Pet-Savvy Aggregator
Devanshi Shah is the Driving force behind India’s most comprehensive pet and animal services’ portal, PetKonnect which started in September 2019. She develops and leads corporate strategy, planning and overall execution on behalf of the brand. Her entrepreneurial stint started a few years ago when she lost her dearest pet dog, Hazel. Due to health concerns, her pet couldn’t be saved. This loss led her to identify a need gap and start this venture to have a positive impact on the pet services sector, a testament to her commitment.
PetKonnect offers services including social petwork (social media for pets), My Pets (In-app pet management system), access to a host of emergency services, service providers (access to a host of service providers) and pet affairs (a fun, news and learning blog section). Shah said, “In times of Covid, we launched two new services: 24-hour Vet on Call where users have access to vets whilst social distancing) and BMC registration (to get dog licences from the comfort of your home).”On the investors front, she commented, “Currently there are no external investors. We have a small team with no turn over. We are less than a year old,” she commented.
Recently Devanshi returned to academia while completing a full-time MBA from the Imperial College Business School, London. Here, the focus of her programme was ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovative Problem Solving’. She also held the position of a Co-chairperson at the India Business Club at the university. Before venturing into the corporate sector, Devanshi acquired a B.Com degree from the HR College of Commerce, Mumbai, a Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai and completed her Chartered Accountancy (CA).
She believes her recent overseas MBA outing will enable her to be a better leader at PetKonnect and leverage the venture to become India’s biggest online pet and animal care services’ community“The new two services have been very well received amongst our target audiences and we’re seeing them grow at a rapid pace. Also, PetKonnect will monetize through the adverts run on our digital platforms of Pet Affairs section targeted at the large user base we’re planning to grow. We also look forward to introducing charges on the currently free services offered, after achieving internally set targets. Pet insurance will also play a huge role in building a revenue stream for PetKonnect,” Shah added.
On her new venture’s success, she replied, “PetKonnect has a very large and positive social impact on animals in our society. We are raising awareness and developing services around major issues that are present in the industry. Secondly, in the short time since our launch, we are already over 5,000 users, and have now started to earn revenue. PetKonnect is bringing together a very unorganised sector with many individual service providers. We help these service providers find work, and make it very easy for users at large to avail these services.”
Devanshi is an avid traveller, has travelled across more than 25 countries, loves adventure sports and is a scuba diving enthusiast. Her latest interest these days is participating in on-ground animal-related initiatives such as adoption drives and gatherings at animal shelters.
On being an entrepreneur in current times, Shah said, “The last six months have changed the face of the world, and entrepreneurship is no exception. Entrepreneurship has always been about embracing change, understanding, and adapting to the new normal. We do expect a sustained growth of users on PetKonnect despite Covid-19. With the lockdown in play, the virtual world has been the only way for people to stay connected while maintaining social distancing. Petkonnect aims to be a one-stop destination for all things on pets, and offers a wide array of services, with many firsts in India.”
