Improving Dog Health One Photo at a Time With Jessica Chu, Co-Founder of DIG Labs

Jess, welcome to the show.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Justin.

Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. It's so fun to have you on after having Tara on for Digg Labs and the progression from the first time to where we're at now. So for people who maybe hadn't listened to that episode, which was 106, I believe, what is Digg Labs doing today, Jess?

Sure. So Digg Labs today, we launched our Digg Labs Digestive Health Check app. So when folks listened to Tara's podcast, we were in the midst of developing personalized supplements for dogs to really kind of hone healthcare at a precision level for each individual dog, recognizing how unique every dog is, every human is. We've taken that to the next level and we're super excited to have our Digestive Health Check app now. And that is available on iPhones. And what we do is basically In simple terms, it's a poop scanner. Upload a photo of your dog's stool. We really view stool as the window to digestive health. As much as it's important what goes into your body, it's also important what and how it comes out. And so we're here to provide insights and then actionable next steps for dog owners who are looking to make sure that their dog is living the best healthy life possible, beginning with the gut.

And with this, I know startups are always going to pivot. There's different things they have to do as they go along with the company and they get feedback from users and everything as well. For you guys, how did that pivot kind of adjustment or even focus just take place going from what you were originally doing to now with this app, 10 seconds, you can find out all these different things about your dog? How did that change kind of happen, Jess?

It kind of has come full circle. So Tara and I actually started, and she spoke a little bit about this on her podcast, with a company, and we were at that time called BarkBiome because the area that we were really passionate about and the problem that we were looking to solve was how do we better understand what's going on with our dog's digestive health? At that time, Sammy had unexplained multiple year, like a decade-long bouts of diarrhea that came and went. It was getting progressively worse. And so we really started with trying to understand the scientific principles around the gut microbiome. And in doing so, we had launched, or we tried a company where we would do shotgun DNA sequencing and then ran into a bunch of business hurdles, whether that was like the length of time it took to get results, the cost barriers for dog parents, and us being really married to our values of having healthcare become more accessible through our endeavor. And so long story short, as part of BarkBiome, we had collected photos of the stool that we were running the DNA sequencing test on. And when we decided to pivot away from that, we never kind of really gave up on that idea. And what we found was we had these photos, we had folks that we were giving personalized supplement recommendations to. There was a fundamental struggle from pet parents and pet that they were having difficulty articulating and really understanding what the problems and the symptoms were that would then help understand the underlying root causes. And so that's where we kind of got our insight for, look, a picture says 1,000 words, right?

Yep.

And so instead of having pet parents struggle and dog owners struggle through this, like, send us a photo and we can help just from seeing that one picture.

And I want to go into that part of it because using, again, like the computer vision side of it to figure this out and get actually good insights around this, what went into that side of things and figuring that out? What skill, like who had the skill sets to be able to do that or hiring for it? I'd love to hear more about that, Jess.

Yeah, absolutely. So it was really fortuitous that Tara's actual like whole career, if you go back to her time when she was a biomedical engineer at Cornell, was based on like image analysis and the power of images. One of the projects she was working on when she was in undergrad was like how to detect cancer's pH levels with images. And so while I'm not super technical into the CV world, what we were able to do is leverage our amazing network at J&J and within the human healthcare space, since both of us worked in human healthcare prior to embarking on the DIG Labs adventure, To really kind of get help on what are— what could be possible? Are we crazy or is there something here? And so really tapping into computer vision advisors to help guide us in terms of what additional data we need, how we could go about processing it and building models, whether that was deep learning all the way to semi-automatic. So we had a lot of help along the way.

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot that goes into that. I know that someone in my, in my class when I was in the MBA was doing something with computer vision and I just remember them explaining everything and figuring out how to do this in like a lab setting. I think it was as well, where it's just like there's a lot of components that go into it. Obviously you're learning and the datasets you needed to, to train the model as well. It's just a lot that happens with it. But obviously on the end of that, the payoff of that's great. Like you can just take a picture, send it in and get some really valuable feedback. What have you been getting for, in terms of feedback from users, from people who have been using this? What insights can you actually kind of get from that in terms of like the picture you get from people?

