Team 01 - Bark'd

At a Glance

Bark'd is an all-in-one social network for dog owners. With the ability to find friends’ dogs through real-time location tracking, share clips from your dog’s POV, and organize or participate in dog events happening in your neighborhood, Bark’d builds a strong community for dog owners.

What makes the dog owner community so fragmented and what implications does it have on dogs?

According to the American Kennel Club, dogs require a minimum of two hours of social time with other humans and dogs. However, a report from the University of Guelph shows that one-third of puppies do not receive enough socialization opportunities. Without socialization, they may develop anxiety, aggression, and even a higher risk for illnesses. In our survey of 171 dog enthusiasts, 74.4% of dogs–in both rural and urban areas–only interact (coming within 3 meters for over 10 seconds) with two or less dogs per outing. In our conversations with dog owners at Schuylkill River Park–an urban dog park–we learnt that although it is easy to bump into other dog owners in urban areas, it is unlikely for them to establish a connection, thus preventing dogs from forming long-lasting bonds with one another. In the suburbs, dog owners don’t experience many encounters, but even when they do, they are likely to ignore one another. This is due to the inherent distrust that people have in strangers. As a result, dog owners and dogs tend to be isolated and do not form a community around each other.

What is the target market segment and market potential for Bark’d?

Bark’d is targeted to Millenial and Gen-Z dog owners, primarily ages 10-35, who share a similar set of behaviors. These age groups are the most sociable, passionate about technology, and use existing social media networks the most (they are the leading groups in social media usage, accounting for 58% of all users). These core behaviors make them perfect consumers for Bark’d, a tech-focused, social media app. Through primary and secondary research, we were able to understand the characteristics of our target market segment. Interviews with dog owners indicated high levels of spending on dog-care, with some saying that they spend nearly $300-$500 per month on their dog. Furthermore, our survey of young dog owners showed that 51% of respondents share pictures of their dog on existing social media on a daily or monthly basis, with 47% saying they spend over 30 minutes a day watching dog-related reels/posts. Concerningly, 74.4% of these same owners reported that they interact with two or less dogs per outing (1 minute minimum). Interviewees also said that the attraction of Bark’d is the use of innovative technology. Younger generations are growing up in an era where technology surrounds them, making them the perfect audience for Bark’d.

The opportunity for Bark'd is massive. Roughly 700 million to 1 billion people in the world own dogs, which accounts for 30% of all households. Of the dog-owner market, millennial and Gen-Z dog owners account for roughly 50%. Furthermore, in 2022, Americans alone spent $136.8 billion on their pets. This indicates a huge revenue potential for Bark’d, which DLC must leverage.

How does Bark’d benefit dog owners?

Understanding our customer segment of young, social, tech-savvy, and active content creators, we designed Bark'd as a technology-enabled social networking platform. Bark’d enables dog owners to strengthen relationships with current pals and find new pals to befriend, creating a community of dog owners because dogs are given more opportunities to socialize.

To help dog owners communicate and build relationships with one another, they can become ‘pals’ with fellow dog owners through Bark’d. Through Bark’d they can view their pals' content and message them. The most interesting way to leverage your network of pals is through dogPOVs. DogPOVs are clips taken from a collar-attached camera, which helps dog owners to see the world from their dog’s perspective. Dog owners have two choices through content creation: firstly, they can choose to create their own 10-15 second clips of dogPOV footage, and second, Bark’d can generate 15-30-second recap clips of their dog’s highlights from the past week using AI. From these two options, users can post these clips on Bark’d for other dog owners to see. In sum, the dogPOV enables dog owners to create a brand-new kind of short-form content, perfectly suited for social media and maintaining memories with your dog.

Additionally, dog owners can keep track of not just their dog’s locations but also their pals. Through real-time GPS tracking, they can know when a pal reaches a meeting point, like a dog park, and meet up with them. They can also know when a pal is nearby (30-meter radius) and walk towards them to catch up. This allows dog owners to find other dog owners, while forming long lasting relationships with each other. The Bark’d app integrates social media features already well known to users, like a personalized, comprehensive feed and dog profiles. Each user’s profile includes a biography, dog breed, owner name, interests and posts, helping dog owners get to know each other’s dogs better. Additionally, dog-related advertisements and promotional information allows owners to find dog sitters, dog walkers, vets and other dog-related services through third-party postings. These postings will also generate ad-revenue for Bark’d. Users can also organize or participate in dog-related neighborhood events like dog parties, park visits, yappy hours and more. Personalized recommendations for services, activities, and content are tailored to dog's profiles and your preferences, enhancing the overall experience.

Lastly, Bark’d is a fashion statement, with a fun bone-shaped design, that helps give your dog a unique sense of personality. Bark’d aims to increase the time dogs spend with other dogs to foster a sense of unity within the dog community. With Bark'd, you're not just meeting your dog's needs—you’re joining a passionate community of dog lovers and deepening the bond with your best friend.

