Bright Idea: Ruff housing

During a recent vacation, Greg Gottesman, managing director at Madrona Venture Group, left his dog, Ruby Tuesday, with a high-end boarder in Seattle. When Gottesman returned, he discovered that Ruby had been injured while he was gone.

That experience inspired Gottesman to pitch the idea for Rover.com, a website connecting dog owners with dog sitters, at Startup Weekend in Seattle. A team of techies took his idea at the 54-hour coding competition last June, won first prize$250,000 in funding from Madronaand launched the site on December 1.

The market potential is huge, says Aaron Easterly, who was brought on as Rovers CEO. Of the 46.3 million dog-owning households in the United States, 80 to 90 percent would never think of using an existing commercial solution, he says. They hate the idea of locking their dog in a cage and [current options] arent particularly affordable, either.

The website now has 10,000 dog sitter and dog owner profiles, most in the Seattle area, and recently raised $3.4 million in additional venture financing to take its service nationwide.

The company faces tough competition. Some websites that specialize in babysitting or elder care offer dog sitting as well. There also are sites similar to Rover, such as Dog Vacay, which launched March 1 in Los Angeles and San Francisco and also has plans to expand nationally, and Stayhound, which uses Facebook to match owners and sitters.

But Rover already has its fans. Aldona Kraszewski, a professional dog sitter who has been using Rover.com for several months, says she has some concerns about the 15 percent transaction fee Rover chargesdog owners pay the sitters fee through Rover, which takes a cutbut she is happy with two great clients she found through the service. She also appreciates the fact that Rover automatically asks dog owners to review sitters after each visit, a feature that helps Kraszewski promote her service.

Features such as these make Rover stand out from similar services that tend to be run by dog professionals but may not be operated as efficiently, says Lisa Wogan, web editor of Bark, a dog magazine based in Berkeley, California. Its interesting that this [endeavor] is more mercenary, Wogan says.