Coming to The DogsHuynh Thanh Phong – M987Z242

Nguyen Hong Duy - M987Z218

Venture Opportunities

• Kris Price spent a lot of time travelling as an exhibit manager for Nike and found it challenging to locate a good facility to leave her dog The idea of Noah’s Arf was born – The full service pet care facility to fulfill the market need

Sound Understanding of the Market

• She started researching and visited dog day-care centers and dog washes throughout the country– Day care is a new business, offered currently only to dogs.

There are eight dog day care facilities in the Portland area– None of these facilities offer 24 hour care making it

inconvenient for clients to pick up their pet by a specified time.

– There are seven wash your own dog facilities in the Portland area

– There are 73 grooming and boarding combined facilities and 18 dog training and obedience combined facilities in the Portland area

None of these business concepts that offered all of the services she imagined for her venture did not exist.

Sound Understanding of the Market

• Target market: dual-income, traveling professional families with hectic schedules who are trying to strike a balance between the demands of their careers, personal lives and their pets.

• Market need: there is a need for one-stop convenience.• Market trend:

– professionals having their families later in life or deciding not to have children at all,

– Workplace trend: working longer hours and more days– Travelling professionals

• Market growth: – The benefits of sharing our lives with our pets offers owners

affection, companionship and security,– The nations 58 million pet owners spent an estimated 22.7

billion on their pets in 1999

Primary Points of the Emphasis

“To provide excellent animal care in a pet friendly

atmosphere while ensuring our customers, both pet and

owner, receive excellent service in a playful safe

environment.”

Primary Points of the Emphasis

• Superior Customer Service: 24 hour high-quality care and service.– Overnight care.– Day care.– In-home care.– Wash your own pet.– Pet grooming.– Animal behavior classes.– Pet portraits.– Gift shop.– Special events.– Special requests.– 24 hour service.

• Environment: provide a clean, upscale, odor free, enjoyable environment conducive to giving professional trusting service.

• Convenience: offering clients a wide range of services in one environment.• Location: provide an easily accessible location for customer convenience.• Reputation: credibility, integrity, and 100% dedication from 23+ years employment

at current workplace.

Dare to Seize the Opportunity

Problems Solutions- Never written a business plan- Not a good writer

- Use Business Plan Pro to guide her

- Don’t have enough money for investment

-Beside her own money of $70,000- Sold her house- donated her car to the business- approach the SBA for a loan of $200,000

- Don’t have office - Lease building-Put money to decorate it as she liked

“Don’t you think you are getting in over your head?” “ Why don’t you try to launch one thing at a time.”

“That’s not the concept.”

Sales and Marketing

• WOM: satisfied customers are the best marketing tool to spread through Noah’s Arf brand and services.

• Advertising brochures to large businesses for bulletin boards, offering a 10% discount for a limited time to build a client base.

• Local TV news shows contacted to feature our business as a new service to the community,

• Direct mail sent to registered pet owners in the Portland Metro area,

• Brochures distributed to hotels, restaurants, condominiums, • pet stores, coffee shops, Washington Park Zoo, local

veterinarians, etc.• Advertisements in the Oregonian, Willamette Weekly, Portland

Tribune, and Dog Nose , News newspapers.• Web page

… the sweet fruits

• Hit the BEP within the first two months of operation,

• Had Client base of 20 dogs that reside at Noah’s Arf daily,

• Increased the facility capacity to 40 day care dogs with the ability to logde 26 overnight stays, and with nine kitty condos

• Employed two full time and four part-time people and in need of one more of each.

Future Challenges

• The competitors might transform their businesses as the same as Noah’s Arf’s,

• There might be new entrants in the market due to the ease to copy Noah’s Arf’s business concept, low start-up costs and high profit market of pet care.

Recommendations

• Increase the coverage rate (Franchising is considerable) in other potential cities as soon as possible to fulfill the market needs and create barriers for the new entrants

• Deliver more added values to customers– Veterinarian technician on staff to administer

vaccinations on specified days and tend to any unforeseen emergencies

– Internet access to watch the pet online– Monthly newsletter– Weekly play hour– Espresso and juice bar

• Stress on customer services and customer loyalty

Thank you!