Discover how Sploot, the innovative platform, is reshaping the world of dog parenting through expert guidance, community engagement, and the provision of fresh, healthy nutrition. In an exclusive interview with Sploot’s founder Garima Kaushal, gain insights into the brand’s mission to make dog parenting easier and more enjoyable. 

Learn how Sploot aims to solve the timeless challenges faced by dog parents while fostering a strong and informed community. Read on to explore the unique blend of services and resources Sploot offers, designed to ensure the well-being of both pets and their parents.

Can you share the inspiration behind founding Sploot and the journey that led you to create this platform.

So with Sploot Arnav and I, my co-founder and I were trying to find a way for us to make dog parenting super easy for people. So, personal stories, I was one of those children who had to kind of fight my parents constantly to take it, take it. And, those usual dialogues that come that there are a lot of dogs at home, cannot bring more, because it invariably used to become, you know, the primary caretaker’s responsibility. So, this kid would have become my mom’s responsibility, so she wasn’t keen. So that was my experience. 

Arnav always had dogs. So his experience was very different. There is always a dog in the family, in the house all the time. So he didn’t have that struggle so to speak. 

He and I actually met in college. I mean undergrad in 2010. And what we kind of just I think over the years started talking about you know different ways to have a pet. I was somebody who had it for the first time around that time and he always had. So I think during those conversations what we started realising is that a lot of the issues around dog parenting haven’t really changed much in terms of the solutions. 

Products you have access to now. Like 10-15 years ago the problem used to be that there were no products. Everyone has a limited choice. It doesn’t affect anyone. I have choices. Now that problem is a lot easier. You can find a lot of things now when you have to buy them. 

The bigger problem is the problem of education. What do I need to do to make sure that my dog has a good life? To make sure that my life with my dog is great, so that I am able to actually create a bond and a system in my life where my life actually doesn’t get hampered by anything. 

There is a reason why I am getting a dog and not having a child. I want to maybe give up that level of freedom or I want to have a way that my lifestyle can still continue. How do I manage that? So that’s what we were trying to kind of understand that if everything else in our lives around us has become super simple in terms of you have an app or there is a way for you to solve it super quickly, get that information all of that, that didn’t exist for pet care in India specifically, so that’s what got us started. 

We actually started out just as an Instagram page. We were only putting out content there from our own experiences. As Indian dog parents going through the journey, what to feed, what is the procedure, can you train, right? So we went through that journey, started just sharing our learnings and from there the journey started, that let’s start at least putting the information out there. And as we kind of built it, then it transformed into what it is now.  

What is the core vision of Sploot and how do you see it contributing to the well-being of pets and their parents? 

For us honestly the vision was very simple. It started from this thing of I don’t know what to do or how to do it, so our main mission is can we solve that for dog parents? Can we solve this perpetual question of who will take care of the dog and how to take care of the dog? And all these things. Can we solve those things for dog parents? 

There are two ways primarily in which we want to be able to do that in the future and we are kind of on that path now, is one is through having the right information at your fingertips, so that you are actually being preemptive about pet care rather than reactive. So if I can be told that at three months I need to actually take care of only these three things, then I’m sorted, and at six months it changes, whatever, things like that. That is something that we want to be able to create so that Sploot becomes like a companion app for you and your dog, let’s solve that for you. 

And the second thing is of course, along with the information, you need to be able to get certain services, certain products to make your dog’s life easier. So we want to be able to kind of connect those on that one app for dog parents. So the vision is to make it like a super app that solves everything that you need.

Sploot aims to create a happier and healthier life for dogs. Could you elaborate on the key ways you achieve this goal for your end users? 

We do this in two parts. The first part for us is the community aspect of what we are doing. For us when we say community, we mean we are able to leverage all the shared experiences that our parents have in their own lives. For example, with me and my dogs, for about three years now I know, okay, this is how Indies are and this is what we kind of go through. But I am not able to transfer that knowledge very easily, right now. 

Or if somebody else wants to learn about this because they’re starting off on that journey, how do they find somebody like me who can just guide them if there is any question that they have. So the community that we are creating, the idea essentially is that we can actually have those experiences become learnings that can help other people as well, because that in itself is going to help with a lot of this information stuff, so that is one.

The second aspect is also looking at daily chores, right? What we are focusing on right now in terms of the services and the products that we have are all the necessities that you need as a dog parent on a daily basis to be able to give the right care to your dog. 

You need to walk your dog every day and you need to feed your dog every day. These are the two basic things you need to do. So, we have got services around those. So, we have walking subscriptions here in Delhi-NCR and we also have a collection of fresh food products that we have got for dogs as well, that of course is all across India.

