Meet Aparna Srinivasan | Founder/CEO of SpotOn.Pet, the ultimate ride for you and your pet!

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aparna Srinivasan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aparna, how does your business help the community?
SpotOn.Pet currently offers rides with your pet, pet only rides and for our business partners, deliveries of pet related goods. This app is a powerful tool that has revolutionized the way pet parents travel with their two-legged, four-legged (and no-legged) furry and scaly family members. We are on a mission to make pet parenting easier for all.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We chose pets simply because, even though the pet market is $103+B and growing, us Paw-rents do not have a convenient way to get around town with our pet unless we drive ourselves. I personally felt the pain! Living in Hermosa, I would travel back East to visit family and would plan to take my family with me (my 2 dogs). However, every time I tried to use one of the other transportation apps or a taxi, I was playing roulette . It was always a gamble to whether the driver decided to drive me with my pups. I did a lot of research talking to rideshare drivers, going to LAX and speaking with anyone coming/going with a pet. Through this process, I realized most pet parents have the same pain points as I do. Ok, yes, there is Uber pet, but we have heard from our customers that it’s still the same. They get rejected or the driver makes a big deal about having the pet in the car. WE ARE DIFFERENT!

Our drivers are vetted to be pet-friendly. If you had two Great Danes, SpotOn.Pet wouldn’t send out a Smart Car. If you were one of our drivers and allergic to cats, you wouldn’t need to take rides with cats. We have successfully matched passengers with all types of pets to the perfect driver. With all the growth we have had in NYC, it’s time to now pick up our wings and fly over to the land of Sun and Surf! Yes, we are so excited to announce that SpotOn.Pet will be expanding to the West Coast, specifically California!

I owe a lot of thanks in my journey to the support of my family and my faith! Being a startup founder is lonely, you need support and my family has been my biggest cheerleaders!

I could write a book on the lessons learned, but there are some specifics that have stood out to me the most. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is to ask for help. Having guidance of trusted individuals by your side is so important to get to your desired goals! Listening to them challenge you more than telling you what you want to hear will be more beneficial than you know. To make you not just think outside the box, or around the box, but to take that box and rip it apart in a multi cross shredder and put the pieces back together. You also have to be able to be limber and open to change. Hopefully that change is better for your company.

We have a very special message for all our customers, supporters or those simply curious about our brand: “Hello world, SpotOn.Pet here. We are a brand that truly cares about our customers, two and four legged ones, scaly, furry and everything in between. We aim to be the premiere resource for all pet parents.”

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Having lived in the South Bay for over 15 years, using SpotOn.Pet to get to other amazing pet friendly places is perfect. Here’s a snapshot…

Places you can’t miss:

-Redondo Beach Dog Park

-El Segundo Dog Park

-Runyon Canyon – not only for hiking, but they have a dog park

-Eaton Canyon; amazing hiking with waterfalls
Del Carro park in Palos Verdes Park (and go to the fire road for great hiking)

-Long Beach Dog Beach

-Huntington Dog Beach

-Trump National and take the trail down the cliff to the beach. The water is “ruff” so strong swimmers, this is for you!

-Eating with your dog most anywhere on Hermosa Pier

-Uncle Bill’s Pancake House – Manhattan Beach

-Petrossian – West Hollywood

-Rock N Brews (El Segundo)

-The Morrison; Atwater Village

-Fat Dog in NoHo, experience a cool patio

-Blue Dog Beer Tavern in Sherman Oaks

-The Lincoln in Venice

Hanging with your canine companion is the best r&r anyone can plan!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
For starters, there is not a person who inspired me to start SpotOn.Pet, but rather my two amazing dogs, Raja & Krishna. Without them, the idea would not have even been recognized. But what has pushed me to continue to develop and build SpotOn.Pet is honestly the tens-of-thousands of people with disabilities who have service animals. While we have been busy building SpotOn.Pet, I didn’t realize how much need there is for a simple ride, and how hard it is to get a ride when having a pet or service animal with you. Although there are laws in place that clearly state you cannot be refused if you have a service animal, many people don’t understand what a service animal is. They see a dog and basically drive right off. Our hope is that SpotOn.Pet is changing that thanks to our Vetted, Trained and Committed drivers. To go into this further, our drivers are Vetted to be pet-friendly and trained in how to take a pet safely from point A to point B with or without its owner. We have been working HARD in NYC to work out our service and be able to surf our way towards our West Coast expansion. One cornerstone in doing this is by our involvement with the Access-A-Ride program in the “Big Apple.” This initiative guarantees that people with disabilities are able to get rides. Now in New York City, SpotOn.Pet handles ALL the rides which involve service animals. We hope to take this and bring it into Los Angeles and beyond. Hey LADOT , call us!

Website: https://www.spoton.pet/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spotonpet/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spotonpet/

Image Credits
SpotOn.Pet