Ask HN: Advice on increasing engagement for consumer/P2P app?
Hi all! Looking for tips from folks with consumer tech/P2P app experience :) I’m a co-founder of an app that encourages pet parents within the same city/neighborhood to swap pet-sitting instead of paying $$ for a sitter. It’s completely free right now, and people often say they love the idea. We gained 400+ users in the past 3 months (500+ total), with most of them based in the Bay Area. But one challenge we have right now is that not enough people have actually swapped pet-sits.
When designing the app, we took inspiration from P2P apps and platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Airbnb, Grindr and Tinder. How the app works is that you first set up your profile with info like photos of yourself and your pets, your pet’s info, your usual availability broken down by day and periods (morning, afternoon, evening). Then you’ll see a grid view of all pet parents and their pets sorted by distance, with the ones closest to you shown first. Once you click on their profile, you can automatically shoot them a message asking for their availability to help you pet-sit. Finally, users can request a pet-sit using our scheduling system where they can choose the length of the pet-sit, what day(s) they need it, etc. To help them build a pet parent network, we have a cash-less, time exchange system where users can earn hour credits by helping others pet-sit. Then they can use the hour credits earned to request for longer, more frequent pet-sits.
Understand that trust and safety is top of mind for any pet parents, so we encourage users to chat a little and meet offline first before committing to a pet-sit. We also rolled out a facial verification feature lately so users can verify that they’re a real person. Once they do that, their profile will have a blue check mark badge indicating that they’re verified. But still, not enough people actually use the app. Many of them signed up for the hype from our marketing efforts but probably abandoned the app. Some of them chatted and asked for other’s availability that just didn’t work out, but few people actually scheduled any pet-sits.
What’s missing from our current system? What can we improve on? How can we get more users to embrace the idea of free pet-sitting and use our app more often? We’re actively asking users for their feedback too, but thought I’d also ask fellow founders, developers and people with P2P and consumer tech experience. Many thanks
Gaining users is one challenge, but activating them is another. There seems to be friction in translating app sign-ups into real-world actions
What you can do (if you're not already doing it) Implement a quick-start feature that simplifies the process: users input a date they need coverage, and the system proactively suggests compatible verified-only sitters with auto-generated message templates.
Introduce push notifications that remind users to reach out to nearby matches or highlight new pet parents in their area.
Also you can consider hosting local meet-and-greet events (since you're set in the Bay Area), partnering with local pet shops or parks to build trust.
Adding a group chat feature for local neighborhoods (i.e. for a city, or a neighborhood) can foster communication and trust.
You can add "premium sitters" that can gain money if they do some specific things like in person verification, they have a big fenced garden or something else. They will cost money to book them.
whats missing is this: go ask chat.com and grok.com on why this is a tarpit problem.
just literally paste this block of text you wrote and i think you'll get sensible answers there.
Your pitch seems to be that people can join a community in which they can receive free (no-cost) pet care (pet sitting, feeding, waste management, walks, time-sharing), and in exchange they themselves are in the pool of people who can respond if they can help out someone in the network who needs similar help (and their schedule/location/abilities/availability/preferences match).
As is see it: most people with sufficient funds might rather pay someone to do this type of work professionally, since that way the work-doer is more on the hook to do the tasks and do them well--there is no ambiguity around it being a favor or a best-effort kind of thing, since it is their profession. There is also no ambiguity around whether the worker will be available -- once a paid engagement is set up, it is on the books.
Your biggest competition is apps like Rover, Wag, etc.
Do some people feel the crunch of inflation, etc.? Sure. I think you can appeal to people who CANNOT afford the going rates of pet sitting, but NEED pet sitting, who also have the TIME and WILLINGNESS to perform pet care services for others (within the app's community).
Here's one analysis: people who need the pet sitting APPS are out traveling for the weekend regularly, or traveling for weeks on end for work. They have enough disposable income to contract a professional. These people use the pet-sitting apps similar to how they use Uber or Doordash for on-demand gig-work, or perhaps they use the app and find a regular that they like and can trust, etc.
The typical pet care app provides a middleman service that provides some kind of actual assurance and/or insurance, in case things go wrong; some kind of validation of the customer and the worker; mediates communication and payment; customer service; ratings, comments, profiles, work-execution-status-tracking/photos-proof-of-work-done, etc.
IMO you need to clearly differentiate who your community is, and why they prefer this app. Then the app MUST be easy to use to "request a gig from a person (or in general)" and to "receive a notification of a gig request" for fast responsiveness.
I suspect your market is people who do not have great funds to actually afford the pet care they would like to contract. And they themselves ARE NOT so busy nor so entitled that they couldn't pitch in when others need the help, too.
I have actually thought about this idea or something like it, too. I figured it as a "social network for pets", though. So, literally make a profile for your animal(s). And have them post and talk about their needs, etc. If you want to pivot to that, please feel free to.
Good luck. The animals need the care!
Additional point:
Most people need pet sitting at similar times and most people are independently busy at similar times.
If you model all of these with independent uniform distributions you might not end up with actionable information.
How can we get more users to embrace the idea of free pet-sitting and use our app more often?
Once users find matches, they don’t need the app.
If they can’t find matches, they don’t need the app.
If they just want to hire someone because they don’t want to pet sit, they don’t need the app.
If they want to pet sit for money, they don’t need the app.
If they already have a strong social network (family for example) they don’t need the app.
It is not that the cost of pet sitting isn’t an issue for some people, it is that the only people who will get free pet sitting are those willing to exploit the goodwill of others, Because when giving pet sitting is the cost of getting pet sitting, the pet sitting you get is not free. Good luck.