Your platform connects dog parents with a community of like minded dog owners and canine experts. How has this community support system been beneficial for dogs and their parents? 

Interestingly enough, when we had started, our initial community was the first set of dog parents that we were also interacting with along with our immediate family. And what we realised is that community wasn’t the idea we started with. So we started off thinking of creating a super app, community was not in the picture, we were thinking content. 

But through doing content, we started creating a bunch of these WhatsApp groups initially. And what we realised is that in those WhatsApp groups people weren’t really waiting for Sploot to come and answer questions. 

No one was waiting for Garima to come and tell us that this is what we should do or some article will come. They were just bouncing off of each other. You also have a puppy, I also have a puppy, How do you handle this? How do you handle that? And somebody would come in and also offer their opinion. And we realised that just being able to connect people with similarities is a very powerful thing. That’s when we started doing community because we actually saw the benefit before we started focusing on it as a thing that we wanted to do with Sploot. 

Can you tell us about the team behind Sploot and their expertise in the pet industry? 

Our experience is a very live dog parent experience. So we don’t have any degrees in canine behaviour or nutrition, etc, but if there was a degree for being a dog parent, I am sure we would have had several between the two of us. 

Apart from that we do work with an expert network so to speak. So for example for our fresh food we work with a canine nutritionist that we have been working with now for upwards of about 2-3 years now. And the idea has been to always find ways to solve nutrition problems for dog owners. 

Similarly, with our walking service, we developed a whole training module for the walkers etc with a canine behaviourist and kind of got that going from there. So all of those lessons come from there. The total team strength is about 30 people and we are based out of Gurgaon. 

In addition to services like daily dog walking and at home dog grooming, you offer fresh food for dogs. Could you explain the importance of fresh and nutritious meals for a pet’s well-being? 

I think everybody instinctively gets that nutritious food is important, right? Whether it is for you or whether it is for your dog. I think sometimes what we don’t naturally realise is that freshness is always something that is going to be preferred by any living being. And again, you only have to look at your own habits. If you could, you would have a cook who comes and makes your food or you would want to cook or there’s somebody in the house who’s cooking. And I think as Indians, this is a very natural thing for us. We want to eat fresh food, home-made food. 

Even if we go out for two weeks, we want to eat the same food. So I think as a culture we believe in fresh and healthy and healthy for us is fresh food, so that honestly is the same philosophy that we also follow and I think dogs by their nature are our companions. 

They are living the closest life possible to human beings because they live with us constantly. Which is why their preferences are also going to be similar to ours, right? If I primarily feed my dog home cooked food, apart from that one meal that I want to give them balanced food, if it doesn’t taste like the other food, will feel very foreign to my dog, so that’s, I mean, honestly the crux of it. 

Of course, the one thing that we do miss out with home-made food is that we don’t necessarily balance it in the way that the dogs need it. So, we usually give it in higher proportions. That if I have lentils and rice, then I have lentils and rice, they need a lot more protein, they need animal fat and plant fat. They need a lot of those elements which we don’t necessarily have in our food. In the same proportions, which is where the whole fresh and healthy concept really comes from. 

How do you ensure the quality and safety of the fresh food and treats that you offer for dogs? 

We source all of our ingredients locally, they are absolutely fresh, they are human grade. When we think about the actual shelf life, why we are able to say that this is packaged but still fresh, is because we use a technology called ‘Retort’, which is actually a very widely used technology in human food. 

It’s all your ready to eat package, it’s what astronauts take to space. It’s a technology that’s existed for a long period of time. What we are applying that to is pet food where we are saying that what we do is we package that fresh and healthy meal in a retort packet through that retort process so that the shelf life increases because of the packaging not because of the preservatives. We don’t have any preservatives in the food, so packaging helps us ensure the shelf life.

Sploot appears to focus on both the practical as well as the informational aspects of dog parenting. Could you discuss the educational content and resources you provide to users?

So it’s a mix of the shared experiences that you get from other people on the platform, whether it’s experts, whether it’s dog parents that you are interacting with, and a bunch of content that we also create. The content we create, again, comes from these conversations, it comes from speaking to these experts. 

Along with that, other things that we do in the community also are, we have ‘Ask me anything’ sessions every weekend with canine behaviourists, with nutritionists, with vets. So that if there are any burning questions that you need an expert for, you also have a slot in which you can ask, so that’s all the resources we have. 

What are some common challenges that dog parents face and how does Sploot address these challenges?

So for us, for example, because both Arnav and I were working in different places at the time, for us the barrier to getting a dog was how are we going to take care of the dog, right? Because we were living separately and we don’t necessarily have jobs that allow us to work from home because that time there was COVID. How do I manage my work schedule with what my dog needs? Or my social life with what my dog needs? So, honestly these are the problems that we started with and faced personally. That my dog likes eating fresh and healthy food. Is there no solution apart from giving packaged food which he may not like? 

