Tailwise: matching dog seekers with verified breeders
A London startup set out to steer people away from puppy farms by matching them with verified, responsible breeders. I was its founding product engineer and took the first version from idea to launch in six months.
The problem Tailwise took on
Puppy farms breed dogs in large numbers with little regard for their health or welfare, and they sell through the same online listings as responsible breeders. For someone looking for a dog, the two can be hard to tell apart.
Tailwise’s founders wanted to make the responsible choice the easy one: a place where every breeder had been checked before anyone could find them.
My role and the team
The team was two founders, a front-end developer and me. As founding product engineer I shaped the first version with the founders, turned their assumptions into a plan we could deliver and led development through to launch.
£200,000
raised by the founders, with the launched product at the centre of the pitch.
Deciding what the first version had to do
Six months is not long for a two-sided marketplace, so we built only the core features each side needed. People looking for a dog could find verified breeders and get in touch. Breeders could present themselves and their dogs. Anything that did not serve those two journeys waited.
Verification stayed manual. The Tailwise team checked each breeder themselves, and the product was built around that process.
What made it hard
Trust ran through everything. A breeder listed on Tailwise carried the company’s name, so no one could appear before the team had checked them.
It was also a marketplace starting from zero: dog seekers only come if there are good breeders to find, and breeders only join if seekers are there. And as the founders learned from early users and investors, their priorities shifted, so the plan had to change with them while the launch date held.
Launch and after
Tailwise launched six months after we started, and the working product was central to the founders raising £200,000. After the raise, the investor brought in its own team to take the product forward, and I moved on. Tailwise is no longer running.
Taking a new product from idea to launch?
Tell me what it does, who relies on it and what keeps you up at night about it. A few lines by email is enough. I reply within two working days.