Yeah, so we actually kind of started in like, let's call it like a very fundamental like prototype way, which was friends and family, send us, text us your photos. So, and then like, let's help you sift through seeing the scene. Now that we have the app where we have models around seeing the scene and we have, made amazing strides and like our IP is all based on seeing the unseen. So being able to detect relative carbohydrate levels based on biomarkers that we see from stool properties that are correlated with lab results all the way through to things like parasites. The feedback that we've gotten is, oh my God, like in general is this is really weird. But it kind of makes sense and it's definitely unique and would be way easier. So that was encouraging enough for us to like continue to push forward. We have found amazing investors who really believe in this like vision and dream to have more democratized, accessible, and frankly, better insights. When we look at pet healthcare, the insights and the research that And the research resources that go into pet healthcare is like a minutia of what goes into human healthcare. And it's actually kind of, it's almost interesting because a lot of animal health can then inform human health. And like, there's a lot less regulations and barriers and like, you can have things controlled. Your dog eats the same thing every day, or like you can control for that. So it's been a wild ride, but like overall there's been— Acceptance of the vision. And I think right now we're in the process where we are eager to get folks who believe in us to help beta test, to provide us feedback on features, capabilities, our go-to-market, so that way we can really craft this into something that is loved by everyone. Yeah.

And if you look at, I mean, I've talked to a number of different kind of telehealth in both human and for pets. And it is growing. And there's a lot of things you can do with this. People are realizing and becoming more comfortable with the idea of of obviously what can we do to improve the health of people, but also then of our pets, which we love so much. And people like— so many people, especially like millennials and everyone, getting dogs and getting pets, and like they want to take care of them like they're literally like human child, you know, children. So, and so there's so much potential for this industry from that then. So obviously you have a really great product as a starting point here, and you've made a lot of progress over the last number of months and even a couple years here with With that then, so what is kind of that next direct step for you guys? I'm just curious in terms of the business.

Yeah. So May 2021, it's been a wild ride with coming out of COVID It actually was pretty fortuitous because previously we were making supplements at dog festivals and events. Obviously, that had to be shut down for the safety of everyone. And so, we were able to kind of take the opportunity to go heads down Do a lot of the foundational groundwork on building our database with all the metadata, like quite literally collecting lots of dog poop samples. And so now we're really at this spot where the next steps are. We have amazing feedback from the veterinary community because they are so important and they have their own challenges when it comes to like shared goals, which is like better, happier, longer. Pet lives, and so we're in the like beginning stages of starting to go to market and like really kind of have those conversations with broader veterinarians besides those that were advising us along this journey. And then really, we're now that we're in the Apple App Store, we're looking for folks to download the app, use it with their dog, and give us feedback. We realize that we're in the like very first baby step of like a much broader journey, and so. From our perspective, the faster that we can get candid and quality feedback, the faster that we, we can work as a team to improve and kind of move the product forward.

Yeah. And with that, so I know you mentioned the family and friends to get kind of testers and start to play with it as well. And every startup early on, it's like whoever you can get to use your product and give you feedback is great, especially in this, which has a kind of pretty broad appeal in terms of pet owners, because there's so many of them. How have you gone about then the growth side of things looking at, okay, we have our app now, like, what's our method? Are we going to go like paid acquisition? Are we gonna go an organic route for growth? I'm curious as to how you've kind of thought through that side of things in terms of where you're at now.

Yeah, so we're actually, it's exciting. We're getting to that stage now. We definitely had lots of hypotheses and thoughts, whether that was through like earned media, whether that was through partnerships with other industry businesses that we had built relationships with. over the course of the last year, especially when we had supplements all the way through the veterinary or rescue partnerships. The paid arena is really interesting. We do have a little bit, we've dabbled into like the PPC world with Google search, Apple App Store ads. Obviously there's Facebook and Instagram. I think at this point what we're trying to do is have like controlled growth where we're getting quality folks.

Mm-hmm.

And not just going for anyone. So I think that's been top of mind for us. And then we're trying to just get smart with what the implications are with some of the new privacy laws and regulations, how that impacts things, just to make sure that we're being really scrappy and thoughtful with our bootstrap budget.

I mean, and to that point as well, so on the bootstrap budget side of things, so There's always a time where people can go bootstrap for a long time, we'll go off of revenue and customer growth, then you could raise capital. Some people do both and they raise capital later on. Some people raise capital right away for the idea. How have you at least thought through that side of things in terms of when you started this business? Did you think this is going to be a venture-backed business? Did you think, oh, we're just gonna, we're gonna bootstrap and see how it goes? I'm just curious to how you kind of thought about that, thinking for other founders out there as well.

