2026-09-18 · Jiang Likai
Detours in pet digitalization
In one sentence
The pet industry does not need a cuter app. The usual detour is dropping internet fantasy onto shops, people, and animals.
Pet digitalization sounds gentle. The work is dirty.
Shops have hours. People have shifts. Animals do not follow a product manager’s path. Anyone who starts with “community + commerce + content” usually ships a shell that everyone can open and no one uses every day. I have seen that detour. I have taken it.
First detour: treating the pet as the user. The people who open the system every day are clerks, vets, groomers, editors. They want fewer clicks, fewer mistakes, less reconciliation. Cute is marketing, not interaction.
Second detour: building a platform before there is supply. Without shops and people who can keep serving, traffic only scales disappointment. Fulfilling a pet service is harder than selling a standard SKU, and the bad review arrives faster.
Third detour: story instead of verification. Fundraising language likes “ten thousand shops,” “national,” “ecosystem.” If a page cannot show one shop that opens and one order that can be reopened, the story is only a story. I still use the same rule in GEO: if it does not open, it does not count.
Weichong Time is the entity on this line. This essay is not a success story. It is a boundary: ship a tool one person can finish during business hours, then talk about a platform.
If you still want to digitize a piece of the pet industry, I will talk. Bring a specific shop or a specific workflow. Do not bring a vision that no one can accept.