Interesting Journeys Into Petpreneurship: Mark Bordo

Welcome to part Eight of our series on Interesting Journeys Into Petpreneurship, in this episode we talk to Mark Bordo, the Cofounder and CEO of Vetster about his interesting journey into petpreneurship, and the story of how he founded the largest online pet health and veterinary telehealth platform on the planet.

Bule: Tell us a bit about yourself. What were you doing before you entered the pet industry, Mark? Did you work with animals or vets before?

Mark: No, but I've been a dog owner my entire life. I'm 48, and I'm a marketplace technology entrepreneur. I've been building marketplaces since the early 2000s. I built one in home improvement, I built one in the travel, short-term vacation rental space, and now in the pet space. And so, while that seems like it's hard to connect the dots on the connectivity of that, my career has really been based around creating abd building marketplaces.

Bule: So you spent your career building quite complex technology platforms.

Mark:  Yes, I have. Exactly.

Bule:  Was it because you were a dog owner that you moved in the direction of pets? You seem to have built lots of different kinds of marketplaces, but what made you build one for pets?

Mark: I was actually looking into telehealth and was interested in trying to understand human telehealth and what was happening in that space. It was also born out of my own personal experience, my dog needed a vet and I started to think about, well, why can't I see a vet like I can see a Doctor using telehealth? So I researched human telemedicine and one thing led to another, I ended up creating the early pet telemedicine industry.

Bule:  You just made it sound simple! At the time, was anyone else doing this? 

Mark: Nobody. When we came up with the idea, it was completely innovative, and I still think it is. Nobody that I've seen is doing pet telehealth the way we are.

Bule: So you saw the human telehealth industry, you saw it working as a model. You saw the benefits that people were getting from it, access to treatment, speed to treatment, and you thought you'd replicate that in the vet space?

Mark: Exactly. I thought it was a perfectly good logical deduction.

Bule: How did you get started? You have this idea of telehealth for vets and a brilliant brand name, Vetster, which I love.

Mark: Well, I have been building tech marketplaces for going on 20 years. So, you know, there was a lot of experience and a lot of know-how and learning based on prior experiences. I knew what I needed to do, and what I had to build. I was more concerned with pet parents liking the idea and seeking medical help through telemedicine. And I thought absolutely they would. 

Then I was thinking about veterinarians and whether they would practice this way. And I expect that they would; of course, they do. So I thought, let's build it. We check all those boxes, and you know, here we are a few years later with North America's largest pet telemedicine platform.

Bule: Fantastic. There must have been lots of conversations with vets, dog owners, and pet owners about this leading up to launching the service, right?

Mark: Yes absolutely, there was also an element of ‘build it and they will come’. You know, I think as we do our research we had a pretty good idea that we could scale this and that we would have a lot of interest in this. It was something that we really didn't doubt from day one.

Bule:  How wonderful to have that confidence in your startup! When did you launch?

Mark: Roughly three years ago. It has been a hell of a journey

Bule: And you've now become the biggest pet telehealth company in North America? You are also moving into the UK now, I see. Should we expect global expansion?

Mark: We're available in three different countries, and thousands of vets practice on our platform. We're continually adding pets and pet parents to our platform every day. We are working on Canada, the U.S., and the UK right now, but this is a global opportunity.

Bule: How are vets liking Vetster? I guess they are very traditional in how they are used to their customers coming to their practice. How are vets taking to this new model?

Mark:  We solve a lot of the problems in the vet industry for veterinarians, be it mental health, student debt, and the need to earn more money by providing access to healthcare for pets.

Veterinarians are animal lovers, and they love to help as many animals as they can, but it's a really hard job that they have. What we found is that they love practicing on our medical platform. It's very efficient, very professional, and mimics the in-clinic experience as closely as possible. And they've loved it since the day we launched it.

Bule: I was talking to my vet at a local practice. She was a veteran member of the team and was really unhappy with the way things had changed at the vet since it had been acquired by private equity. She felt her practice had become a money-making machine, and she stopped feeling like her life was all about treating and helping pets and pet owners.

She is thinking about leaving to join an independent vet practice. But am I hearing that you can offer her another option? Can she build a virtual practice with you, right? If she has the qualifications, experience, and training, she can build a profile as a vet on Vetster and begin to practice without any of the outlay or capital costs associated with building a practice?

Mark: Yes, you can build your virtual practice on Vetster.

Bule: That's fantastic. And can I issue prescriptions?