Yeah, it's a great question, Justin. So when We started the journey, we were bootstrapping and we were immediately kind of profitable. Obviously not, Tara and I weren't taking salaries or anything, but with the supplement business, because there was a margin and we were going through events and it was very, we had done the math and the rigor around what we expected from the P&L. I think we realized that now that we are fulfilling this dream and there is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to having it AI play a role within pet healthcare. Now we're a technology company too, right? And so there are obviously costs that go into just like anything from like the technology hosting, even though there's like great kind of like scalable solutions all the way through to like the engineering component, the product design. And so now we will need to take in additional funding to make sure that we're able to kind of bring this to life in the way that it deserves to be brought to life because we're not charging for the app now. And our revenue model is predicated on being able to have more folks kind of part of this platform in the ecosystem and then tied to actual solutions that they're implementing. So whether it's the supplements that we carry or at-home tests with partners such as ClueJ or other microbiome Companies, I think that's where we need more runway to be able to get to that point. And frankly, just so that way we can continue to, like, focus on quality research and development, which is what's very important to us as we go through this process. Yeah.

And it's interesting to see, like, that shift to a technology company, like you mentioned, it is obviously more scalable. It's a different model. But you can imagine, like, the amount of pet owners that would easily just download an app to take pictures, which is super simple, of, you know, and help their dog in some capacity, then you already have them as users. And there's a lot you can do with that on the backend, as you mentioned, with that side of things. So with that, in terms of you and Terra, take me through like the team itself. So how did you guys decide to work together? I know we talked a little bit about that from Terra's side of it. But how did you decide that you wanted to actually work with Terra?

I'm curious. Yeah, serendipity. But to give everyone a little bit more detail, I actually started my career in management consulting. I knew that I liked a lot of things and I liked to work at a really fast pace and work with really smart people. And so consulting seemed like the perfect way to like start my career. What I realized pretty quickly into the journey was I got very invested and passionate and it was very hard to go in and try and like solve problems or help and then leave at the end of the day. And I also saw a disconnect between either being responsible for strategy, but like passing off the execution or being responsible for execution, but not the strategy. And I really truly fundamentally believe that there needs to be a balance of both. Like you can't do one without the other or else you're just shooting yourself in the foot. And so that led me to decide to pursue a career in general management and brand management. And that led me to Johnson& Johnson, which is where I met Tara. I've always been passionate about making an impact in the world. And so when we became friends, bonding over our dogs and just like general love for like wine and scotch and all the commonalities that we share, I had told her after healthcare, I think I want to go into pet. At that time, I was on my 35th foster dog and I was doing transportations and volunteering every weekend, reviewing all the applications that come in for all the amazing adoptable dogs. And so I knew that that was a huge passion of mine that I wanted to kind of take to the next level from a professional capacity, or I wanted to go into something that was like food and beverage and I like loved and like it would just be fun to be doing something in the food and beverage space every day. And so our paths separated for a while. I knew that corporate America wasn't necessarily where I saw myself long-term. Just from a day-to-day perspective, I like to like move a little faster, break things. The bureaucracy doesn't really fit with my personality. So I left to go try and do a startup incubation at a large company. And she moved into external innovation and technology at Johnson& Johnson. And then lo and behold, she had this amazing idea. I was like, it's in the dog space. I'm in. I believe in it. Like, I identify with this problem, let's do it. And so that was the beginning, at least from my perspective. And then we've grown the team. We actually, this is super timely, last week we brought on a 3rd co-founder and a CTO.

Ooh.

So we're super excited that she has decided to join. She is well entrenched and a startup veteran. So her skills and experience couldn't be more complementary to kind of like what we've gone through as 2 co-founders to date. So I'm really excited for what this is about to unleash for us as a team.

Okay, I wanna dive into that. That's perfect that you bring that up because it's fresh because you just did it. So take me through hiring her. What were you looking for originally or what did you think you needed and like why the timing at this point for that? I'm curious as to how this all kind of came together.

Yeah, so I think Tara and I are really amazing. I think both of us have great skills as generalists and being able to pick up on things super quickly. Like, I know a bunch about like lien, real estate liens, and like tax implications, just like from being in consulting. And like, she has a wide breadth of experience. Tara has a wide breadth of experience from— that's more technical from her engineering and R&D days. But as we realized that we were going to be a technology company, We wanted to make sure that we looked at ourselves and looked at the leadership of the organization and had that thought leadership and frankly, that servant leadership from someone who had done engineering, was technology-based. And so we always knew that that was going to be a need as soon as we realized that we were going to be moving more into being a pet healthcare technology company, I think the question for us was like, when?

