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00:00

Guys, welcome back to the tattoo business show the best place for actionable advice for entrepreneurs. This is your host Ted speaking. And in today’s show, we have Lee D’Angelo who be sharing with us how to build a dating app for dog lovers and cat lovers. Lee is the co founder and CEO of dig dates, which is a dating app for dog lovers that launched in the New York metro area before the antis day 2018 after her sister Casey’s relationship ended with someone who was not a dog lover, Casey wanted to be sure that she could find someone who will love her dog as much as she does. And that was how big dogs was born. Today, Lee and Casey have also launched heavy days, which is a sister app for cat lovers. Elise is here to share the ins and outs of growing a dating app. Her experiences with growing a community and how catering to the different nuances of her user base has contributed to her success. Today’s episode is filled with great insights because he has been so generous for sharing information. So if you’ve always been interested in the business behind a niche dating app in this episode is for you. Now all episodes, show notes, tools and resources are online at Ted teo.com at tto.com. Now if you’d like to support the show, why not share it with a friend or leave a review on your favorite part because directly Lastly, if you’d like to stay up to date with every single episode, and don’t forget to subscribe now. So we say thank you and to show my appreciation to you guys. If you actually do subscribe and leave a review on Apple iTunes by the end of September, then you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. Now let’s dive right in. Lee, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s such a pleasure to have you. Hi, thank you so much. It’s great to meet you the list over simple icebreaker so we can all get to know you a bit better. Who is lady Angelo when she isn’t working?

 

01:40

When she isn’t working? That’s a funny question. Lee is usually walking her dog around the neighborhood. I live here in New Orleans, Louisiana. I’m actually 21 weeks pregnant. And that’s what most of my life focuses on right now. Yeah, thank you.

 

01:56

The Could you show us how did you and your sister start date, which is a dating app for dog lovers and Tabby dates, which is a dating app for cat lovers.

 

02:04

Yes, thank you. So yes, we’re, we’re, we were so fortunate, me and my sister grew up with completely opposite skill sets, you know, great friends. But everything she could do, I couldn’t do and vice versa, which weren’t, why ended up being a great way to start a company with your sister. But yes, a few years ago, my sister was dating a guy who tried to be a dog person for her. But by the end of the relationship, he didn’t want the dog in his apartment, or he’d put towels down on the couch. So the dog didn’t touch anything. And she said to me, I wish I just knew from the start, that this wasn’t going to work because of my dog. This is not something she’s planning on giving up. This is a true self identifier for her. You know, being a dog person is very important, and it affects so much of your life. And when you think about all the different types of niche dating apps out there, and then you think about the animals that you already love. Not only does that show the capacity to love, which you’ve got a lot of questions about with a lot of people on dating apps out there. But your animal at home matters, you know, in terms of how clean you keep your house more how often you travel, or how you spend your money and your time, the just the idea of focusing on something you already love. bringing that to the table as you’re having dating conversations, lens, those conversations to a direction that really encourages you to talk about the lifestyle you want to have in a way that’s that, you know, interviewing, you get to talk about something you love. And so the more we put it together, we knew this was a great opportunity. She came from the advertising design world, she worked at agencies across the US with major clients in terms of partnerships and advertising and marketing. My background is in TV news and journalism and Homeland Security and Emergency Response management. Very different skill sets. But we knew that she could make things look good, I could make things sound good. And if we found the right team to make them work, we’d have an incredible product and service for animal lovers everywhere.

 

04:11

That sounds like a very good partnership. Now let’s take some time to talk about how he developed the app. From what I understand you have a background in journalism and his sister has a background in advertising. So how did you go about actually programming the app itself?

 

04:25

One of the lessons learned here and experiences that I love to share is just tap into your local community. You know, I’m from New Orleans, which is not where people immediately think of for tech hub, you know, they think of Bourbon Street and that’s all fair and fun. But the city had these incredible resources that are hands to be able to work with a nonprofit accelerator program that was very tied in with local businesses and success stories in in local business in the city. So one of the first things we did before I think even going to register the company itself with the, with the state and what the country was tap into those communities. And we found out that there were a lot of people who really wanted to help and connect you and wanted to help. And so we were able to get into an early accelerator program based in New Orleans, that connected us with tech team members who could lead us in the right direction for hiring the development team. You know, my sister, like I said, she’s able to do a lot in terms of the visual aspects. And she’s always been able to design apps. So she already had, you know, the screens mapped out, the UX planned the 32 page branding document ready to go, we just needed to put it together. And so, you know, it took a long time, over time, we switched between development teams, you know, my sister, and I actually don’t work right next to each other. She’s in Brooklyn, New York, I’m in New Orleans. And so finding a tech team, we wanted to find it in New Orleans. But we were open to anywhere because our business was really structured around work from home before, you know, way before the pandemic. So we were really set up for the, for the pandemic to continue growing in that way. But finding the right team and building it out in that way. really started with tapping into our community and resources. Those

 

06:19

are very great tips, Lee. So guys, when you’re starting a company or any startup, if a specific skill sets that you need in your team, but you don’t actually have it yourself, consider joining an accelerator program or reaching out to your different networks or communities in your local area. Now, back to you, Lee, I know you niche down really early in your business when you decided to cater to the dog lovers market when you started dictate. But what kind of challenges did this bring whether in the designing of the app or otherwise that you had to face when you cater to this market? And how did it differ when you were catering to the cat lovers market when you started heavy dates two years later?

 

06:51

Sure. Well, we’ll start with the dog one. And then the cat one certainly had its own new problems as we introduced to the cat world. But in the dog world, what was really interesting that we found is that we had majority women everywhere. And you know, anyone in the dating industry will tell you? Yes, well, it’s very different. But it’s an extremely lucky problem to have, because men tend to follow where the women go, you just got to let them know that they’re there. However, men spend more on dating apps. And so you’ve got, you know, this balance of, you know, of course, our app is open to everyone we’re very LGBTQ friendly, can be non binary, and you can self identify. But when it came to the fact that we had a lot more women on the app, so anyone who wasn’t looking for women really wasn’t, you know, getting what they wanted. In the normal dating app world, men are used to that scenario, they’re used to being the majority and waiting, and women really weren’t used to wait. So we had a Yeah, we had a really interesting predicament where we didn’t want to change our marketing, of course, we, we cracked some sort of wonderful code where women felt comfortable on the dating app, in a way that wasn’t, you know, super feminine forward, it was just that we tapped into the culture around love, which is what we really wanted to do. And so really finding partnerships in order to connect with men, without changing the culture on the app was something we really focused on. And quickly, we learned, you know, most communities around dogs are also women focused. And that doesn’t mean there are more dog owners that are women than than dog owners that are men, it’s just that they’re more likely to be following the dog influencers, or whatever it may be, you know, getting the newsletters from their favorite dog clothing company. And so really working to find those communities that matched with our culture, but also had the right gender balance.

