smart kennel that helps solve some recurring problems in managing their pets:
- Relieves the suffering for the pet caused by too hot or cold temperatures.
- Helps diagnosis of animal health problems due to lack of tracking of pet weight over time.
- Helps the owner, often unaware, to identify a target weight for the pet.
I also thought about the fear of home theft and therefore the doghouse increases the possibility of finding it (and probably also the animal) in that unfortunate case.
From a technological point of view, the on-board software system will be designed to communicate with other systems in the future. The idea is to combine the kennel with at least 3 complementary systems: an air purifier for mites and allergens on the dog hair, a smart food dispenser and a collar to monitor the activity (the latter only for dogs).
We want every person to feel free to manage a pet, thanks to technology, without fear of making mistakes.
How and when was the idea of Tacypet born?
The idea was born two years ago. I felt the lack of an intelligent system for the management of our two pets (my wife and I have two chinchillas), then the idea was put in a drawer and evidently has matured over time. At the beginning of 2021, finding nothing on the market to solve my problems, I decided to test the ground before starting the construction of the prototype. With a small budget I created a 3D render for the concept of the idea, the animated promotional video, which you can find on our Facebook page, and a Facebook ads campaign. After the campaign with good results (given the small budget),we have started the construction of the prototype that you see in the picture today.
How long did it take to shape the project?
From the idea to the prototype it took us 6 months. Many, few, I could not judge. What I can say is that we encountered difficulties that we didn’t know we had to face and we overcame them. Clearly the time spent on the project by me and the other co-founder, Andrea, has been balanced according to our work. Then we brought in outside consultants when we needed it.
How is the market responding?
With the first Facebook ads campaign that I launched between April and May, I collected about 150 contacts of people interested in purchasing. The goal of the campaign, considering the small budget, rather than doing “lead generation” was to learn many things that were not obvious or unknown in the first period, which ultimately led to the current commercial offer. Like the response to certain selling prices and the attractiveness of purchase options, they are much more valuable information than making 50 or 100 more leads. In October there will be a second validation campaign, a month long, this time with the aim of validating the market as investors like, that is with paying people.
We established the company Tacypet srl, an innovative startup, in early September. If the numbers agree with us at the end of the second campaign, we’ll have a fundraiser among potential investors.
At the moment this wonderful product is only available for animals up to 20 kg, are you thinking about something bigger ?
You may not believe it, but this question was asked by dozens of people who saw the real prototype.
The answer is yes, we are thinking about a “XL” version. The problem with large dogs is that the kennel would be for outdoor use and much more robust. We estimate that the production costs will be clearly different from the current ones, we have to evaluate the fact that with a significantly higher price the market demand will still be high. We will see in the future, meanwhile we focus on this version that is good for small animals, such as small dogs, cats or rodents. In other words, already this version will please millions and millions of owners (and animals) in the world.
How did you launch your project? Did you use crowdfunding campaigns?
To move from the idea to the prototype was done what in startup jargon can be called “bootstrapping”, that is, I invested some resources on my own. There was no other solution because the team does not have a track record capable of attracting pre-seed investors (which in fact are lacking in Italy), but that’s okay. So the crowdfunding reward campaign, on the Indiegogo platform, is the point of arrival of the market validation that we will carry out in October. We will start the crowdfunding campaign already with the certification of Arrow Electronics, partner of Indiegogo, which has validated the hardware of the product and with which we are collaborating to activate the partnerships necessary for post-crowdfunding industrialization. However, as we know, well-run crowdfunding campaigns are expensive.
A marketing agency, one of the best experts of Indiegogo and that will follow the market validation for us, has promised to have a budget for ads equal to 20% of the crowdfunding target. That is, if we invest $1 in the ads campaign, we will return an average of $5. The target of the crowdfunding campaign, considering the costs to start the industrialization of the product, will be $300,000. In other words, validated the market, we will try to get at least $60,000 from investors who believe in the numbers of the project, also thinking that the team has been able to create something that has strong potential in a growing market context.
I did not mention that the starting target will be the US market, but we think using a global mindset.
Curiosity: do your pets also sleep in a beautiful Tacypet ?
Yes, they really like to stay in a protected place and soon we will publish all the photos of product and animals on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TacyPet-192774199028927/
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