Similarly, my dog needs to go for a walk, at that time she was a puppy, so at least four to five times in a day. I need to be on calls, how am I going to manage this? So those are the solutions that we started kind of working on and then we slowly expanded that to grooming and that is also something that we can add to that catalogue, and the idea is to have a bigger collection of products as well. We started with exactly those, that these were problems we faced, we saw other people in the community face. Let’s see if we can create a solution around them.

Many readers are interested in sustainability and eco-friendliness these days. How does Sploot incorporate these principles into its operations, especially considering pet food products? 

When it comes to the grooming service for example, the way that we conduct the service is in the user’s house. So there is no industrial level kind of water usage, all of that is literally what you would do at home. The service is done in a way where we try to keep it contained so that it can happen in a customer’s household without a lot of issues that they will need to face afterwards. 

With food, for example, the retort packaging is something that allows us to kind of stay sustainable, that allows us to be responsible dog parents as a society, we do have scooping the poop as part of that SOP, so we use biodegradable poop bags. There is a scooper that the worker has, basically scooping your dog’s poop and then disposing of it alongside as well, so that’s how we contribute. 

Can you share any inspiring sub-sub-stories or testimonials from dog parents who have benefited from your services and community?

We are lucky to have a few people who have actually stuck on with us since the time that we started both walking and food. In fact, we recently shot a few of these video testimonials with them and what we’ve seen is that there are people who have been able to sustain their dog’s lifestyle along with their own and we’re grateful to the fact that we get to actually do this so I wouldn’t say that it’s a success story in terms of solving all the problems. 

That of course is their thing to take care of but we are happy to be able to assist in daily routine in being able to solve the walks issue and the food issue so that’s how we look at it. 

Being a pet lover yourself, what have been some of the most rewarding moments or experiences in your journey as a founder of Sploot?

I think personally for me it’s every time I see a customer leave a good review for us whether it’s for food, whether it’s for grooming, whether it’s for walking, it makes me feel extremely happy that we are able to solve that problem because that’s literally what we wanted to do when we started off as well. 

So the most gratifying experience honestly is just that, in fact internally on our team’s Slack, we have this channel where we’ve connected it to our Google reviews and all the reviews that come in. So it’s a great way for everybody on the team to know both good and bad, what is happening and how we need to solve it, but the good ones obviously make you feel super special. 

What are your future plans and goals for Sploot and how do you see it evolving to continue supporting dog parents and their furry companions?

Honestly with food, I think there is a lot more that we can do in terms of different price points, in terms of better distribution and being able to solve the problem of I want my dog’s food now, how soon can I get it? 

With walking again we definitely want to expand to other cities. Right now we are only in Delhi-NCR but Bangalore, Mumbai, all the metros, that’s definitely on the cards, hopefully sometime in the future. 

So if we want to reach a point where the app is solving 85% of what you are facing on a regular basis in terms of queries, answers, solutions, all of that as a dog parent. And of course, if we are able to do that, then we also launch cats, which is step number two. 

For our readers who are passionate about dogs and may want to get involved, what opportunities exist for them to connect with and support Sploot’s mission? 

Oh awesome! Please join the app. We’ve got city-based groups now. So there’s a group for Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, like all the major cities that we’ve got users in. We do a bunch of things at a community level. 

In Delhi NCR, for example, we have this thing called Sundays with Sploot, which is every Sunday we go for a long walk with everybody who shows up. We go to all these public parks in Delhi. We’d love to start that in other cities as well. So if you are keen to help us with that, then that’s awesome. 

Apart from that, I think just being on the app and being able to solve other people’s queries honestly gives me a good little glow inside. And we have seen users also say that it helps kind of give back, I mean, that’s how. Otherwise, I mean, even me, and whatever I can do, I’m cool enough to connect. 

Lastly, what message or advice would you like to convey to our readers who are passionate dog lovers and maybe considering more informed choices about their pet’s nutrition? 

I would say start reading up a little bit more on it. It’s not a mistake per se because we also don’t read up on our own nutrition. It’s a very huge realisation. I think a lot of deep diving. 

I mean before we started with this idea of making food, we used to do an online nutrition plan that we made for people. First and foremost it was just content around food. So, the more you start educating yourself, the more you start understanding, okay my dog probably needs this or my dog probably understands this. 

We don’t usually connect a lot of physical issues with diet but with dogs for example a lot of skin issues, a lot of health issues are actually linked to nutrition that we don’t even realise because we are like we were not aware of this. So just start reading up more on it and a lot of things automatically start getting clearer.