 

08:52

The I find it very interesting that most of the demographics of your users are female, because this is the opposite of what most dating apps are facing right now. Now, you also shared that you spent a lot of time working into communities, what is the business like before launch during the launch itself? And now that is more mature,

 

09:08

one of the first things we did was we looked at our own successes before launching the business and I said okay, not only was I in journalism, and had this Homeland Security background, but actually was the original director of a large nonprofit in Louisiana called the coastal Conservation Association. And we threw events constantly, I mean, truly, once a week across the state. And what I knew was, okay, maybe we could replicate some sort of event like structure and get a lot of people at in one place, which is really important for dating apps, right, where you had to download Digg in order to get into the event. Well, once you got there, you got to interact with all these different dog businesses. So what we ended up doing our first very first event we did we thought it was going to be the only one was in Brooklyn, New York. And we got about 30 dog businesses together picture the most dog friendly, fun trade show you’ve ever been at paradise, local business, local business, but next to local business. We’ve, you know, had people who have given CPR lessons there. So people can learn how to give CPR on their dog, we’ve got, you know, treat decorating tables, we had trainers, yeah. And so you you’ve just could bring your dog with on really dog friendly venues, we thought it was going to be the only one, we ended up replicating that every single month, my sister and I went city by city across the US throwing these dog friendly events. And what they did was, you know, they they got to hundreds of people in one place to download the app right away, then you made on the ground important relationships with pet businesses, who not only paid to be there and covered the cost of the events, but also spread the word about Digg to their community. Then with my background in TV news reporting, I got the local news to cover us in every city that we went to, then with my sister, you know, taking the advertising, design and partnerships, really encouraging our partners to share with incredible co branded marketing that was really individualized for each partner. So they could continue sharing the story about how we had a relationship with them, and how it could benefit their users, or their customers going forward. And so what we thought was just kind of a launch party to get started in one place ended up being a major important aspect for us, as we launch city by city for the next few years.

 

11:34

The sounds like pre COVID, you really focused a lot on events to actually grow your user base and business. But how have you pivoted now that COVID is a thing and it seems to be here to stay. And there’s a lot more sensitivities about large crowds, how have you maneuvered around us?

 

11:49

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. As soon as COVID hit, we had to immediately say, what is the digital or online version of these on the ground events and connections that we’ve been forming? How can we translate that to where our audience really is, which is at home right now. Right. And one thing that we built up over time was because of the incredible press that we’ve gotten everywhere. Our SEO score was incredible. You know, we we have wonderful authority online. And so that really benefit benefited our digital advertising. And so we were not, you know, necessarily teaching people about Digg with our advertising, they were remembering Digg with our advertising, because of all of the work we put in through the community through the partnerships. And through the press, we did something where we launched in the US you can you can apply and hopefully get a calendar day or a holiday that sponsored by you. And so we actually worked with the National Day calendar and got our our users to petition for national dog mom’s day. And so it’s the day before Mother’s Day. And every year we work with all of our partners, no matter what we get them dog mom’s day greeting cards and everything that they’re able to send out really giving to them everything they need to provide value to their users in that way. But including us in that partnership. And so really working on Okay, what would we do in person for that? What can we do online for that and pivoting to focus on our digital advertising in our partnerships?

 

13:25

The What advice would you have for a new entrepreneur who’s looking to build relationships with corporations? Do you have any tips on how you can make it last as well?

 

13:33

The number one thing to remember is that you’re talking to a human, not a corporation, right? You don’t have to be overly professional to the point that you look like a bot, you know, finding ways how would you reach out to a new friend at that Corporation, you know, finding ways to connect, if they’re active online, be active with them, you know, build relationships. But also, whenever you’re asking for something, I always like to come prepared for what I can give, you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re going to be asking everyone for everything from you know, go write my app. So we have a good rating, too. You know, could you give us a few shirts? So our team can look the same at this event to something just bro? Yeah. Can you something just bro, can you review this code? You know, whatever it may be, you need to come prepared with the idea that you’re going to be asking all the time, what can you give, and I’ve seen some entrepreneurs with some extraordinarily unique things to offer people now one company we work with, they offered, they had someone who was really good at drawing. And so they said, If you work with us, and can you please review this press release for us. And if you do, we’d love to do a personal drawing of your dog that we could say Wow, this is so cute. And it’s great. And you know, I love to help and I’d love to work on press releases. I wish I could do it for everyone. I can’t anymore. It’s one way that I do. often give back has helped people interact with the press and learn that especially in the pet community, I do a lot of work across the pet community in the US trying to teach how normal it is to talk to reporters. But then when I got that I said, Oh, of course, you know, that sounds like a dream. And it takes them two seconds, but it’s something they knew they had in their back pocket that me and other dog lover would really appreciate. And so as you’re starting to build those relationships, don’t go too creepy on them, you know, don’t say just like a normal human being as well. I love your alma mater, and you know, that sort of thing. But just those personal connections make a huge difference.

 

15:37

So guys, when you’re looking to build a relationship with cooperation, always remember that you’re always speaking to a person at the end of the day, and come on the basis that you’re prepared to give something returned, since you’re going to ask something from them. Now let’s talk a little bit more about the user base that you have in your business. Lee, different breeds of dogs have different personalities. And this will definitely have an impact on the owners that gravitate towards these breeds and the lifestyle that they share. So a person who owns a chihuahua would probably have a very different lifestyle from someone who owns maybe a German Shepherd. So could you share with us what your app has done to cater to this nuance between the users as well,

 

16:12

you have such a great question. You know, the way that I usually pose it is a dog lover in New York City might be carrying their Chihuahua in their bag as they enter a subway, and a dog lover in Louisiana might have their you know, Labrador Retriever jump in the back of their pickup truck on their way to go duck hunting. There’s still very different but very important to their identity, calling themselves dog lovers. And so one of the first things we did within the app itself was making sure that we’re matching you based on compatibility for you, but also for the animals. And a lot of that involves safety. Right? So my dog is a German Shorthaired Pointer, and she is, you know, very calm sleeping behind me at this moment, I don’t think you can see her. However, if she sees a cat, or if she sees a small dog, she chases them around until they collapse, right? And so if I was dating, I would not want to date someone with a small dog. And so one, one decision we made was, we don’t want people to search by breed. You know, that gets a little not only complicated, but you kind of turn into little briedis. And I don’t think it actually matters in terms of compatibility. But what does is oftentimes sighs number of animals, things like hypoallergenic, you know, what matters most to the lifestyle you’re gonna lead? And how can we encourage you to meet the right type of people and animals that match with you and your animals. But also a third of our users don’t have pets, yet, they want to date someone with a pet. Yeah. Which is a huge bonus. Right? And so we were really building into the app thinking from the compatibility standpoint, but also safety for both the humans and animals involved.

 

17:53

The You know, one thing I realized about your apps is that it’s so pet centric, and it must be such a good conversation starter for your users. You know, typically when a guy’s online and you’re trying to set a conversation with a girl, and if a BIOS empty, there’s nothing much to say, but we see a pet photo, then we really can latch on to there say, Wow, what a cute pair Do you have when a cute dog? You know, and this is kind of like when you’re in person. If we were in the park, and we were jogging, I wouldn’t stop to go and say hi to someone of the blue cuz that’s really creepy. But if there was a dog right there, you know, and I just am so enraptured by the dog, they could really be a conversation starter for someone in person as well. What do you think

 

18:28

you’re really tapping into what we saw from the very beginning? Dating is such a vulnerable time. It’s an emotional time. You’re putting your entire life out there. Now? Yeah, it’s very scary. But take that feeling when you see a cute dog, and you let your walls down on the street and your voice goes high. And you just are completely yourself. And we said, How can we take a little bit of that, letting your walls down feeling and incorporating it into the dating space, so you’re having more genuine relationships, starting conversations, and really starting off on the right foot. So that was our main purpose was not just, this is going to benefit the animals, which I’d love to, you know, explain that side as well. We truly believe we’re building relationships. So pets and pet lovers live healthier, longer, more joyous, lives together, right? having additional pet people around you and your pets means you’ve got more time to go to the vet. In an emergency, you might have more money to upgrade food to a more premium food you know, it’ll you see it as pet care really benefiting you and your animal. But also it’s so important to your core and the way that you’re able to start those those conversations. One thing I really like to say is it’s really hard to be pompous when you’re picking up dog poop. Yeah, you are. You are truly yours. Have you are, you know, nothing flattering about it. And so if you can find someone who’s, who’s willing to be around you during something like that, but also really appreciates that so they’re not going to step in dog poop later. I mean, how much does that just say off the bat without you really having to say anything?

