Telehealth barely registered in veterinary circles. Most vets wanted nothing to do with diagnosing through a screen. Regulatory boards were cautious. Industry voices were skeptical. But millions of pet owners were googling symptoms at 11pm, wondering whether to rush to the ER or wait it out. The demand was real—the infrastructure didn't exist. We had to build every layer of the product from scratch, in a category with no precedent to borrow from, and make it trustworthy enough that licensed veterinarians would stake their credentials on it.
Full-Stack Product Build
Embedded as an extension of the founding team—four people, no silos, daily standups, full-stack thinking from brand to backend. Built the complete platform across every layer:
Native mobile apps: iOS in Objective-C, Android in Java. Real-time video consultations powered by TokBox/OpenTok. Google Maps APIs and device GPS for geolocation. Push notifications via APNs (iOS) and GCM (Android).
Provider web platform: Server-rendered web app for veterinarians to manage consultations, patient history, and availability.
Backend & infrastructure: Rails API with PostgreSQL. Redis for caching, background jobs, and presence detection. Amazon S3 for file storage. Full AWS deployment on EC2, RDS, and CloudFront.
Product Design
Designed the consultation flow to build trust in an unfamiliar interaction—guiding pet owners through symptom description, matching them to available vets, and delivering a video experience that felt personal and professional. The routing system matched patients to providers in real time based on availability and specialization.
Launched to national attention—featured by Yahoo Finance, Forbes, and Fierce Pharma. Over 20,000 users within months. The app proved the market existed and set a precedent for every pet telehealth platform that followed. Vet On Demand didn't survive the structural challenges of early telehealth, but its fingerprint is on the category it helped create.
Pioneered pet telehealth. 20,000 users. Built every layer of the stack.
