One of my dogs, a 10-year-old Great Dane named Baby, died of mesenteric volvulus precisely at the turn of the millennium, the night that marked the end of 1999 and the beginning of the year 2000. There were no on-call vets available to him, and I was at a location with no vet ERs to drive to. I had no idea what was going on and helplessly watched him die. I reflected on this story while my team and I worked on a very unusual project called Pets After Dark. If they only were around 24 years ago!
Howard Swimmer and Dr. Caroline Simard-Swimmer launched their after-hours veterinary telehealth service in January 2024. This unique startup connects pet owners with on-call veterinarians when they need them most: after dark (hence the brand name).
United Parts of Chicago jumped into this wagon a bit later, in April 2024, and we were surprised by the business model itself. We see immense potential in it; Pets After Dark also resonates with our team’s inner space because we are pet owners: cats, dogs, fish, amphibians, and even crustaceans.
In our first sprint, we delivered long-awaited functionality allowing Pets After Dark customers to purchase a single consultation to resolve an unforeseen issue instead of making a subscription. We also migrated their website to a faster, more reliable server ready for a significant workload and optimized the Zoho One functionality. More updates will follow; we believe it will end with a sound case study for Zoho One, Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, and Zoho Flow.
Pets After Dark currently serves Greater Pittsburgh, but the expansion is on the horizon. Now, we’re planning for the next sprint, and in the meantime we wish the Pets After Dark team and their terrific veterinarians long, silent nights and happy patients!
Pets After Dark featured on KDKA-TV