 

20:15

Yeah. And it just shows your lifestyle from the start, if you kind of set it, it’s really mobile, not really a litmus test, but it really introduces very quickly to what the other person’s life would be like, rather than going through myself, you know, dating, going out to the bars, and then coming home, and then you realize, okay, this is not what I expected, which is not a bad thing, just as different. You know, the, you’re running a dating app company. So I can’t not ask you this question. What is your favorite love story that has come from the dating apps itself? Has anyone gotten married? Have they shared with you? What is it like?

 

20:47

Well, I gotta say, my favorite one is my sister. So we started the entire company for her. Yeah. At first, it was really hard, because as soon as you know, people said, Oh, what do you do, and she’s actually owned this app later on, you know, it kind of ruined, ruin the magic for. But very quickly, I know, she found someone who was traveling on the subway from work every day from New York to New Jersey. And he would get on Digg in the mornings. And they were able to connect. And so they’re certainly my favorite. She’s actually flying to Paris next week to go meet his family, which is really exciting. So I have to say, that’s my favorite story, for sure. But on both apps, we’ve had an incredible those are, those are what I live for, you know, the stories where people say, you know, especially on the cat side, where there’s so much stigma around cat people to find a community where you can be open about loving your cats, and especially the guys who have always tried to hide it that, you know, they didn’t want to be seen as the crazy cat lady. But they, you know, might have multiple cats themselves. We have a few Tabby employees who have gotten gifts in the mail. Once people found out they were involved with Tabby, because they said, just thank you so much for creating this and helping me find the love of my life. And it’s, there is nothing, absolutely nothing more valuable to me than those success stories.

 

22:16

Yeah. So I think every business owner has these moments. And I think it’s very important when the rough times, you know, sometimes it’s not about the money that you make behind it, that keeps you going. But there must be those moments that give you maybe higher purpose, if that’s a way to say it, but a non monetary gratification that really makes the early mornings and late nights worth it. Because after a while money will not motivate you the same way that it does start anymore. So I’d like to find out what are the highlights and lowlights that you faced from running the business so far? Could you share with us?

 

22:49

Well, number one is getting to work with my sister every day. Yeah, you know, really, for finding a team that you love, and you work well with is very, very difficult. And working with your sister can be very, very difficult. But no matter what happens, that is my favorite part of every single day is you know, we don’t live close to each other. But we get to work together so that that’s a huge driver for me, helping her find love. And then also every other person who finds love, of course. Yeah, there we go. And then of course, I can’t leave out the fact that my job is dogs, cats and love. Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s really not that bad at the end of the day.

 

23:33

So myself. Let’s talk a little bit about the competition. There are other pet dating apps out there. So how have they changed the game and the industry itself? Are you working with them to grow the pet lovers community together? What’s your take on this?

 

23:47

A lot of takes here. So there are a lot of dating apps out there. And niche dating apps are becoming more popular because it makes a lot of sense. Cut to the chase on something that matters to you. But if you love yoga, that might mean a lot to you. But you don’t sleep with yoga in your bed with you at night. Right? This is a true community that truly matters to the type of relationship you are looking for. And of course, I don’t want to knock Yogi’s or anyone else that truly self identifies with something that matters. Most of them, you should find that dating app that works for you. But the reason this works so well for our community is because we understand them and we understand what’s going to work for them in the future. And we work on that every single day. Now, on the larger scale. a dating app user uses three or four apps at one time for nine to 10 hours a week on average. And so when you say you know us compared to something like Tinder, I love Tinder, you know, our users are able to go swipe all day if they want to. But when they’re ready to cut to the chase and find something that really matters to them, they’re they’re coming to dig and they’re having a different experience. You know, there’s, each one of these incredible apps are growing the community. You know, just a few years ago, when we started, we had to still convince people that dating apps weren’t just a hookup app that this was a real way to build relationships. And thanks to the large companies out there, they’ve done the heavy lifting on that front and shown that true, compatible long term relationships come from this way of meeting. And so you know, we appreciate that more than anyone. And then on the dog side, you’ve got pet, a pet industry that is incredible. In the US, it passed $100 billion industry last year for the first time, you’ve got millennials that beat out baby boomers in terms of pet ownership. You’ve got incredible adoption and foster rates going up and just we are riding this wave that incredible pet owners and community members and small businesses and large businesses have been working on for years to make a better life for animals. And so we get to be on this incredible ride for part of these two very important industries to our customers laps.

 

26:11

So the I know you started heavy dates about three years after you started dictates what lessons from dig days, so she made it smoother when you were launching and growing heavier weights.

 

26:20

Man Tabby dates benefited from everything we learned from dig it took off because, you know, we knew what we were looking for. We were able to very quickly find out okay, this incredible marketing with these really efficient social ads that we’ve built up over time on Digg does it work in the cat community? And we had a yes no answer right away. It wasn’t something you know, do we do a four month marketing campaign to see if it works. We know we’ve got our benchmarks. We know what works in the dog community, we can go out and try it right away in the cat community see what works there. We knew what type of team we needed to build. You know, in the cat community, even more so than the dog community, I’d say in some areas, rescue matters and extraordinarily amount, extraordinary amount. So we wanted to find a team member from the beginning that knew and understood Cat Rescue and how that was different from dog rescue and dog nonprofits based on different populations across the country and really understood cat people from truly the most dedicated, you know, animal loving perspective in terms of those volunteers, building that into our team from the very beginning and making sure we’re able to connect with cat people in that way because you know, we don’t hide it we started as dog people, we’re not trying to mask and pretend that we were always cat people over dog people but we needed our team from the start to have that backing, and then also working. We’re so lucky to get to work with two influencers. Nathan the cat lady and Sterling the trap Kim Davis. They are two men who are really proud of their multiple cats that they own. Nathan has almost a million followers between Tick Tock and an Instagram of all cat people Sterling’s on the ground living in his RV, trapping cats and new spay neuter release or trap neuter release back into the communities as part of a very important community, a way of managing feral cats. And so from the beginning, making sure we had the connections to the cat community online. Because we launched in the middle of the pandemic. Like we mentioned before, we weren’t going to start Tabby. While throwing cat friendly events, we had to figure out okay, who is the best connection for us to bring onto our team who truly believe in our mission here, but also have a great way to connect as if we were on the ground.

 

28:45

The It sounds like you and your sister, both dog lovers. So what is something interesting that you learn about the chemistry when you move towards studying Tabby dates that you’re pleasantly surprised about?

