A New Category In The Vet Space

Issue #77

June 25th, 2024

Quick Hits:

🐶 Would you pay $120 a month to be part of this “Soho Club” for dogs?

🇰🇵 🇷🇺 From one awful dictator to another. Kim Jung just gifted Putin, a pair of Pungsan dogs, a local dog breed.

😡 You think your dog doesn’t care when you come home smelling like another dog, well then…

🥺 Meet Wild Thang, the 8-year-old Pekingese who just won the dubious award of - World's Ugliest Dog.

💥 July 4th is coming, and with it, a 60% increase in missing pets. Be aware and make sure their microchips are working.

This week we spoke with CJ Casselli, the co-founder & CEO of Truss Vet

What’s your background how did you get into veterinary services?

I started in advertising and digital marketing. I went on to get my MBA and then spent a couple of years with some entrepreneurial investors looking for companies to partner with. We ended up shutting that down, but during that journey, I met my Co-Founder, Dr. Brad Waffa. We shared similar dreams of creating a large and impactful company that better served its employees, and ultimately clients, and we identified urgent care as an ideal opportunity. Thus, Truss Vet was born!

Vet services are seeing a major boom. You have regular vet clinics, 24-hour animal hospitals, mobile vet care, telehealth & urgent care clinics. Can you explain the differences and where Truss Vet fits in?

Most pet owners are familiar with the various human healthcare models that provide different types of care to different individuals depending on their needs. While veterinary medicine is certainly different than human healthcare, the segmentation of care models does reflect some of what we’ve seen in human healthcare over the years. Here is a high-level breakdown of the current care models:

● Primary care veterinarians - Your traditional veterinarian responsible for wellness visits, preventive care (vaccines, flea/tick/heartworm prevention), scheduled surgeries, etc.

● Mobile veterinary care - In-home primary veterinary care

● Telehealth - virtual care similar to human telehealth

● Veterinary urgent care - same-day care for non-life-threatening problems (most pet “emergencies” aren’t actual emergencies and can be seen at an urgent care clinic like Truss Vet)

● 24/7 emergency and specialty hospitals - focused on life-threatening emergencies and critical care as well as certain specialty services (some specialty hospitals are starting to get de-coupled from emergency hospitals)

Urgent care clinics are still relatively new (for pets) how did you notice this gap in the market? How many locations do you currently own and what's the 5 year expansion plan?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we noticed that most pet owners couldn’t get into their primary care veterinarian, and there were long wait times and rising costs at the emergency hospitals.

You had many patients ending up at ER facilities with non-life-threatening problems, which only exacerbated the issue and led to a bad experience for everyone involved. We were familiar with how this problem was solved in human medicine (i.e. urgent care), and we felt like the time was right to introduce a similar concept in veterinary medicine.

We have two locations open (Cary, Durham), and one under construction (Greensboro). I have this ambitious 10-year goal of serving 1 million pets, and we know that in order to do that, we need to keep expanding our footprint. We see lots of opportunities in other markets for Truss Vet, but we want to expand in a way that allows us to meet these needs, while also maintaining the quality of care at our existing clinics.

What does an average day look like running an independently owned urgent care clinic?

We’re a startup, which means my role has changed quite a bit over the past year and a half. When we opened our first clinic, I was sitting at our reception desk when someone called out, paying all of our bills, taking out the trash, chatting with clients, etc. Urgent care is a new category, and we felt it was critical to define the model by living in the clinic day-in and day-out.

As we’ve grown and launched a second clinic, I’m spending more time working on the business (versus in it), finding ways to improve our operations, grow our footprint, better serve our teams, etc. An average day for me starts early (5 am), as I’m most productive early in the morning. I typically like to work on strategic projects during this time and get a workout in.

Then I spend a few hours with my family (we have young kids!). After that, my days are a mix of meetings, projects, evaluating new locations, managing our construction projects, and marketing. I then spend another couple of hours with the family and use the evenings to catch up on emails.

Besides becoming a profitable business (which is the goal of every business), how rewarding does it feel knowing you are helping pets every single day?

Our mission at Truss Vet is to bridge gaps in veterinary care and strengthen our community by reimagining the way animal hospitals serve pets and people. Our entire team, myself included, is quite motivated by the opportunity to provide exceptional same-day care for sick dogs and cats but also to create a meaningful place to work.

I get the most joy from seeing our team members engaged in their work, feeling like they’re having an impact and growing in their careers. I also love that we get to help pet owners in their time of need, quickly and at lower costs than a traditional ER.

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How much $$ have you raised and what is something you learned about the fundraising process along the way? What are your future funding plans?

We raised a small amount of money from a single investor, more of a business partner and friend, to get Truss Vet off the ground. Since then, we’ve partnered with a bank to fund our continued growth. We’ve been very thoughtful about finding the right partners to help fuel our growth, as we feel it’s important to stay aligned with our mission, vision, and values (and this extends to our capital providers!). We know we’ll need continued funding to grow, and our goal is to find investors aligned with our long-term goal of taking care of our team, expanding access to care, and being operationally excellent.

I think with fundraising, you need to accept that, no matter the amount, it’s hard to get money from people – doubly so if you’re selective! –, and as such, you need to be extra persistent, thorough, diligent, prepared, etc… Money always has someone behind it and there are often terms related to the investment. It’s as important to get these things right as the amount of capital you raise, as they will have an equal impact on your business going forward.

Entrepreneurship is a difficult journey, how important is mentorship in the success equation for entrepreneurs?

I think entrepreneurship is incredibly challenging. Depending on your definition of success, there are a lot of things that go into the success equation for an entrepreneur. For me, it’s about achieving high performance while also keeping balance across the other areas of my life. I focus on faith, family, friends, work, and fitness, and I just completed an 18-month mentorship group that spent a lot of time exploring these different areas.

I’m also an avid reader, and I connect regularly with other entrepreneurs and business leaders to gain continued perspective. I have two friends I meet with monthly, and we very intentionally evaluate how we’re doing in regard to these work/life balance categories. Honestly, I’m a huge believer in learning from others, and I’m constantly trying to figure out how to improve based on other people’s experiences.

Since Truss Vet is relatively new not only as a brick & mortar but as a concept what have you done to make consumers understand the need and/or differentiation for this service?

One of our key challenges is helping pet owners understand that veterinary urgent care is an option! Roughly 80% of pet “emergencies” can be seen in an urgent care setting at half the cost of a traditional emergency hospital, and typically much faster. At Truss Vet, you’ll have an incredible experience, and you’ll be cared for by a friendly, compassionate, and talented team, you can book online or walk in, there is typically no wait time, and we’ll get you answers, and solutions same-day (10 am to 10 pm).

We’re working hard to find creative marketing avenues to get the word out, but to date, our best marketing channel has been our clients sharing about Truss Vet with their friends. Many pet owners have had a bad experience at the emergency vet, and once they understand urgent care is an option, they’re eager to come back!

You reached the end, you deserve a treat 🍖

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Finally, What did the cat do after her home was broken into?

She called claw enforcement.

See you Thursday!