The technology used to create these features for the Bark’d collar are the ESP32-CAM WROVER, an ESP32 WROOM and a GPS module. The ESP-32 CAM live streams the footage it records to a local IP address. The GPS module triangulates coordinates from local satellites and uploads the values to a Firebase API endpoint. Because the WROVER cannot simultaneously connect to two different WiFi signals, the WROOM board is used to upload GPS data to Firebase. From there, the React Native app pulls the data from the two locations using an ‘iframe’ and a GET request respectively. The data is used within the dogPOVs and our Bark’d map.

What will make Bark’d succeed, relative to the competition?

Currently, there are no products that provide all the features Bark’d does. While GPS tracking collars and social media networks for dog owners exist, the integration between these various products is weak. Our most competitive offering is the dogPOV camera, especially its use of AI video processing, and the integration with the Bark’d social media network. All the dog owners at Schuylkill River Park that we spoke to said that the dogPOV Camera is something they have never seen in any other product and would be extremely entertaining. Especially, with AI integration, they loved how it enabled them to make creative, unique content centered around their beloved dogs.

Furthermore, no other app provides location sharing or proximity alerts to the level of sophistication that Bark’d does, helping dog owners know of possible times they can catch up with their dog’s pals. No other product is also tailored specifically to the younger market segment (Gen Z and Millennial) who are more tech-oriented, want to find new people to talk to and are appreciative of social media.

What is the go-to-market plan?

We have two main channels to bring in new young dog owners to use Bark’d:

Our Gen Z and Millennial audience is the biggest user of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. We plan on leveraging this not just by putting up Bark’d ads through Meta and Google Ads’ platform but also by using influencers, especially dog influencers (like Doug the Pug, Doxie Din, Grusha Star), and getting Bark’d advertised on blogs/vlogs. From here potential customers can go to our website to order a Bark’d collar and eventually subscribe to the app’s services. To use all three channels we plan on spending $15,300 per month at first and as revenues increase, push to $22,700 per month.
A referral program, wherein for every 5 people a user refers Bark’d to that end up buying a Bark’d collar, users can get 2 months of Bark’d subscription for free. The costs for this would incrementally increase, assuming activity #1 leads to a growing customer base, and thus more referrers redeem their free subscriptions.

To retain our customers, we plan on creating educational content popularized through YouTube, related to Bark’d. This could include tutorial videos on how to edit good dogPOVs, how to use GPS features and on dog care in general. For this, we estimate one hire for creating educational content who can be paid $1,000 per month. Further, we plan on organizing communal events for Bark’d users to attend. These can be advertised through Bark’d and can be dog parties, dog painting activities, owner-dog bonding sessions and more. Here, we can also advertise new feature releases as well as collect customer feedback about Bark’d. We estimate holding 1 event a month in the beginning and later can do more. This will cost roughly $500 per event, which will be spent on food, decorations, etc.

In all, sales and marketing would cost approximately $21,000 in the first month of operation and eventually increase to roughly $30,000. We have estimated roughly 300-400 new users per month initially and as word of mouth accelerates growth, 600-800 new users per month. Additionally, assuming 15% customer churn, we have roughly 100-200 subscribers at first, which we estimate to grow to more than 2,000 subscribers by the end of the first year.

Next, we must consider the cost of goods sold. Each Bark’d prototype cost $46.36 to build. However, the final product will not use ESP32s but instead more specialized, cheaper embedded systems, thus lowering the manufacturing cost to roughly $25. Additionally, we can use manufacturing labor in India, which we estimated to $1 per collar and air transport which we approximated to $1.28 per collar. This gives us a total cost of $27.28 per collar. For storing dogPOV video footage and processing the video on the cloud, we plan on using AWS’s S3 service, which costs $0.028 per GB for cloud computing. Thus assuming each user uses 60 GB, we can approximate $1.68 per month for a user’s usage of the app. Adding R&D expenses and general & administrative expenses gives us total initial costs of approx. $11,000 per month and eventually $30,000 per month.

Keeping this in mind, we have 3 main streams of revenue. We plan on pricing the Bark’d collar at $64.99. Further, we will charge $4.99 per month for the app’s services. We will also invite various merchants like dog walkers, dog party organizers, dog pubs, dog groomers and more to advertise and plan on charging $250 per advertiser per month.

Where can Bark’d go in the future?

Bark’d stands poised to revolutionize the way dog owners and their pets interact with each other. In the future, we envision expanding the capabilities of Bark’d to include AWS integration to store dogPOV footage. We also plan to expand our reach internationally, tapping into the global pet market and tailoring the app to accommodate different languages and cultural nuances.

By continuously innovating and adapting to user feedback, Bark’d aims to become an indispensable tool for dog owners worldwide, fostering stronger bonds between dogs and their owners while creating strong, interconnected communities. The combination of real-time location tracking, social networking, and AI-driven content creation sets Bark’d apart from competitors, offering a unique solution for modern dog owners. With a clear go-to-market strategy and a strong foundation, Bark’d is well-positioned for sustained growth and success, ultimately enhancing the lives of dogs and their owners through technology and community.