 

28:54

One thing we learned really quickly was that dog people wanted their own dating app. Cat people needed their own. Right? They they? Sure? Well, there’s the obvious part. So you don’t have you know, cat parks like you have dog parks to bring in meet people, right that there aren’t cat friendly restaurants like they’re a dog friendly restaurant. So you’ve got an obvious difference in terms of how do you meet cat people. But on a deeper level, cat people have felt like they’ve had to hide their personality, or shift the conversation because of this stereotype or fear about being a crazy cat person. Dog people are more likely to call themselves dog lovers or cat people are more likely to call themselves animal lovers. And part of that is because being called a cat person is negative. So negative when you’re not a cat person being lonely. Yeah. One of the reasons Yeah, exactly. The lonely person who wants to be alone, and that’s clearly not true if they’re on a dating app, right. So what you know, last summer study came out from Colorado State University Medical School that said that men who had cats in their profile photos on dating apps got fewer matches and performed worse than men who didn’t have any animals at all. Yet, and they had gone in thinking, no matter the animal, the better that you do, you know, you had a dog, you did better. You had a cat, you did better. They learned that men were performed worse. Women saw them as more neurotic, more, you know, anxious, less masculine, because they had cats in their photos. Exactly. So it men specifically, but also this affects women looking for those men, right, people have been altering their their conversations, the way they present themselves, to try to hide something that they love. And so very quickly, we learned the opportunity of giving them a place that lets them celebrate something they love. Sounds so obvious, it sounds like any other niche dating app, but it’s really a major shift and change for cat people themselves.

 

30:59

The shaver, some of the community projects that dictates inhabitants may be helping out with David helping out with adoption drives and maybe the ASPCA.

 

31:07

So you know, from the beginning, when you’re a small business, and you’re spending every dollar you have seems to all go to lawyers for trademarks. And all you want to do is give back to these animals you’re involved with. And as a small business, you can’t always do the monetary donation. But from the very beginning, we said, What can we do? Right? And so we said, How much time Can we give to volunteering? how, you know, how dedicated Do we want our team members to be to the side of a rescue nonprofit? And so one of the things we said was, like we said that our advertisements every time we spend money, can we be helping a nonprofit that that cares so much about what we care about as well? So we said Yes, okay, we can promote them in our advertisements, every single event we had had adoptable animals at the event that were available locally. And anytime we can we incorporate our rescue partners in whatever we’re doing in a way that doesn’t burden them. Right. So we are always talking to them saying, What’s another way we can get the word out about you? What do you actually need right now, and then building into the apps themselves ways for people to then share information about their own local rescues and how they help. You know, for example, when we do a story, that might sound you know, just kind of like a generic, what’s a good dog friendly date idea this weekend, we always like to include, you know, working with rescue partners, you can go to your local shelter, and you can take the dogs for a jog in the middle of the day to get them out. And there’s a lot of rescues that do that. So we we really built you know, our content around what can you do maybe with your date, to go on a little, you know, midday date, taking the shelter dogs on a walk, whatever it may be. And so we try to be really creative and, and work with our rescue partners to figure out how we can help. until of course, being able to give them monetary donations, hosting our events at their locations, whatever we can do.

 

33:10

So what do you what are your future plans for expansion for your apps? Are you going to go into a new market? Maybe the hamster lover section,

 

33:17

I got to say hamsters is not everyone’s first question. Oh, it was great. We do get the horse question a lot, you know, for horse people. And I think it’d be really fun to have an app that you could Hey, Oh, this is so cute. Like, my note we are we’re still working on that. Right now, especially with the pandemic, you know, tabbies, less than a year old, really focusing on these two communities for, for me, a bad dating app or a dating app that launches too early without the structure around it, not only as a bad business plan, but it’s harmful to daters who are out there being vulnerable, expecting at the very least, the product to work and the community to understand them. Right. And so if we jump into something too quickly, if we, you know, try to go overseas without understanding that community, or if we try to enter another animal world without truly having the the expertise around understanding what those type of animal lovers want, I think we’d be doing real harm.

 

34:23

Let’s take some time to talk a little bit more about the dating apps in general, what is required behind this? What is the business model when one needs to be there to get it right?

 

34:32

Well, you’ve got to be able to match people based on something that matters most to them. That might be something as simple as distance. I want to find as many people as close to me as a cat. You know, gender identity, of course, extraordinarily important. Like I said, there’s a lot of safety aspects for us and for the animals themselves. We are introducing a new service that we’re really excited about called real meat where you’ll be able to do basically short background checks on the People that you’re talking to check for felonies, check for sexual assault cases. Because what we learned is that even though we’re really confident in our ability to check, who’s on the app, making sure you don’t have scammers or, or horrible people there, you know, our users report and we take every single report extraordinarily seriously. But because the industry isn’t always doing everything it can, you know, you find a ban on had a horrible experience on another dating app that affects us that perception of who’s on our app affects us. So we wanted to give the power back to you know, people who are looking and saying, okay, we, we believe, you know, these people are not scammers, you know, they’re not posting inappropriate photos, if you want to take that next step and check them as well, we want to provide you with that opportunity. And so the safety aspect is just extraordinarily important in this industry that we built in as well.

 

35:55

Lee is so great that you’re absolutely focusing on the safety of its users. And I think this is something that not all dating apps are focusing on. But should

 

36:02

there’s that’s one important reason why coming into this industry and being involved with industry leaders on the dating app side is so important, this is something that we truly do work together on. We’re, you know, involved with a lot of other CEOs and executives of dating app industries across the world, making sure that we can figure this out. Because if it hurts one, then it hurts all of us. And so that’s something we’re extraordinarily involved in. But in you know, you hear this across a lot of industries, it matters so much to the dating industry, because of that emotional side, you’re bringing, you know, you might be a cybersecurity expert, working for the government, then you’re a dog person, and you forget all of your training, because you’re there. Yeah, you’re and we’re asking you to let your guard down, you know, we’re encouraging that because we think that’s how you’re going to meet someone. So we’ve got this additional responsibility. And and sometimes that can be hard, you know, people are, they write us and they say, I cannot believe I fell for this, I had this long conversation with someone. And then they asked me for, you know, that gift card amount because they ran out of gas money. And it was so obvious along the way, I can’t believe I didn’t see it. You know, we’ve got things to pick up trends in what people are saying. We’ve got, you know, Google Analytics, or Google AI, looking at images to try to identify, you know, fakes or, or inappropriate items in images. But then it comes down to, you know, do you trust your user base to be able to report if anything does come through, and the user base is in such a state of emotional vulnerability, that you cannot rely on that and you should not rely on that. And so that is a extraordinarily important point for us that I think other industries don’t face.

 

37:56

Hopefully, as the industry matures, this issue will be hopefully solved in long run the the listeners only remember one thing today, what would you like it to be

 

38:04

tell all the single dog lovers and cat lovers about dig and Tabby, you can find us on the App Store and Google Play

 

38:12

greatly. So is there any way the listeners can get in touch with you

 

38:15

certainly connecting with us on Instagram is one of the best ways, that’s where a lot of our rescue in our partners is most integrated. So at dig dates, and at Tabby dates, you can connect with our team. We’re very responsive there. If you want to check out the app and give us any feedback or ratings, we always appreciate that. But truly more than anything, you know, I’m sure you listening know, some single cat lover, single dog lover out there, who’s gonna benefit from these communities. And so just sharing it and, you know, letting us know when there’s a success story is that nothing matters more to me. And I love reading those more than anything, too. So please do keep in touch.

 

38:56

Lee, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you, Todd. This was great. guys. Thank you so much for joining me and Lee and today’s episode. I certainly had a lot of fun talking to her about her dating apps. Now all the latest episodes, show notes, tools and resources are on my website at had to.com. That’s t d t o.com. And don’t forget about the Amazon gift voucher giveaway. If you do subscribe and leave a review on Apple iTunes by the end of September, then you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you next time.

