SOPet journey — Best

Wachirawit Siridachanon
13 min readJan 27, 2021

Wachirawit Siridachanon |6258064556

This blog describes my journey from working at SOPet in 2021. Currently, My position is CFO and Vice Head of customer and relationship. In this semester, we aim to accomplish and create

  • Scalable, convenient, and efficient platform
  • Gradual Increase of interactions on Facebook page and other SNS to expand customer group
  • Increase credibility by partnering with clinics/hospitals

This is our performance right now. (April — December 2020)

  • Facebook: 10,000+ followers
  • Paid customers: 1,000+ customers
  • Revenue: 60,000+ baht

Week 1 (24–30 Jan 21)

Detail: During the end of semester 1, we received the website prototype from the Doccure (DreamGuy), our website coder in India. For this week, I have been assigned the tasks divided into two parts which are customer and relationship and financial. For customer and the relationship, I have created the website maintenance checking, user flow diagram, and required content and information drafting on each section of the website such as blog and news, about us, etc. with the head of customer and relationship(Kul). After checking, we found out that our website is not performing well as we expected. It has many errors and high latency. Consequently in this part, we need to push a lot of efforts to tackle and improve these issues considerably. Moreover, in my financial department, I already published the financial summary for 2020 with an impressive result of the latest quarter. (quarter 4 of 2020) The continued upward trend of an exceeding 1 thousand clients and the highest no. of customers per day is 16 clients.

Week 2 ( 1–7 Feb 21)

Weekly milestone: Updating the Website’s performances according to the performance check.

Detail: This week was the first time that we had a meeting with P’Tan via zoom on Saturday, 6 February 2021. During the meeting, P’Tan introduced the progress of this semester and allow us to update the current performance. I was a representative to pitch and update the traction and describe on semester milestone. Then P’Tan gave us a comment on the way that we can increase our revenue. P’Tan suggested that we should purchase “basket size” by increasing the price of our service. For example, emergency cases during midnight can have an extra price of around 450 baht.

After that P’ Tan provided a lesson which is called “OKRs” (Objective Key Results). It is an effective tool that widely used in many global organizations such as Google or Intel. It allows us to see clear goals of our business along with the reason why the services arise, a clear objective, and the key result to prove that objective. In that session, P’ Tan opened the 2 video clips. One is from Ted Talk describing the OKRs strategy and another one is the process of Ping An application, a Chinese healthcare system. After watching Ping An video, P’Tan assigned us to create Ping An’s OKRs and SOPet’s OKRs as well. In my opinion, OKR is a useful tool that helps me to clarify and analyze the business better and can adapt it to use with SOPet. I set the objective for SOPet to be a market leader in the pet healthcare market in Thailand with revenue gaining 1 million within 2022. Along with 3 sub-objectives to expand our services, increasing the number of users and loyalty customers, and create a well-known and ease of use platform.

In this week's task, I concluded the financial summary of January which we reach the peak of both a number of customers (225 customers) and revenue (15,000 THB+). Our performance gradually increases from October until now. For the website, after we gave a comment on the website speed, Doccure can fix the bugs which improve the fastness of the website better than last month.

Week 3 (8- 14 Feb 21)

Detail: During this week, it was the first time that we have three meetings with our team, P’Ronnie, and P’Tan.

For our first meeting, I updated the current transaction to inform other members about the performance linking with our processes. Based on our analysis, it shows that our tractions are increasing due to the social engagement on the content. Consequently, in this meeting, we aim to discuss the marketing campaign on Valentine's day and Chinese New Year's day.

For P’Ronnie’s meeting, I received a suggestion from P’ Ronnie to update the BMC linking with our performance and also update the transactions to others regularly.

For our last meeting on 13th February, all of our team members had a meeting with P’Tan to discuss our last week's task which is the OKRs of SOPet. All of us shared our objectives and feedbacks. I have written with the main objective of becoming the leader of pet healthcare leader with the revenue exceeds a million within 2021. This activity, it ensures that all of us have unity with a similar goal that we want to accomplish within the next year. Moreover, I can gain another business perspective from Chawin. Since he discussed his OKRs in longer-term and mentioned the technology application with SOPet. It is an interesting aspect that we should discuss from now on.