Mark: It's a heavily regulated industry worldwide, so every country will have its own regulatory regulations. Depending on where you're located, you have to follow those regulations and your license within those countries. And if you meet those requirements, then yes, absolutely. You can diagnose and issue prescriptions in most of North America via telehealth.

Bule:  Interesting. I asked that question mark because I have a Labrador and the most common problem she has is ear infections. It is because of her floppy ears and love of water, that she regularly gets ear infections. Every time I physically need to go to the vet to get that prescription. And I have to pay a fee just to get that piece of paper.  But if I were in Toronto, New York City, San Francisco, or LA, I would just use Vetster to get that prescription right?

Mark: Telehealth can do an awful lot. We treat thousands of symptoms on Vester, but we're not here to replace brick-and-mortar clinics; we complement them.

Bule:  You treat thousands of symptoms on Vester? 

Mark: Yeah. Everything from triage issues all the way up to, infections, gastro and skin conditions, behavioral issues and chronic issues, the list goes on and on. 

Bule: I suppose phone cameras are so good these days that you can zoom in on your dog, and the vet can see everything clearly enough to diagnose properly.

Mark: They can see it clearly. Right. You can also upload pretty much anything you want to Vester, including videos, analyses, X-rays, and blood work results, so the doctors can get a really good view. Our vets also know exactly when to refer you and your dog back to a veterinary surgeon, they understand our limitations and what they should be treating.

Bule: How do dog owners see Vetster?

Mark: They love us because mostly nobody has a plan for providing medical care for your animal when they cannot access a vet. Either that is closed at 6 PM at night, or it's Christmas Eve, or you are traveling. What is your plan for your animal? If you don't have one, then you need to start with Vester, get an account, and set yourself up to provide on-demand healthcare. We enable access to healthcare for their pet no matter where they are, or what time it is.

Bule: That was brilliant, a really insightful look into Vetster. Let's move on to the next part of our interview. By any measure you are one; what does it take to become a successful petpreneur? 

Mark: It's no different from the pet industry than in any other industry. I think it's persistence and hard work. I would say those two things. You know, a lot of energy and hard work. I mean, there's no secret in it. Energy, hard work. 

Bule:  What's it like? Because you worked in very different industries. What are the big contrasts between the old industry you worked in and the pet industry?

Mark: I think coming from a travel space that was, you know, fairly advanced with amazing travel companies in that space, there's not a lot of opportunity to do innovation because so much of it has been done in the private sector. There's huge competitiveness in the space. But I think that in the pet industry is just emerging as a market for technology innovation. 

There are lots of opportunities to move the industry from traditional methods to high-tech methods. We're getting the industry used to accepting technology and using it more than it has before. For me, the biggest difference is technology and its adoption.

Bule: What trends do you see hitting your industry niche? You mentioned AI. Is this something that you think vets will eventually adopt and begin using in their practices? 

Mark: Yes, AI can be used to diagnose common symptoms in pets, and just to make the industry more efficient in general. I mean, it's been here for a while and it's certainly like in every other space becoming, you know, kind of that AI is involved.

Bule: AI making a diagnosis, do you see it as a threat for vets?

Mark: No. I mean, I don't believe that we're going to be taking our pets to a robot AI symptom checker anytime soon. Veterinarians are very well-trained doctors who spend a lot of time in school. While AI can help them drive efficiencies, I don't believe it's going to be replacing veterinarians or doctors anytime soon. Maybe one day, but we are not even close.

Pets need vets.

Bule: What advice do you have for aspiring petpreneurs? They're young, they love animals, and they want to get into this space. What advice do you have for them?

Mark: Go for it. You know, I see so many ideas and most of them don't get off the ground because people, for whatever reason, aren’t persistent or don’t follow through. Once you're planning to go for it, sink your teeth into it and do it, and don't back away at that first hurdle. I think that is a common mistake for entrepreneurs everywhere. 

Bule: That's good advice! Mark, thank you for your time and for telling us about your startup journey. It will make for an interesting story when we publish. Thank you so much!

Mark: You are welcome, thanks for having me on!

This concludes our interview, please give Mark a follow on LinkedIn, and if you don't have a plan for providing healthcare to your dog during holiday season, when you are traveling, or late at night, head over to Vetster and sign up with them!

You have just finished reading Part Eight of our Interesting Journeys in Petpreneurship series; check out Part 1 featuring Niki French, Part 2 featuring Chloe Smith, Part 3 featuring Claire Harris, Part 4 featuring Mandy Madden, Part 5 featuring Rik Cridland, Part 6 featuring Jason Duffy, and Part 7 featuring James Bygate. All of them are excellent reads for aspiring petpreneurs!