 

[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:00

Guys, welcome back to the tattoo business show the best place for actionable advice for entrepreneurs. This is your host Ted speaking. And in today’s show, we have Lee D’Angelo who be sharing with us how to build a dating app for dog lovers and cat lovers. Lee is the co founder and CEO of dig dates, which is a dating app for dog lovers that launched in the New York metro area before the antis day 2018 after her sister Casey’s relationship ended with someone who was not a dog lover, Casey wanted to be sure that she could find someone who will love her dog as much as she does. And that was how big dogs was born. Today, Lee and Casey have also launched heavy days, which is a sister app for cat lovers. Elise is here to share the ins and outs of growing a dating app. Her experiences with growing a community and how catering to the different nuances of her user base has contributed to her success. Today’s episode is filled with great insights because he has been so generous for sharing information. So if you’ve always been interested in the business behind a niche dating app in this episode is for you. Now all episodes, show notes, tools and resources are online at Ted teo.com at tto.com. Now if you’d like to support the show, why not share it with a friend or leave a review on your favorite part because directly Lastly, if you’d like to stay up to date with every single episode, and don’t forget to subscribe now. So we say thank you and to show my appreciation to you guys. If you actually do subscribe and leave a review on Apple iTunes by the end of September, then you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. Now let’s dive right in. Lee, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s such a pleasure to have you. Hi, thank you so much. It’s great to meet you the list over simple icebreaker so we can all get to know you a bit better. Who is lady Angelo when she isn’t working?

 

01:40

When she isn’t working? That’s a funny question. Lee is usually walking her dog around the neighborhood. I live here in New Orleans, Louisiana. I’m actually 21 weeks pregnant. And that’s what most of my life focuses on right now. Yeah, thank you.

 

01:56

The Could you show us how did you and your sister start date, which is a dating app for dog lovers and Tabby dates, which is a dating app for cat lovers.

 

02:04

Yes, thank you. So yes, we’re, we’re, we were so fortunate, me and my sister grew up with completely opposite skill sets, you know, great friends. But everything she could do, I couldn’t do and vice versa, which weren’t, why ended up being a great way to start a company with your sister. But yes, a few years ago, my sister was dating a guy who tried to be a dog person for her. But by the end of the relationship, he didn’t want the dog in his apartment, or he’d put towels down on the couch. So the dog didn’t touch anything. And she said to me, I wish I just knew from the start, that this wasn’t going to work because of my dog. This is not something she’s planning on giving up. This is a true self identifier for her. You know, being a dog person is very important, and it affects so much of your life. And when you think about all the different types of niche dating apps out there, and then you think about the animals that you already love. Not only does that show the capacity to love, which you’ve got a lot of questions about with a lot of people on dating apps out there. But your animal at home matters, you know, in terms of how clean you keep your house more how often you travel, or how you spend your money and your time, the just the idea of focusing on something you already love. bringing that to the table as you’re having dating conversations, lens, those conversations to a direction that really encourages you to talk about the lifestyle you want to have in a way that’s that, you know, interviewing, you get to talk about something you love. And so the more we put it together, we knew this was a great opportunity. She came from the advertising design world, she worked at agencies across the US with major clients in terms of partnerships and advertising and marketing. My background is in TV news and journalism and Homeland Security and Emergency Response management. Very different skill sets. But we knew that she could make things look good, I could make things sound good. And if we found the right team to make them work, we’d have an incredible product and service for animal lovers everywhere.

 

04:11

That sounds like a very good partnership. Now let’s take some time to talk about how he developed the app. From what I understand you have a background in journalism and his sister has a background in advertising. So how did you go about actually programming the app itself?

 

04:25

One of the lessons learned here and experiences that I love to share is just tap into your local community. You know, I’m from New Orleans, which is not where people immediately think of for tech hub, you know, they think of Bourbon Street and that’s all fair and fun. But the city had these incredible resources that are hands to be able to work with a nonprofit accelerator program that was very tied in with local businesses and success stories in in local business in the city. So one of the first things we did before I think even going to register the company itself with the, with the state and what the country was tap into those communities. And we found out that there were a lot of people who really wanted to help and connect you and wanted to help. And so we were able to get into an early accelerator program based in New Orleans, that connected us with tech team members who could lead us in the right direction for hiring the development team. You know, my sister, like I said, she’s able to do a lot in terms of the visual aspects. And she’s always been able to design apps. So she already had, you know, the screens mapped out, the UX planned the 32 page branding document ready to go, we just needed to put it together. And so, you know, it took a long time, over time, we switched between development teams, you know, my sister, and I actually don’t work right next to each other. She’s in Brooklyn, New York, I’m in New Orleans. And so finding a tech team, we wanted to find it in New Orleans. But we were open to anywhere because our business was really structured around work from home before, you know, way before the pandemic. So we were really set up for the, for the pandemic to continue growing in that way. But finding the right team and building it out in that way. really started with tapping into our community and resources. Those

 

06:19

are very great tips, Lee. So guys, when you’re starting a company or any startup, if a specific skill sets that you need in your team, but you don’t actually have it yourself, consider joining an accelerator program or reaching out to your different networks or communities in your local area. Now, back to you, Lee, I know you niche down really early in your business when you decided to cater to the dog lovers market when you started dictate. But what kind of challenges did this bring whether in the designing of the app or otherwise that you had to face when you cater to this market? And how did it differ when you were catering to the cat lovers market when you started heavy dates two years later?

 

06:51

Sure. Well, we’ll start with the dog one. And then the cat one certainly had its own new problems as we introduced to the cat world. But in the dog world, what was really interesting that we found is that we had majority women everywhere. And you know, anyone in the dating industry will tell you? Yes, well, it’s very different. But it’s an extremely lucky problem to have, because men tend to follow where the women go, you just got to let them know that they’re there. However, men spend more on dating apps. And so you’ve got, you know, this balance of, you know, of course, our app is open to everyone we’re very LGBTQ friendly, can be non binary, and you can self identify. But when it came to the fact that we had a lot more women on the app, so anyone who wasn’t looking for women really wasn’t, you know, getting what they wanted. In the normal dating app world, men are used to that scenario, they’re used to being the majority and waiting, and women really weren’t used to wait. So we had a Yeah, we had a really interesting predicament where we didn’t want to change our marketing, of course, we, we cracked some sort of wonderful code where women felt comfortable on the dating app, in a way that wasn’t, you know, super feminine forward, it was just that we tapped into the culture around love, which is what we really wanted to do. And so really finding partnerships in order to connect with men, without changing the culture on the app was something we really focused on. And quickly, we learned, you know, most communities around dogs are also women focused. And that doesn’t mean there are more dog owners that are women than than dog owners that are men, it’s just that they’re more likely to be following the dog influencers, or whatever it may be, you know, getting the newsletters from their favorite dog clothing company. And so really working to find those communities that matched with our culture, but also had the right gender balance.

