Rakesh Tondon moved from his hometown Kolkata to the United States when he was still in his teens, to study medicine. But that did not stick, and he ended up as a financial consultant at JP Morgan Chase. Twelve years later, Tondon switched careers again and founded a highly successful fashion accessory brand LeTote, before the pandemic forced the company into bankruptcy. At this crucial juncture, Tondon and his family brought home a pet dog Coco.
The Aussie labradoodle – who was more human than most humans, according to Tondon – quickly became a family member.
“She came into our life when our life was under some chaos and stress, and she completely healed us,” he said. “And the quality of care that she’s getting wasn’t great.”
A gap in the petcare industry
Rakesh and his wife Hetal Shah – also a successful restaurateur and entrepreneur – found that even highly-rated pet clinics were often unhygienic, lacked proper systems, and did not provide thorough diagnosis and treatment. Speaking to other pet parents, they realized that they were not alone, and saw this as an opportunity.
“My wife came up with the idea, where she said how about we create a platform to make it better and easier to provide veterinary care?” said Rakesh. That was the genesis of Dr. Treat, a vet clinic that takes pet healthcare just as seriously as human healthcare.
Chatting with me at a coworking space near Dr. Treat’s Union Street location in San Francisco, Tondon describes how he co-founded a pet clinic with his wife Hetal Shah, and Charlie Bowman, who was CTO of LeTote.
“I want to say it was very organized, but it wasn’t.”
In fact, when they started out, the plan was not to start a pet clinic of their own, it was to develop software to streamline other established veterinary practices. The three founders spoke to veterinary doctors, practice managers, and even attended veterinary medicine conferences.
They asked people in the industry if they would benefit from software that would help them improve their patient management systems, ensure quicker delivery of care, and reduce human costs.
To their surprise, they found that established practices had problems, but because they were doing well according to certain business parameters, the practice managers and owners had no incentive to institute a better system – even when Tondon offered to give the software free for a five-year trial period!
They also spoke to veterinary doctors who were unhappy with their practice managers and owners because of their reluctance to change.
“We realized that nobody wants to change,” said Tondon. “So we said if we solve the problem for the vets and the pet parents, there’s a good business here.”
In the summer of 2022, Dr. Treat opened the doors to its Union Street clinic and a second location in Burlingame has been up and running since January 2024. They have treated hundreds of pet cats and dogs in the past two years and the secret to their success lies in its unique approach to pet healthcare.
A vet clinic with a difference
For most vets, the norm is to provide proper vaccinations to the pet and treat its healthcare problems as and when they become apparent. Dr. Treat employs a more proactive approach.
“We think the right way is to focus on health, focus on prevention, move the conversation from sickness to wellness, and say, how do we become the company that can give you the tools, technology, infrastructure support, to keep your animal healthy?”
The way Tondon and his co-founders execute this ethos is through a native app with a seamless user experience, and a unique subscription model. Pet parents pay a fixed cost of $149 per year, which covers all in-person and video consultations. The relatively low, fixed costs allow pet parents to opt for consultations as soon as they notice something wrong, as against “waiting it out” to save on the cost of appointments. This pet gets treatment sooner and pet parents save hefty bills for more serious procedures that may occur.
An important aspect of preventing severe health outcomes concerns the pet and its parents’ – lifestyle. Pet parents are encouraged to book consultations with Dr. Treat’s doctors and share information about their and their pet’s diet and activity levels and figure out an optimal diet and exercise plan for the pet. For example, if you lead a sedentary lifestyle but have an energetic dog, the plan might recommend you take your dog out on more walks to satisfy its exercise needs.
During the research phase before setting up the clinic, Tondon and his co-founders discovered that many practices don’t stress dental hygiene enough, even though it is an effective indicator of digestive health. In consultation with lead veterinarian Dr. Felicity Moffat, they then developed a rigorous dental hygiene examination protocol for all the veterinarians at Dr. Treat.
“If you fix dental issues, if you have a moderately active dog eating good quality food, your cost of veterinary care drops by as much as 80%,” said Tondon, emphasizing that prevention is always better than cure, for the animal and for the pet parents’ care bills.
Hospitality paramount
Making the experience of receiving care for your pet as pleasant as possible is a cornerstone of Dr. Treat’s philosophy. This plays out through simple, thoughtful interventions that make life easier for the pets and their parents. For instance, pet parents can book consultations seamlessly through a native app; dog-oriented video content plays on TV screens in each of the examination rooms; cat pheromones help calm nervous cats; and a weighing scale built into the floor means that pets are saved the anxiety of jumping up and down platforms just to get weighed.
Both Tondon and Shah have run separate, successful restaurants in the past and as a result, they understand the value that good hospitality adds. As a result, Dr. Treat trains its staff to go the extra mile for customer service.
So if someone brings in their pet, looking distressed, the staff is encouraged to take prompt action to help the animal, but also to offer a glass of water and a hug to the pet parent.
“Ask that person, “can we get you a meal while your dog is being treated? Let me just walk across the street, get you a coffee. You want me to walk around the block with you to help de-stress you? Let’s do that!’,” said Tondon.
Maintaining this exceptional standard of customer service is difficult but Tondon has found it to be gratifying too. He recounted an instance when a woman brought her sick dog to the clinic. After an examination, the staff found that there was no way to save the dog, and they put him down.
For the next few months, the woman visited the clinic every day, sometimes bringing coffees or pastries for the staff, and cheerfully enquiring about their day. Even though her dog was no more, she was grateful that the staff at the clinic had sat with her for an hour talking about her dog, patiently watching photos and videos of her dog on her phone, and treating the emotionally painful situation with great sensitivity.
At the end of the year, despite not having a dog anymore, she renewed her subscription asking the staff to use it to help people who couldn’t afford treatment for their pets.
“That is the type of company we’re building where you should want to go above and beyond because this is how the world becomes a better place. And you cannot teach that,” said Tondon.
Expansion beyond the Bay Area
In addition to the San Francisco and Burlingame locations, Tondon reckons that the demand for quality veterinary care in the Bay Area is enough to sustain five more Dr. Treat locations. In the future would like to scale the brand nationally and set up clinics in states like Washington, Ohio, Texas, and Minnesota. Apart from geographic expansion, he hopes Dr. Treat can expand beyond its current scope to become a relevant player in the diagnostic technologies and virtual care services sectors..
“It’s very easy to do it in one clinic,” he said. “But then when your model is to build a network of 100 clinics, some of them are going to be owned, some of them are going to be franchised, how are we going to be able to control them?”
The answer, he believes, is hardwiring the ethos of good quality veterinary care, buttressed by professionalism and excellent customer service into the very DNA of the company. Today, Tondon, Shah, and Bowman can boast of hundreds of satisfied clients, indicating that Dr. Treat is off to a bright start. Tondon hopes that Dr. Treat will usher in a revolution where pet health and wellness become just as streamlined and tech-forward as children’s health and wellness.
And why shouldn’t it be? As Tondon comments, “Pets, I would say, are the new children, and children are the new exotic animals!”
Watch the highlights of IC’s visit to Dr. Treat here!