Yeah.

And so that process is one that you can't really rush as much as we wanted to at times and felt the pain. You can't really rush it because bringing on a co-founder, like, it's a marriage, right? Both of us are married. Like, it takes a lot. Like, I always joke that I'm in 2 marriages. Now I'm like in 3 marriages. And so the process of finding her was really difficult, frankly. Like, we had a lot of conversations. We tried to tap our network. We joined a bunch of organizations. We tried to socialize it as much as we could amidst COVID. And I think it was hard because at times we knew to get this right, we wanted a unicorn. And it felt hard, like maybe we don't need a unicorn. Maybe we should just give up. But then One of our investors actually flagged that there might be this unicorn who could be interested. And so we actually started off the relationship in a coaching capacity. So she was advising and coaching me specifically on engineering processes, technology in general, since I was running the engineering team. And We realized that we work really well together. We communicate in the same way, although we have different communication styles. And so that relationship kind of naturally evolved into one where this spring we were like, look, it's great having you 4 to 8 hours a week. We would love to have you full-time. And so that was a great opportunity for us to kind of Pause on the business a little bit, make sure that we were the right fit for her. We were all on the same page vision-wise. And yeah, now it's official.

That's incredible. That's very exciting. Congrats on that. I know that can be such a difficult thing to bring someone on, especially someone that's going to be a co-founder of the company. It's a whole nother level as well. And what do you think? I guess I'm curious from your perspective, how do you convince her then to join you? Obviously you're working with her already, so she knew you, But a lot of times, to your point of finding a unicorn or someone who's really talented, like they have many options a lot of times and they, they have different things they could be doing, which is why it's so hard to have a startup. You need a compelling enough story and vision and narrative to convince very smart people to take less money typically to join you. What do you think it was for her that convinced her to join you guys?

I mean, this is hearsay, right? It's just my opinion. But I think that Just like, I would like to think that it was Tara and I and just how much we're passionate about the problem. I think she also believes and sees where the problem is and where there's an opportunity to make things better and create joint value across the board for dogs, dog owners, veterinarians, and the healthcare world just in general. So I think it was her belief in the vision. And then I think Tara and I are like, everyone has a seat at the table, like all ideas are open. And so it wasn't a role where we were looking for someone to come in and just like execute on the plan because frankly, the plan's still evolving and we need someone to come in and help shape the plan.

Yeah.

have those strategic discussions and debates and roll up their sleeves to find inklings of answers that will help us kind of see through the forest. And I think that that matched up well with what she was looking to do in her career, which was roll up the sleeves, go back to getting a company and a product from 0 to 1. And so I think it was the perfect And frankly, like, it just feels really nice to be a founding team of 3 females.

Indeed. And it actually reminds me of thinking about other people I've talked to around hiring people. And like, a lot of times getting people potentially later in their career is actually almost easier because they've worked with different companies before, a number of different companies. And a lot of times they're looking for that type of challenge, like that something else to start fresh again or something as a challenge, because maybe they want something different in their life. And that's happened with me. Repeatedly, I've heard that brought up on, on the show of people hiring someone like later in their career. They didn't think they could get, cuz they're so experienced, but actually they wanted to join something exciting like a startup. And this is a perfect opportunity. Um, and there's a lot that goes into that, of course, to be able to get to that point. Uh, but I'm happy for you. Excited that you have her on board now as well.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, cuz it's, it's such a big thing, especially those early hires. Uh, and people take months and months and months trying to find them, uh, which is crazy. And, For you now, so with her on board and everything you're doing and shifting to a technology company of sorts, how do you spend your days now? Like, what do you focus on, Jess? I'm curious in your role.

Yeah, so I'm really excited because I, in the last 48 hours, now that we're week 1 into her onboarding, have been able to focus more. And I think that was always a real struggle as a co-founder of an early-stage company was just having to context switch 24/7, whether that was like, there was a fire with engineering all the way through to we have a supplement order that needs to be fulfilled, all the way through to what is the ad copy going to be for like the App Store page. And so I'm really excited that Now I'm focusing more on what is our product marketing, our brand marketing, our go-to-market strategy. What are those partnerships? I think with the 3 of us, we'll each be able to focus a lot more and move quicker, which will be amazing. And me in particularly, I'll be able to focus more on what are users saying? How are they talking about us? How do we adjust the communications? What does that mean from like letting the product and engineering team know like what we should be doing next, all the way through to like, who are the dog owners who really believe and like understand what this product is and can be that will help us co-create it on this journey now that we're out in the world?