Week 4 (15-21 Feb 21)

Detail: This week I gained some feedbacks from P’Ronnie to review our BMC and make a financial projection for the next 5 years since our revenue and margin are not high as much. Then, we set the meeting to discuss our projection from 2022–2026. From brainstorming, we acquired many interesting concepts like the subscription model, the price structure by separating the services into 2 categories which are the consultation and emergency cases, and the service expansion from the feedbacks provided from the paid customers survey including the pet grooming, medicine delivery, and the pet hospital reservation platform.

For P’Tan meeting, we provided the OKR of 2021 as well as update the current performance of the web and present the web structure to P’Film.

P’Film gave us comments on our website. She suggested us make a clear contact with a specific schedule period of time to avoid misunderstanding and unpleasant tasks same as India provided.

Week 5 (22–28 Feb 21)

Detail: This week I recorded the transaction and found that we have the highest number of customers for 2 days and we gained a total of 19 return customers within this month. However, our income this month might be less than the previous month due to the less day of this month and a low number of participants joining the campaign on Chinese New Year and Valentine's day. Therefore, it is our new challenge that we have to change the way of marketing to increase more social engagement. Moreover, another task that I have been assigned is a policy for unpredictable situations. For instance, a vet disappears for a while or having inappropriate behavior. I and Kul have done the document and list all solutions for impossible unpredictable situations.

For the meeting, this week P’Tan is not available to have a meeting with us therefore, this week we updated our current performance, each team member‘s task, and the financial projection that I have done last week to P’Ronnie only. During the meeting, I provided some insights that I have found on the core problem of why we have a gradual increase in revenue and margin. The main concern is our price. Since we set the price too low affecting the low commission as well. We do not have many customers to reach the breakeven of the business. Consequently, P’Ronnie gave us an advice same as P’Tan provided last time that we should focus on the basket size since our revenue is not high enough. It is a crucial aspect that we should take into account.

Week 6 (1-7 March 21)

Detail: This week was one week before the midterm examination, we did not have the meeting with both P’Ronnie and P’Tan. Moreover, P’Tan was sick and cannot run the meeting, therefore, we decided to postpone it to be next week instead.

Week 7 (8–14 March 21)

Detail: Since this week was a midterm exam week, our group did not have the meetings with P’Ronnie. We decided to move them to next week instead. However, after the mid-term exam, on Saturday, we had a meeting with our programmers, N’Petong and N’Kong, to describe the overall process and update the progress of the website us along with clarifying some points that we might not clearly understand to ensure that we have the same target goal. And also, our programmers have an opportunity to meet with P’Tan and update the work same as provided to us.

Week 8 (15–21 March 21)

Detail: This week our group aimed to sum up the overall process on the website to be ready to send to our programmers to finish it on time. Consequently, we decided to set the meeting on Tuesday to discuss the workflow on the website and find the solution for accidents that might occur during providing services such as when veterinarian disconnected the internet how should we handle this situation. Then, after the meeting, we had a meeting with P’Ronnie to update our progress. Moreover, on Saturday morning, we have the workshop with P’Tan at our faculty to wrap up an overall picture of the customer journey. In the workshop, it can be separated into 3 main activities. First, the hungry and full batman, by allowing us to create our own story and imagination during the beginning and the end After that bring our own story to categorize with teammates by using the conditional signs like YES/NO to like all stories together. Second, the pet’s teleconsultation services story, by determining the beginning to be the sick pets and the end of the healthy or dead pets. In this activity, we can see a clear difference with the first one since we can find the intersection of the stories from each other much more. Third, the SOPet services story, by determining the same beginning and end as the previous activity. During doing this activity, we can gain a similar journey from all teammates aiming that our services can provide convenience and solutions to pet owners ultimately. From this workshop, we can gain more insight and concepts on the customer journey to be the same one. After that P’Tan assign a new position for us to operate the task on the website. For my position, I received the UX designer with Best, Kopong to manage and control the performance of the website directly from the programmers and also, being the initial checker before sending to product owners (Kul , Jaguar).

Week 9 (22–28 March 21)

Detail: This week we had a meeting with P’Tan and updated the progress of the website as one of the UX team but our communication seems to be unclear enough affecting ineffective work. Therefore P’Tan suggested that we should have a face-to-face meeting to provide clear information and get the same basic concept to ensure that we will complete the same goal.

