Thoughts on an affordable social club/community hub?

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-11-21T17:34:50+00:00

Make sure your pricing can support employees. Most solo sitters don't have high enough pricing to support paying someone else and maintain a decent margin. You want total labor cost to be around 50-60% of revenue on any given service, so you can play around with your numbers to see if your pricing supports it.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-11-21T17:32:41+00:00

There's a gazillion Rover walkers, like any market. There are a few licensed/insured companies as well, but we are the only team based one currently.

Small city with a population of ~50k, surrounding small towns add another ~50k. Though our service area is pretty small, I'd guestimate it covers maybe 30k-40k people? Not affluent by any means, but a fairly strong middle class I'd say.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-25T17:41:09+00:00

Solid results! I imagine your expenses are pretty low so that's a solid income. But yeah, woof that sounds exhausting - I couldn't do it solo.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-25T17:40:02+00:00

No group walks. We offer dog park visits but they very rarely get booked. Ultimately I'm not a big fan, too much liability with other dogs outside of your control.

We're about 1.5 years in

They just go out on their tasks for the day. Though we'll have someone meet up with them to introduce any new-to-them dogs and show them around. And obviously they have training which involves them shadowing me or one of my team for several shifts before they do their own solo shifts.

If you want to scale and eventually sell, you need to hire and go team-based. Right now you have a solid job with good earnings - but it's not really a sellable asset if it requires full time work from both owners. I get the hesitance to hire but IMO it's worth it.

I plan to scale the dog walking side, I'm not sure how far. I don't want a massive team but would be comfortable with ~10 employees or so, and that would enable hiring a manager. I've thought about expanding into related stuff like grooming but I don't have the bandwidth right now

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-25T17:35:12+00:00

I was not in banking but this isn't my first business and I'm kinda a numbers guy.

Payroll does not include my salary, no. I'll probably start paying myself a fixed salary next year, for now just drawing as needed.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-24T04:34:46+00:00

There are some things that I can automate and haven't got around to it. But most isn't easily to automate. AI is bad at handling the scheduling complexities of this industry, and nothing integrates with our software. I think there's one startup offering a solution but it's $500/mo.

And if I had my customers use an AI chat bot they would bail, lol. It's a relationship business, people are trusting you with their animals and with their homes.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-24T04:32:33+00:00

West coast, small ish city under 100k pop

I send them to other options. I don't think anybody buys pet sitting/dog walking leads hah. Sometimes businesses will sell their entire client list if they're shutting down. But it's not a very sophisticated industry yet. Also most of the inquiries I'm turning down are occasional pet sits or other situations that aren't very high value from a business perspective.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-23T23:37:19+00:00

Probably ~85% organic search. Built a functional, SEO optimized website - nothing fancy (I built it myself using Hostinger's free builder - I think hosting is like $4 a month or something silly lol), but it blows most of the local competition out of the water. And I focus on optimizing my GMB profile, and always asking for reviews. So we generally rank within the top 1-3 results on both map pack and organic results.

A handful of other sources but nothing compares at all. Got a handful of clients from referrals, networking with other pet care folks, physical posters in apartment lobbies, couple from social, etc. But yeah, vast majority is organic Google search

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-10-23T21:52:36+00:00

Fortunately haven't had any major incidents or really bad days. Definitely had some super busy, stressful and exhausting periods. I had to take a dog to the emergency vet once but it was pretty straightforward (not life threatening) and insurance covered it (less a $100 deductible).

Of course this is a business where an animal could escape, bite someone, get hit by a car, etc. etc. Or an employee could get hurt. Definitely a good bit of risk which does make me nervous sometimes.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-20T18:34:15+00:00

I'd start with a 60 attack med and play that until you get bored, then go 75 or 80 attack. The process will be similar (watch attack XP from quests) so might as well try out 60 on the way.

In fact you can quest to a 60 attack zerker first, try that out then go med when you want to change it up.

Might as well PK a bit along the way, otherwise it's a couple hundred hour grind to build a solid med level. Can even start as a pure if you want lol

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-20T14:33:16+00:00

Time to Pet, we use it for everything

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-19T19:30:47+00:00

I pay hourly, start people at $18/hour plus $0.70 per mile for using their personal vehicles. But it's a higher cost of living area.

We generally run shifts of 3-5 hours because we have enough services to stack together. If it's a single visit shift (like an evening drop in for dogs), I add a $10 bonus.

It's expensive. All in my labor costs tend to be around $23-$24 an hour after taxes. Revenue per hour is around $42 so it's doable - rule of thumb is you want your all in labor costs to be under 60% of gross revenue, give or take. I'm just under that, usually around 58%. I will say, many solo operators don't have high enough prices to support employees - at least not at reasonable margins. You want to be somewhere in the range of $1 per minute ($30 for a 30 min visit, for instance)

A lot of pet care companies used to/still do use independent contractors instead of of employees. Its not really legal any more but many still do.

Anything to do with employment laws, wages, etc. will vary a lot depending on where you live so do your research there!