Yeah. And I know we've touched on this a couple times or just briefly, but with the go-to-market strategy side of things, diving a little bit deeper into that. How are you thinking about that? What are you hoping to get out of that when you actually do really go all out on the go-to-market side of things? Love to just hear more about your perspective on how you or you and Tara are thinking through go-to-market when you really are pushing this.

Yeah, so we're thinking about it in a really methodical way. And honestly, what we're doing right now is trying to circle the wagon and understand what are the resources, what are the opportunities that we see? And what is the level of effort that each are gonna take? And what do we think are like big bets and payouts based on our goals to then say like, what are our top few priorities? And in order to do that, we're also running what we call like these little experiments, if you will, to see like, do we think that the hypotheses will prove out whether that's like Apple App Store ads, search, the level of effort it'll take to onboard or like link in with veterinary partners. YouTube, TikTok. Like, how do we go? Like, one of the crazy ideas that we threw out the other day is there is an app called Poop Map that's trending right now. You can join a league and mark where you've gone. And we're like, what happens if there was a feature like that for dogs? And like, that would help drive like just opening up the conversation and download because digestive health and poop can be kind of it's more of a serious topic. And we kind of have something fun. Like when I think about marketing and communications and just like broaching the subject of things that potentially have been historically thought of as taboo or like a little bit more private, I think of like, like the Squatty Potties and like the—

Yeah.

Like injecting humor into the conversation because there's so many universal truths that many dog owners and dog parents share, which is what we've heard over the course of the last year. It's just sometimes, sometimes you're shy or embarrassed. And so I think making sure that we're able to communicate and open up the conversation with people in a way that's accessible and approachable is what we're focused on now. And then just making them— helping them to understand Why it's important to be using our tool and our technology for both reactive, but also from a preventative health perspective.

Yeah, I know you mentioned the brand side of things there, and that's in your purview as well with what you're working on is the brand. So with that, and there's a lot of different aspects that go into brand building, and there's the narrative, the story behind it, but even like the colors, the logo, everything that— there's so much that goes into a brand. I just would love to hear more of how you've thought through that and things that you're hoping for to get from the brand of Digg Labs. Again, to your point, you mentioned there's some humor you could inject into it. I remember you had an interesting, it's like a unicorn, the little story I talked to Tara about, the poop tutorial, I think it was. I would love to hear more about how you're thinking about that stuff as well, Jess.

Yeah, it's an evolution for sure. Right now where we're at is And if anyone's out there listening, like, if you have thoughts, I'm all ears. I think it's interesting because we're DigLabs, but we have like a huge vision for what we can and will be. And so what we're struggling with now is what is the right timing for how we come or bring ourselves to market as a brand and as a product? So like, Are we the digestive health check app? Are we the Dig Labs app? Are we the poop scan? Like, what are— like, how does that naming work? Because it is important to a certain extent to make sure that people are understanding how everything works and ties together. And I think we know that it will evolve. Like, there's Uber, there's Uber Eats, there's separate apps. Like, how does that work when there's a lot of technology constraints and like we want to— we only have like One little icon or 6 seconds of social media screen time to get in front of people and get our message or drive our awareness. So those are some of the things that we're working through now. And we know that it'll be an evolution, but always open to hearing other perspectives on how this works from a branding and a technology product perspective. When you have multiple aspects of a business. So like we have a whole supplement line, 2 supplements actually. So.

Yeah. And I actually think about that a lot with startups because one of the last company I was at doing paid acquisition, it's like everything with paid acquisition, you're sending them to one page typically. And obviously you're testing, you can test those pages, you can test those copy, but it's like you need one message because you're sending them to one thing and you can test to figure out what that message is going to be. But like, I, from a perspective of having done this for a little bit, like looking at someone's website, I immediately say like, okay, so why'd they choose that call to action? Or like, why'd they choose that call to action? Or why'd they go with that copy on the— and like, when you think about it from that perspective, you realize like how important that messaging and branding is to be like, okay, we're— to your point, you have supplement line and everything, but like right now your main thing is the App Store. Like your homepage is get a lab quality health check for your dog all in under 10 seconds with a single photo, download the app. So it's like, that's the call to action you're choosing. Could it have been something else? Like, nope, probably the app is the most important thing right now, right? So it's like, that's what you need to do, but there's so many ways you could go about it. It's always interesting to hear how founders think about it.

