Veterinary disruption?

My cat Toro was trending for the better in the latter half of the week, but he is back to being lethargic and not eating. He could just be full and wants to have a lazy Saturday, but this could unfortunately be the final trend down. I have my fingers crossed and I’m staying optimistic, but like I mentioned in my previous blog post, I know the time is coming sooner than later.

Toro has had many vets. He had a vet when I adopted him in Seattle that was great, a couple vets in New York that were more or less worthless and just wanted to charge me for anything possible, and now I have been taking him to the San Francisco SPCA for his emergency visits.

The SPCA is a wonderful organization. They are a non-profit so anything we pay goes to help run the hospital as well as pay for pet adoptions and getting pets fixed. Like any organization, they aren’t perfect and I believe this is largely in part due to the lack of funding. The organization runs mainly on donations.

I was not happy to see my bill for Toro’s two emergency room visits, but I understood and paying money to the SPCA made me feel a lot better. Being a vet, like a doctor is mostly a thankless job. One vet tech at the SPCA said, “we’re the red headed step child of the medical industry.” Unfortunately, I can see how this is very true.

I’m not well versed in healthcare and my suspicion is that this is more of the norm, but the software they were using looked like a Windows 95 application. Pet hospitals are overwhelmed. Vets do not have room for appointments within 2+ weeks. There is a lack of technology to help vets do their jobs better.

This is an industry prime for disruption.

Unfortunately, the big problem here is that disrupting an industry does not always make a good business. As I understand it, being a vet is a highly stressful job without the pay of a highly technical job.

As a consumer, I would love to see more startups try to take on the pet healthcare industry and improve the lives of our pets and owners. Unfortunately, as an investor or entrepreneur, I don’t see how this could be a very profitable industry to take on at the current moment.

There are too many issues. Medicine and hospital care is brutally expensive and consumers just don’t have that kind of money to spend on their pets.

I hope there is a day in my life where I can write a check for an investment in a startup that I think could truly disrupt the industry and make a good business. There’s a lot that needs to happen in the healthcare industry overall before we get there though.