 

08:52

The I find it very interesting that most of the demographics of your users are female, because this is the opposite of what most dating apps are facing right now. Now, you also shared that you spent a lot of time working into communities, what is the business like before launch during the launch itself? And now that is more mature,

 

09:08

one of the first things we did was we looked at our own successes before launching the business and I said okay, not only was I in journalism, and had this Homeland Security background, but actually was the original director of a large nonprofit in Louisiana called the coastal Conservation Association. And we threw events constantly, I mean, truly, once a week across the state. And what I knew was, okay, maybe we could replicate some sort of event like structure and get a lot of people at in one place, which is really important for dating apps, right, where you had to download Digg in order to get into the event. Well, once you got there, you got to interact with all these different dog businesses. So what we ended up doing our first very first event we did we thought it was going to be the only one was in Brooklyn, New York. And we got about 30 dog businesses together picture the most dog friendly, fun trade show you’ve ever been at paradise, local business, local business, but next to local business. We’ve, you know, had people who have given CPR lessons there. So people can learn how to give CPR on their dog, we’ve got, you know, treat decorating tables, we had trainers, yeah. And so you you’ve just could bring your dog with on really dog friendly venues, we thought it was going to be the only one, we ended up replicating that every single month, my sister and I went city by city across the US throwing these dog friendly events. And what they did was, you know, they they got to hundreds of people in one place to download the app right away, then you made on the ground important relationships with pet businesses, who not only paid to be there and covered the cost of the events, but also spread the word about Digg to their community. Then with my background in TV news reporting, I got the local news to cover us in every city that we went to, then with my sister, you know, taking the advertising, design and partnerships, really encouraging our partners to share with incredible co branded marketing that was really individualized for each partner. So they could continue sharing the story about how we had a relationship with them, and how it could benefit their users, or their customers going forward. And so what we thought was just kind of a launch party to get started in one place ended up being a major important aspect for us, as we launch city by city for the next few years.

 

11:34

The sounds like pre COVID, you really focused a lot on events to actually grow your user base and business. But how have you pivoted now that COVID is a thing and it seems to be here to stay. And there’s a lot more sensitivities about large crowds, how have you maneuvered around us?

 

11:49

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. As soon as COVID hit, we had to immediately say, what is the digital or online version of these on the ground events and connections that we’ve been forming? How can we translate that to where our audience really is, which is at home right now. Right. And one thing that we built up over time was because of the incredible press that we’ve gotten everywhere. Our SEO score was incredible. You know, we we have wonderful authority online. And so that really benefit benefited our digital advertising. And so we were not, you know, necessarily teaching people about Digg with our advertising, they were remembering Digg with our advertising, because of all of the work we put in through the community through the partnerships. And through the press, we did something where we launched in the US you can you can apply and hopefully get a calendar day or a holiday that sponsored by you. And so we actually worked with the National Day calendar and got our our users to petition for national dog mom’s day. And so it’s the day before Mother’s Day. And every year we work with all of our partners, no matter what we get them dog mom’s day greeting cards and everything that they’re able to send out really giving to them everything they need to provide value to their users in that way. But including us in that partnership. And so really working on Okay, what would we do in person for that? What can we do online for that and pivoting to focus on our digital advertising in our partnerships?

 

13:25

The What advice would you have for a new entrepreneur who’s looking to build relationships with corporations? Do you have any tips on how you can make it last as well?

 

13:33

The number one thing to remember is that you’re talking to a human, not a corporation, right? You don’t have to be overly professional to the point that you look like a bot, you know, finding ways how would you reach out to a new friend at that Corporation, you know, finding ways to connect, if they’re active online, be active with them, you know, build relationships. But also, whenever you’re asking for something, I always like to come prepared for what I can give, you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re going to be asking everyone for everything from you know, go write my app. So we have a good rating, too. You know, could you give us a few shirts? So our team can look the same at this event to something just bro? Yeah. Can you something just bro, can you review this code? You know, whatever it may be, you need to come prepared with the idea that you’re going to be asking all the time, what can you give, and I’ve seen some entrepreneurs with some extraordinarily unique things to offer people now one company we work with, they offered, they had someone who was really good at drawing. And so they said, If you work with us, and can you please review this press release for us. And if you do, we’d love to do a personal drawing of your dog that we could say Wow, this is so cute. And it’s great. And you know, I love to help and I’d love to work on press releases. I wish I could do it for everyone. I can’t anymore. It’s one way that I do. often give back has helped people interact with the press and learn that especially in the pet community, I do a lot of work across the pet community in the US trying to teach how normal it is to talk to reporters. But then when I got that I said, Oh, of course, you know, that sounds like a dream. And it takes them two seconds, but it’s something they knew they had in their back pocket that me and other dog lover would really appreciate. And so as you’re starting to build those relationships, don’t go too creepy on them, you know, don’t say just like a normal human being as well. I love your alma mater, and you know, that sort of thing. But just those personal connections make a huge difference.

 

15:37

So guys, when you’re looking to build a relationship with cooperation, always remember that you’re always speaking to a person at the end of the day, and come on the basis that you’re prepared to give something returned, since you’re going to ask something from them. Now let’s talk a little bit more about the user base that you have in your business. Lee, different breeds of dogs have different personalities. And this will definitely have an impact on the owners that gravitate towards these breeds and the lifestyle that they share. So a person who owns a chihuahua would probably have a very different lifestyle from someone who owns maybe a German Shepherd. So could you share with us what your app has done to cater to this nuance between the users as well,

 

16:12

you have such a great question. You know, the way that I usually pose it is a dog lover in New York City might be carrying their Chihuahua in their bag as they enter a subway, and a dog lover in Louisiana might have their you know, Labrador Retriever jump in the back of their pickup truck on their way to go duck hunting. There’s still very different but very important to their identity, calling themselves dog lovers. And so one of the first things we did within the app itself was making sure that we’re matching you based on compatibility for you, but also for the animals. And a lot of that involves safety. Right? So my dog is a German Shorthaired Pointer, and she is, you know, very calm sleeping behind me at this moment, I don’t think you can see her. However, if she sees a cat, or if she sees a small dog, she chases them around until they collapse, right? And so if I was dating, I would not want to date someone with a small dog. And so one, one decision we made was, we don’t want people to search by breed. You know, that gets a little not only complicated, but you kind of turn into little briedis. And I don’t think it actually matters in terms of compatibility. But what does is oftentimes sighs number of animals, things like hypoallergenic, you know, what matters most to the lifestyle you’re gonna lead? And how can we encourage you to meet the right type of people and animals that match with you and your animals. But also a third of our users don’t have pets, yet, they want to date someone with a pet. Yeah. Which is a huge bonus. Right? And so we were really building into the app thinking from the compatibility standpoint, but also safety for both the humans and animals involved.

 

17:53

The You know, one thing I realized about your apps is that it’s so pet centric, and it must be such a good conversation starter for your users. You know, typically when a guy’s online and you’re trying to set a conversation with a girl, and if a BIOS empty, there’s nothing much to say, but we see a pet photo, then we really can latch on to there say, Wow, what a cute pair Do you have when a cute dog? You know, and this is kind of like when you’re in person. If we were in the park, and we were jogging, I wouldn’t stop to go and say hi to someone of the blue cuz that’s really creepy. But if there was a dog right there, you know, and I just am so enraptured by the dog, they could really be a conversation starter for someone in person as well. What do you think

 

18:28

you’re really tapping into what we saw from the very beginning? Dating is such a vulnerable time. It’s an emotional time. You’re putting your entire life out there. Now? Yeah, it’s very scary. But take that feeling when you see a cute dog, and you let your walls down on the street and your voice goes high. And you just are completely yourself. And we said, How can we take a little bit of that, letting your walls down feeling and incorporating it into the dating space, so you’re having more genuine relationships, starting conversations, and really starting off on the right foot. So that was our main purpose was not just, this is going to benefit the animals, which I’d love to, you know, explain that side as well. We truly believe we’re building relationships. So pets and pet lovers live healthier, longer, more joyous, lives together, right? having additional pet people around you and your pets means you’ve got more time to go to the vet. In an emergency, you might have more money to upgrade food to a more premium food you know, it’ll you see it as pet care really benefiting you and your animal. But also it’s so important to your core and the way that you’re able to start those those conversations. One thing I really like to say is it’s really hard to be pompous when you’re picking up dog poop. Yeah, you are. You are truly yours. Have you are, you know, nothing flattering about it. And so if you can find someone who’s, who’s willing to be around you during something like that, but also really appreciates that so they’re not going to step in dog poop later. I mean, how much does that just say off the bat without you really having to say anything?