Yeah. And that's, you hit the nail on the head and honestly, it'll be an evolution. Like my desire would be like to change it. Like we're working on different landing pages depending on what your dog is going through. So whether you're trying to triage, or understand what's happening when like the color looks off all the way through to like diarrhea is an issue for dog parents.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously you feel awful for your dog, but it's also like a mess for you and like it's a disruptor. And so being able to have resources and information for those pet parents in addition to, hey, download our app, And like just bringing things more into the context because I think as you mentioned before, the audience of households and people with dogs is really, really wide. And so we want to make sure that we're serving the niches so that way we can drive the most value for folks and meet them where they are in their consumer journey while our awareness is still low.

Yeah. And with this too, so obviously with the app, it's Really easy, low friction to be able to get started with that, to be able to use the products. On the educational side, though, there is like a whole, like a whole educational side for pet parents as well. And you have a blog and everything as well. You mentioned, like, are we thinking about YouTube or not? But even on that creating content, like, how's that currently been part of what you do? Because I know there's some blog posts and everything. But like, as I've talked to different startups, some of them go a very heavy, like SEO route, creating tons of content, knowing it's going to take like 9 months, 10 months, whatever, to actually kind of come to fruition with that. But how do you think about that in terms of creating content side of things for helping on this side of things?

Honestly, I think we view content as foundational and pivotal to being able to have our business, not just from a marketing perspective and the consumer journey and getting folks in or with SEO, which we are doing, spoiler alert, and working on, but also the content within the apps, the tips and the recommendations. Our goal is to have this feel extremely like it's your personalized Google image search. Let's have a conversation. Let's serve you the content that will actually make an impact on your dog's health and the longevity of their And so it's content is critical across the board for the company, not just from like marketing or advertising perspective, because content is like, is the product.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. It literally is the product in many ways. And I wanna just kind of go off topic a little bit now. So I can see your dog barely in the camera if anyone's watching on YouTube, which is great. I'm— I love that. How did you— okay, how many dogs do you actually own versus how many you fostered? I'm curious.

Um, I have fostered 53/54. There's one that keeps coming in and out of our house. Um, I have foster failed on 2 of them. So Callie was our 25th foster. Um, and it was serendipitous. I knew the minute I saw her on Instagram, I was like, that's my dog. That's my dog. And she went to a different house. And I was like, I firmly believe— I think I might have said this before, but like, I do firmly believe in like what's meant to be in this world will be. And I— that gives me a lot of comfort in how I go about my days and just like finding zen. And I knew she was going to be mine. She went somewhere else for like 4 weeks. And then I got the phone call like, Hey, like she needs to be moved. And so I was like, "She can come here." And then the adopters who were gonna adopt her picked another dog, and I was like, "Well, now she's staying and she's mine." So she was our 25th foster. She stayed. And then I also this is our second dog that is part of the family. This is Foxy.

Hey, Foxy!

Oh, adorable. He he was found as a stray in LA, and so I actually it's. Kind of funny, it came full circle. I started out getting involved in animal rescue in a program called Waggy West, where when I was flying from LA to New York as part of my previous job, I would quite literally chaperone/shuttle a dog from LA to New York.

Oh, wow.

So they would get dropped off at the airport, I would like pick up the bag, and then I would hand the bag with the dog to someone in New York. And so that was my foray into animal rescue. And it has come full circle over New Year's this past year. We adopted Mr. Fox. He was in a shelter in LA for 4 months. He's the perfect dog. And I'm so sad that no one wanted him, but so delighted that he— it meant that he made his way here. And so he just— I wanted to have a dog That's amazing.

Yeah, I love it. Like founders who— people talk about founder market fit or founder product fit. It's like, why is this founder working on this, this company? And it's obviously very clear why, why you are. And I love seeing that because you just have one, so much like passion for the actual thing you're trying to solve for, but also the know-how and knowledge because you've kind of dealt with pets for a while. And you're like, you understand like them going through issues and having issues and how like, you know, they're not always Like happy. you have that, you have such user empathy, I guess, with what you're doing, which is something that's an advantage over anyone else because you have so many pets and dogs that you've had over time. And with that, so you mentioned one of those things, like just kind of, it helps you zen out a little bit in some ways. How do you kind of unwind, manage the stress of running a startup, Jess?

