It started with a question I couldn’t answer.

A pet owner, picking up their dog after boarding with me, asked me if I knew of a good local groomer. I didn’t. A few weeks later, someone else asked about dog trainers in the area. Then another person wanted to know where they could find a regular dog walker. Every time, I found myself saying the same thing: “I’m not sure, sorry – you’ll have to ask around.”

It was a small moment, which was repeated enough times that it started to feel like something bigger. Here were people who clearly cared deeply about their pets, looking for trusted local services – and there was no easy, obvious place to find what they needed. Google searches returned a tangle of results. Facebook recommendations meant trawling through comment threads, and word of mouth only reached so far.

I kept thinking: there should be something better than this.

So I built it.

What is K9andKats 

K9andKats is a New Zealand online pet directory where pet businesses can list their services and pet owners can search for FREE. It covers dogs and cats – like the name – and brings together everything from vets, groomers, and trainers to pet sitters, boarding facilities, dog walking tracks, pet friendly cafes, and accommodation so it’s all in one place.

The idea was straightforward: make it easier for New Zealand pet owners to find the services their animals need, and make it easier for good pet businesses to be found by the people who are already looking for them.

Simple in concept. I found it to be rather more difficult in practice.

The First Year

Launching K9andKats taught me things I couldn’t have learnt any other way.

I learnt that building something useful and getting people to know it exists are two entirely different challenges. Pet business owners, I found, are busy, often running their businesses single-handedly. So reaching them takes persistence and genuine relationship building, rather than a single email. I also learnt that pet owners, once they find a resource they trust, share it enthusiastically – and that word of mouth in the pet community is powerful.

I also learnt that the gap I had spotted was real. The questions pet owners had been asking me turned out to be questions pet owners across New Zealand were asking all the time. The need was there. It just needed somewhere to land.

In the first year, K9andKats has grown steadily. The directory has expanded across multiple categories, with grooming, training, and boarding among the most searched. Dog Walking Tracks has become one of the most popular tabs on the site – that’s a reminder that pet owners aren’t just looking for services, they’re looking for experiences to share with their animals. Traffic has grown month on month, and we have increasing impressions across the website and Google Business Profile.

More importantly, pet owners are finding what they are looking for, plus pet businesses are getting in front of their audience.

What I Have Learnt About Building Something from Scratch

If you are thinking about starting something — a directory, a small business, a community resource – here is what I would tell you from a year of doing exactly that.

• Start with a real problem. K9andKats didn’t begin with a business plan. It began with a genuine frustration I kept hearing from real people, which gave it a foundation that no amount of market research could fully replicate. The best businesses solve problems their founders have felt personally.
• Be patient with growth. A directory is a two-sided marketplace – you need businesses to list and people to search, and each side is more valuable when the other grows. Building both simultaneously takes time. There were moments in the early months where progress felt slow. Looking back, each small step was compounding in ways that weren’t always visible at the time.
• Consistency matters more than perfection. I didn’t wait until K9andKats was perfect before launching it. I launched it, listened to what people needed, and kept improving. A directory that exists and is growing is infinitely more useful than one that is still being planned.
• Your community will tell you what they need. The categories that have grown fastest on K9andKats are the ones pet owners kept asking for. I have learnt to listen to those signals and follow them. The people using your product will always know things about it that you don’t.
• Marketing is a long game. Building an email list, posting consistently on social media, optimising for search – none of it delivers overnight results. Done consistently and genuinely, it builds something that compounds. Every subscriber, every post, every piece of useful content is a small investment in being found by the right people at the right time.

Where K9andKats Is Heading

A year in, K9andKats is still growing – and there is a lot more to come.

We are building out our email subscriber base with free resources for pet owners, including a Dog and Cat Health Checklist and a Pet Emergency Preparedness Kit Guide. At the same time we are developing partnerships with trusted New Zealand pet brands and expanding our category range as we continue to grow the number of businesses listed across the country.

The goal hasn’t changed from the beginning: to be the most useful, most trusted place for New Zealand pet owners to find the services their animals need – and for New Zealand pet businesses to be found by the people who are already looking for them.

It started with a question, I’m glad I decided to answer it.

Derek Finchley has written a blog about his dog walking success here www.urbantails.pet/blog/news/one-of-the-biggest-milestones-for-urban-tails-so-far

K9andKats is New Zealand’s ultimate pet directory – free to search for pet owners, and open for pet businesses who want to be found. Visit us at www.k9andkats.co.nz or get in touch at [email protected]