 

20:15

Yeah. And it just shows your lifestyle from the start, if you kind of set it, it’s really mobile, not really a litmus test, but it really introduces very quickly to what the other person’s life would be like, rather than going through myself, you know, dating, going out to the bars, and then coming home, and then you realize, okay, this is not what I expected, which is not a bad thing, just as different. You know, the, you’re running a dating app company. So I can’t not ask you this question. What is your favorite love story that has come from the dating apps itself? Has anyone gotten married? Have they shared with you? What is it like?

 

20:47

Well, I gotta say, my favorite one is my sister. So we started the entire company for her. Yeah. At first, it was really hard, because as soon as you know, people said, Oh, what do you do, and she’s actually owned this app later on, you know, it kind of ruined, ruin the magic for. But very quickly, I know, she found someone who was traveling on the subway from work every day from New York to New Jersey. And he would get on Digg in the mornings. And they were able to connect. And so they’re certainly my favorite. She’s actually flying to Paris next week to go meet his family, which is really exciting. So I have to say, that’s my favorite story, for sure. But on both apps, we’ve had an incredible those are, those are what I live for, you know, the stories where people say, you know, especially on the cat side, where there’s so much stigma around cat people to find a community where you can be open about loving your cats, and especially the guys who have always tried to hide it that, you know, they didn’t want to be seen as the crazy cat lady. But they, you know, might have multiple cats themselves. We have a few Tabby employees who have gotten gifts in the mail. Once people found out they were involved with Tabby, because they said, just thank you so much for creating this and helping me find the love of my life. And it’s, there is nothing, absolutely nothing more valuable to me than those success stories.

 

22:16

Yeah. So I think every business owner has these moments. And I think it’s very important when the rough times, you know, sometimes it’s not about the money that you make behind it, that keeps you going. But there must be those moments that give you maybe higher purpose, if that’s a way to say it, but a non monetary gratification that really makes the early mornings and late nights worth it. Because after a while money will not motivate you the same way that it does start anymore. So I’d like to find out what are the highlights and lowlights that you faced from running the business so far? Could you share with us?

 

22:49

Well, number one is getting to work with my sister every day. Yeah, you know, really, for finding a team that you love, and you work well with is very, very difficult. And working with your sister can be very, very difficult. But no matter what happens, that is my favorite part of every single day is you know, we don’t live close to each other. But we get to work together so that that’s a huge driver for me, helping her find love. And then also every other person who finds love, of course. Yeah, there we go. And then of course, I can’t leave out the fact that my job is dogs, cats and love. Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s really not that bad at the end of the day.

 

23:33

So myself. Let’s talk a little bit about the competition. There are other pet dating apps out there. So how have they changed the game and the industry itself? Are you working with them to grow the pet lovers community together? What’s your take on this?

 

23:47

A lot of takes here. So there are a lot of dating apps out there. And niche dating apps are becoming more popular because it makes a lot of sense. Cut to the chase on something that matters to you. But if you love yoga, that might mean a lot to you. But you don’t sleep with yoga in your bed with you at night. Right? This is a true community that truly matters to the type of relationship you are looking for. And of course, I don’t want to knock Yogi’s or anyone else that truly self identifies with something that matters. Most of them, you should find that dating app that works for you. But the reason this works so well for our community is because we understand them and we understand what’s going to work for them in the future. And we work on that every single day. Now, on the larger scale. a dating app user uses three or four apps at one time for nine to 10 hours a week on average. And so when you say you know us compared to something like Tinder, I love Tinder, you know, our users are able to go swipe all day if they want to. But when they’re ready to cut to the chase and find something that really matters to them, they’re they’re coming to dig and they’re having a different experience. You know, there’s, each one of these incredible apps are growing the community. You know, just a few years ago, when we started, we had to still convince people that dating apps weren’t just a hookup app that this was a real way to build relationships. And thanks to the large companies out there, they’ve done the heavy lifting on that front and shown that true, compatible long term relationships come from this way of meeting. And so you know, we appreciate that more than anyone. And then on the dog side, you’ve got pet, a pet industry that is incredible. In the US, it passed $100 billion industry last year for the first time, you’ve got millennials that beat out baby boomers in terms of pet ownership. You’ve got incredible adoption and foster rates going up and just we are riding this wave that incredible pet owners and community members and small businesses and large businesses have been working on for years to make a better life for animals. And so we get to be on this incredible ride for part of these two very important industries to our customers laps.

 

26:11

So the I know you started heavy dates about three years after you started dictates what lessons from dig days, so she made it smoother when you were launching and growing heavier weights.

 

26:20

Man Tabby dates benefited from everything we learned from dig it took off because, you know, we knew what we were looking for. We were able to very quickly find out okay, this incredible marketing with these really efficient social ads that we’ve built up over time on Digg does it work in the cat community? And we had a yes no answer right away. It wasn’t something you know, do we do a four month marketing campaign to see if it works. We know we’ve got our benchmarks. We know what works in the dog community, we can go out and try it right away in the cat community see what works there. We knew what type of team we needed to build. You know, in the cat community, even more so than the dog community, I’d say in some areas, rescue matters and extraordinarily amount, extraordinary amount. So we wanted to find a team member from the beginning that knew and understood Cat Rescue and how that was different from dog rescue and dog nonprofits based on different populations across the country and really understood cat people from truly the most dedicated, you know, animal loving perspective in terms of those volunteers, building that into our team from the very beginning and making sure we’re able to connect with cat people in that way because you know, we don’t hide it we started as dog people, we’re not trying to mask and pretend that we were always cat people over dog people but we needed our team from the start to have that backing, and then also working. We’re so lucky to get to work with two influencers. Nathan the cat lady and Sterling the trap Kim Davis. They are two men who are really proud of their multiple cats that they own. Nathan has almost a million followers between Tick Tock and an Instagram of all cat people Sterling’s on the ground living in his RV, trapping cats and new spay neuter release or trap neuter release back into the communities as part of a very important community, a way of managing feral cats. And so from the beginning, making sure we had the connections to the cat community online. Because we launched in the middle of the pandemic. Like we mentioned before, we weren’t going to start Tabby. While throwing cat friendly events, we had to figure out okay, who is the best connection for us to bring onto our team who truly believe in our mission here, but also have a great way to connect as if we were on the ground.

 

28:45

The It sounds like you and your sister, both dog lovers. So what is something interesting that you learn about the chemistry when you move towards studying Tabby dates that you’re pleasantly surprised about?