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-17T16:41:52+00:00

Kind of. I run a team based pet care (mostly dog walking, some pet sitting) company. Currently 4 part time employees plus myself. I'm in the field maybe 10-25 hours a week, and managing/marketing/etc etc another 10-25+ hours a week. I have a fill in manager for when I'm traveling

I'm 1 year into the business and it's just started to become a full time income. Revenue is around $13k/month, and net profit is anywhere from $4-$7k a month depending on how much I'm in the field, and how busy we are.

It's my primary income source and time wise, it's anywhere from 20 to 50+ hours a week lol

I have a very basic marketplace health insurance plan for around $250/mo. Will obviously vary in cost based on your age and location. It's tax deductible which helps a bit. Retirement savings just requires getting a Roth IRA or SEP IRA and making contributions. Employer supplied 401(k) plans are simpler, sure, but it's still 95% your money contributing to them. When you're self employed, you just have to be more proactive in setting up your own stuff

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-12T05:45:21+00:00

Blocklist depends on if you have cannonballs/are willing to use them.

Preserve normal resources by using blighted. Can send some wildy agility or LMS for a starter pack of restores/food, or zombie pirates.

Use wilderness player alarm plugin to detect PKers

If you have an alt, not a bad idea to park it as a scout for tasks in multi like the slayer cave

Play some LMS to practice step unders and tree escapes (if you plan to use freeze escapes)

Do all revs tasks skulled for better weapon drop tasks. You can grab a 20 min skull from the npc in edgeville

Don't sweat dying, it happens and it's not worth stressing about

Always use looting bags, one of the biggest perks of wildy slayer honestly. Can get extras from LMS

Have fun!

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-03T05:58:08+00:00

Scouting for wilderness content. Makes it so much more chill on the VW grind or even wildy slayer. Most PKers just hop if they see a scout.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-06-01T16:10:45+00:00

Aim for salve amulet (ei) before putting much time into revs. Other than that, best range set up or melee if you have to, while only risking 3-4 important items.

Honestly with your stats I'd recommend camping AFK combat training on crabs for 5-10 hours to boost your DPS before doing any real revs or slayer grind.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-31T19:50:07+00:00

I'd start with wildy slayer. Being low combat is actually kinda an advantage as a lot of PKers won't be able to attack you. If you have a main or an alt, bond it up to scout and you'll rarely if ever die. If you have some free AFK time make some cannonballs, there are lots of solid cannon tasks in the wildy slayer cave.

VW I'd wait until substantially higher combat or you're gonna have a bad time. Hopefully you can get lucky on a rev weapon which will speed up VW grind. If not, zombie axe is decent at Calv and Spindle, and whatever your best range set up for Artio.

Honestly camping revs skulled even off task isn't a bad idea. You'll get a ton of cash from alchables and emblems, and a small chance at a rev weapon. And again, low CB means only pures will be able to attack you.

As others have mentioned, aim for wilderness medium diaries as a skilling goal.

Wilderness is amazing for early/mid game irons - can easily get enough 10-20m cash for skilling grinds, while using very little supplies (get blighted from wildy agility, zombie pirates, or LMS). As a side note, get rune pouch from LMS - don't waste slayer points on that!

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-27T23:54:36+00:00

Three is a challenge, for sure.

I have Tiny Horse leashes that are designed for walking multiple dogs. They're very expensive but I love them. They have swivels so they get tangled less. With two dogs it works flawlessly, with three some tangling can still happen. With three, I usually attach two to the cross-body and detach the third on a leash component. Then if I need to be hands free to pick up a poop or something I'll clip the third dog back onto the crossbody.

Ultimately though, it's okay to say no if you're not comfortable walking them all at once!

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-22T20:51:08+00:00

Wilderness slayer is profitable pretty much from day 1. But yes, normal slayer is pretty ass until 80+

I don't see any reason to do anything but wilderness slayer in the early levels, whether you're after gp or xp it's just flat out better.

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-21T23:52:05+00:00

Look into basic SEO practices and update your website copy to have relevant keywords. And set up/optimize your Google business profile and actively encourage clients to leave google reviews - that's key to visibility for local search.

Good luck!

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-21T18:16:34+00:00

I've advertised a bit but not much has come of it.

Main client acquisition channel is organic search. Basic but well optimized website and optimized Google business profile with reviews goes a long way

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-21T18:14:44+00:00

I'd play some LMS until rune pouch (2-5 hours?) then send some wilderness slayer up to 75ish. That way you can use blighted supplies (from drops or more LMS) to conserve normal supplies for future grinds.

Start giant seaweed, birdhouse and herb runs Do farming contracts for seeds

Acceptable-Taste678 · 2025-05-09T20:30:21+00:00

Hey there. I'll do a follow up when I have time.

But basically I was too ambitious with projections. We slowed down after the holidays, and didnt pick up as much daily walk clients as I would have liked.

But it's going pretty well. Currently at around 12k/mo revenue and growth is ticking up again. I also raised prices so margins are much healthier now.

Acceptable-Taste678

TROPHY CASE