It's always something that needs to be front of mind. Active effort needs to go into making sure that you're, um, zoning out. I think like this last week was an example. Like I found myself dipping into the yellow zone and I was like, okay, like I need to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit red if we keep going on this trajectory. We need to pull back. And so I think for me, things that have worked out well and have worked for Tara and I in general to manage like the day-to-day. Zen is the power of no and dividing and conquering. So if there is a meeting, you will very rarely see us in the same meeting or the same discussion. Usually it'll be one of us and then we'll report back or like provide and trade highlights. But I think that that gives us more freedom to get things done. And I think that's why we've been able to accomplish so much in just a year.

Yeah.

And then to zen out, I mean, it's kind of crazy, but I refuel when I'm with animals. And so I found myself kind of having too much human time. And so I had a foster the other weekend came and that really restored me to just see how— this is the foster that's coming out— how she's gone from Having mange and like really having a lot of health issues, she's on slow kill heartworm recovery. Like seeing her now, having her be more playful, going for walks with her—that is really restorative to me. And then I love reading, so and I only read historical fiction. It's really sad, but I will just read, and that helps me to kind of like. collect my thoughts and just like get transported to another world that's not related to 2021.

Historical fiction. Any favorites or why? And why that genre? I'm just curious.

Um, it just feels like drama in a soap. It's nice to know that things were real to a certain extent. Obviously not like the love story, not all of the love stories. But it just, it feels Like my slightly more educated version of like the Real Housewives or like reality TV.

And there's nothing wrong with that, to be clear. Everyone knows.

I also dabble in that. I also dabble in that. It just doesn't zen me out as much.

No, that's, that's fair. That's fair. I think everyone has to find whatever that thing is for them. And that's why I love to ask about it. Because I think there are so many different ways of going about it. And no one, no one's like perfect. Everyone's just trying to figure it out on the way, right? It's, there's no, There's no manual here. It's like every situation is unique to your startup in many ways. And there's aspects of it that are the same from one startup to the next, but no one's doing your exact startup at this exact time. So it's like you're always trying to figure out how do you keep going? How do you play that long game? I actually just heard another podcast recently about someone who mentioned like, yeah, they start this time, they do their own kind of like on offense for the first 3 hours of the day, more reactionary the next few hours. Then they work out and they have, then at like 5, they're done every day. They're done at 5 to like hang out with their kids and everything. And, and like, I love to hear that, that thing, cuz it's like you have to find a schedule that works for you, whatever keeps you going, especially if you're gonna make a company that's successful and it's gonna take years and years to, you know, grow and become what he wants to be. It's like you can't burn out in the first year and then, then be done. It kind of ruins everything along the way.

Totally.

And, and just, uh, as a last kind of a question here, so I know you kind of talked about A little bit with the bigger vision, but I would love to hear more about just like, what do you see this becoming longer term? How big does this get? Just curious on where Digilabs is going.

Yeah, I mean, the vision, we feel like the sky is the limit. We want to be the ecosystem that helps pet parents have personalized health insights and recommendations and tools for their, to manage their daily Their pet's daily healthcare routine and insights. And so when I think about where this can go, it can go from canines to felines. It goes from digestive health check with a photo to like gait analysis, skin and coat, ears, and like all the things that holistically make up what health is. It goes into food tracking and recommendations. Like, I want to hear from pet parents what will be most beneficial to them, what they think will actually help them move the needle in a meaningful way for their pet's longevity. And then I think we want, from a personal mission perspective, to see what bubbles up from that. And then what bubbles up from some of these amazing ideas that I won't share right now that we have from a science perspective and see how we can kind of create something awesome.

That's great. I'm excited for you. I think, uh, in getting to that point, people are going to see the vision, especially people who understand, who have pets. It's just like a clear no-brainer on this side of things. Where can people go to learn more about, uh, DigLabs as well, Jess?

Yeah, you can go to our website, www.getdiglabs.com, um, or find us on Instagram @diglabs. Just shoot us a message. We're happy to chat. We'd love it.

Awesome. Jess, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today.

Thanks so much for having me.