 

28:54

One thing we learned really quickly was that dog people wanted their own dating app. Cat people needed their own. Right? They they? Sure? Well, there’s the obvious part. So you don’t have you know, cat parks like you have dog parks to bring in meet people, right that there aren’t cat friendly restaurants like they’re a dog friendly restaurant. So you’ve got an obvious difference in terms of how do you meet cat people. But on a deeper level, cat people have felt like they’ve had to hide their personality, or shift the conversation because of this stereotype or fear about being a crazy cat person. Dog people are more likely to call themselves dog lovers or cat people are more likely to call themselves animal lovers. And part of that is because being called a cat person is negative. So negative when you’re not a cat person being lonely. Yeah. One of the reasons Yeah, exactly. The lonely person who wants to be alone, and that’s clearly not true if they’re on a dating app, right. So what you know, last summer study came out from Colorado State University Medical School that said that men who had cats in their profile photos on dating apps got fewer matches and performed worse than men who didn’t have any animals at all. Yet, and they had gone in thinking, no matter the animal, the better that you do, you know, you had a dog, you did better. You had a cat, you did better. They learned that men were performed worse. Women saw them as more neurotic, more, you know, anxious, less masculine, because they had cats in their photos. Exactly. So it men specifically, but also this affects women looking for those men, right, people have been altering their their conversations, the way they present themselves, to try to hide something that they love. And so very quickly, we learned the opportunity of giving them a place that lets them celebrate something they love. Sounds so obvious, it sounds like any other niche dating app, but it’s really a major shift and change for cat people themselves.

 

30:59

The shaver, some of the community projects that dictates inhabitants may be helping out with David helping out with adoption drives and maybe the ASPCA.

 

31:07

So you know, from the beginning, when you’re a small business, and you’re spending every dollar you have seems to all go to lawyers for trademarks. And all you want to do is give back to these animals you’re involved with. And as a small business, you can’t always do the monetary donation. But from the very beginning, we said, What can we do? Right? And so we said, How much time Can we give to volunteering? how, you know, how dedicated Do we want our team members to be to the side of a rescue nonprofit? And so one of the things we said was, like we said that our advertisements every time we spend money, can we be helping a nonprofit that that cares so much about what we care about as well? So we said Yes, okay, we can promote them in our advertisements, every single event we had had adoptable animals at the event that were available locally. And anytime we can we incorporate our rescue partners in whatever we’re doing in a way that doesn’t burden them. Right. So we are always talking to them saying, What’s another way we can get the word out about you? What do you actually need right now, and then building into the apps themselves ways for people to then share information about their own local rescues and how they help. You know, for example, when we do a story, that might sound you know, just kind of like a generic, what’s a good dog friendly date idea this weekend, we always like to include, you know, working with rescue partners, you can go to your local shelter, and you can take the dogs for a jog in the middle of the day to get them out. And there’s a lot of rescues that do that. So we we really built you know, our content around what can you do maybe with your date, to go on a little, you know, midday date, taking the shelter dogs on a walk, whatever it may be. And so we try to be really creative and, and work with our rescue partners to figure out how we can help. until of course, being able to give them monetary donations, hosting our events at their locations, whatever we can do.

 

33:10

So what do you what are your future plans for expansion for your apps? Are you going to go into a new market? Maybe the hamster lover section,

 

33:17

I got to say hamsters is not everyone’s first question. Oh, it was great. We do get the horse question a lot, you know, for horse people. And I think it’d be really fun to have an app that you could Hey, Oh, this is so cute. Like, my note we are we’re still working on that. Right now, especially with the pandemic, you know, tabbies, less than a year old, really focusing on these two communities for, for me, a bad dating app or a dating app that launches too early without the structure around it, not only as a bad business plan, but it’s harmful to daters who are out there being vulnerable, expecting at the very least, the product to work and the community to understand them. Right. And so if we jump into something too quickly, if we, you know, try to go overseas without understanding that community, or if we try to enter another animal world without truly having the the expertise around understanding what those type of animal lovers want, I think we’d be doing real harm.

 

34:23

Let’s take some time to talk a little bit more about the dating apps in general, what is required behind this? What is the business model when one needs to be there to get it right?

 

34:32

Well, you’ve got to be able to match people based on something that matters most to them. That might be something as simple as distance. I want to find as many people as close to me as a cat. You know, gender identity, of course, extraordinarily important. Like I said, there’s a lot of safety aspects for us and for the animals themselves. We are introducing a new service that we’re really excited about called real meat where you’ll be able to do basically short background checks on the People that you’re talking to check for felonies, check for sexual assault cases. Because what we learned is that even though we’re really confident in our ability to check, who’s on the app, making sure you don’t have scammers or, or horrible people there, you know, our users report and we take every single report extraordinarily seriously. But because the industry isn’t always doing everything it can, you know, you find a ban on had a horrible experience on another dating app that affects us that perception of who’s on our app affects us. So we wanted to give the power back to you know, people who are looking and saying, okay, we, we believe, you know, these people are not scammers, you know, they’re not posting inappropriate photos, if you want to take that next step and check them as well, we want to provide you with that opportunity. And so the safety aspect is just extraordinarily important in this industry that we built in as well.

 

35:55

Lee is so great that you’re absolutely focusing on the safety of its users. And I think this is something that not all dating apps are focusing on. But should

 

36:02

there’s that’s one important reason why coming into this industry and being involved with industry leaders on the dating app side is so important, this is something that we truly do work together on. We’re, you know, involved with a lot of other CEOs and executives of dating app industries across the world, making sure that we can figure this out. Because if it hurts one, then it hurts all of us. And so that’s something we’re extraordinarily involved in. But in you know, you hear this across a lot of industries, it matters so much to the dating industry, because of that emotional side, you’re bringing, you know, you might be a cybersecurity expert, working for the government, then you’re a dog person, and you forget all of your training, because you’re there. Yeah, you’re and we’re asking you to let your guard down, you know, we’re encouraging that because we think that’s how you’re going to meet someone. So we’ve got this additional responsibility. And and sometimes that can be hard, you know, people are, they write us and they say, I cannot believe I fell for this, I had this long conversation with someone. And then they asked me for, you know, that gift card amount because they ran out of gas money. And it was so obvious along the way, I can’t believe I didn’t see it. You know, we’ve got things to pick up trends in what people are saying. We’ve got, you know, Google Analytics, or Google AI, looking at images to try to identify, you know, fakes or, or inappropriate items in images. But then it comes down to, you know, do you trust your user base to be able to report if anything does come through, and the user base is in such a state of emotional vulnerability, that you cannot rely on that and you should not rely on that. And so that is a extraordinarily important point for us that I think other industries don’t face.

 

37:56

Hopefully, as the industry matures, this issue will be hopefully solved in long run the the listeners only remember one thing today, what would you like it to be

 

38:04

tell all the single dog lovers and cat lovers about dig and Tabby, you can find us on the App Store and Google Play

 

38:12

greatly. So is there any way the listeners can get in touch with you

 

38:15

certainly connecting with us on Instagram is one of the best ways, that’s where a lot of our rescue in our partners is most integrated. So at dig dates, and at Tabby dates, you can connect with our team. We’re very responsive there. If you want to check out the app and give us any feedback or ratings, we always appreciate that. But truly more than anything, you know, I’m sure you listening know, some single cat lover, single dog lover out there, who’s gonna benefit from these communities. And so just sharing it and, you know, letting us know when there’s a success story is that nothing matters more to me. And I love reading those more than anything, too. So please do keep in touch.

 

38:56

Lee, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you, Todd. This was great. guys. Thank you so much for joining me and Lee and today’s episode. I certainly had a lot of fun talking to her about her dating apps. Now all the latest episodes, show notes, tools and resources are on my website at had to.com. That’s t d t o.com. And don’t forget about the Amazon gift voucher giveaway. If you do subscribe and leave a review on Apple iTunes by the end of September, then you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you next time.