Week 10 (29 March-4 April 21)

Detail: This week we have a meeting at the faculty to update the progress of individual tasks and brainstorm to solve some issues such as the payment system. Furthermore, I did the income and cost projection based on the value-adding and increase basket size plan that Chawin presented with P’Ronnie last week. One of the plans that we apply first is a scarce charge system. We launch this plan on 1st April during 18.00–00.00 with 20 baht extra price of every type of service. And also we set the trial period to measure whether this plan is working or not. Moreover, during this week I calculated the total revenue which currently exceeds 100,000 baht already with the highest number of customers and revenue in March.

Week 11 (5–11 April 21)

Detail: This week we checked the result after adjusting the price and can summarize that price increasing does not affect the number of customers since we still gain the same number of them. However, we found another issue which is insufficient vets in the system impacting us to lose some customers. Therefore, we have been discussing recruiting more vets to be balanced with the number of customers. And for the website, I updated the progress of the website in excel and present it to P’Tan in Saturday’s meeting. Overall, the progress reaches the determined standard and keeps going based on our expectations. By the way, apart from Best Kophong, we are still not seeing the real website yet which makes us lack confidence to say that it is now 100% completed and perfect.

Week 12 (12 -18 April 21)

Detail: During this week is Songkran holiday, we did not have a meeting with P’Ronnie and P’Tan but the progress of the website still going up. And also we have the meeting to discuss about the marketing plan in 2021, working policies in unexpected situation and the question and answer form handbook for vets, and also the company registration topic.

Week 13 (19–25 April 21)

Detail: This week SOPet has a new target customer which is a pet product owner. The customer was asking for an advertisement service within our Facebook page affecting us to see a great opportunity to create the measurement including charging prices and conditions of this new service in detail for future purposes. Moreover, due to the constant rate of customers after 6 PM that we raise the charging price, thus we discuss increasing the price rate of 20 baht for every service on the website to gain a higher commission rate. While for the meeting with P’Tan, as a UX team, Best Kophong updated the website progress and report the problem that found during the progress. And also, within that meeting marketing team presented the vision and strategy for the future which includes many interesting points such as the SOPet ecosystem by integrating pet mall, pet hospital, pet health package, and pet drive to cover all requirements on the pet. We had a chance to exchange ideas along with Q&A on each point of the slides from the Marketing team. Overall, this session contains a lot of new perspectives enabling me to perceive and see clearer pictures.

Week 14 (26 April -2 May 21)

Detail: This week we appointed programmers to update the progress of the website (should be more than 80% with all completed fundamental features like chat, call, and video call). However, there were some bugs on the chat and call features affecting a postponement of the checking session to be on 9th May with all workable features. While the meeting with P’tan on Saturday was linking to the previous meeting that P’Tan assigned the homework to create the strategy deck and present it on our own tasks. For my part, UI&UX design, I updated the current progress of the website by dividing users into 3 parts which are customers, vets, and admin, and then list all basic features categorized by using Venn diagram and green color as completed progress and yellow color as in progress. Moreover, during that session, we have explored and Q&A on an individual plan for each department to find the right balance and the center point that everyone satisfied.

Week 15 (3–9 May 21)

Detail: This week is a pre-final exam week thus we did not have a meeting with P’Tan but we had a meeting with programmers as we appointed them last time. All basic features and other sub-features on the website can be fully used while the UI design might not be the same as the UI team designed. Overall, all significant features were completely done excludes UI that has to slightly adjust.

Week 16 (10–16 May 21)

Detail: This is the last week of this semester and final exam week. We had our last meeting with P’Tan to update what we have done so far from the last class along with 2 workshops. Firstly, picture expression, by selecting one picture that describes the feeling or the situation for the whole semester. For me, I chose the meme of happy Kermit frog to explain that even though at the beginning of the semester, there are many toughs arisen such as unexpected India website, at the end we can see the light at the tunnel which is our finished website. This accomplished our expected goal thus nothing can express this moment better than happiness.

Secondly, where are we now workshop, by allowing everyone to create a line graph with 3 highest and lowest points to describe based on our feelings and two different periods: January-March 2021 and May-December 2021. For the first graph, I drew the graph based on two main aspects which are the website and the transaction.

January — March 2021

  • Website (yellow line graph): At the beginning of January, after we received the website from India, our satisfaction rate was down due to many bugs and not efficient to provide customers. While after we found programmers, the graph tends to rise upward along with the updated progress. Then the bugs and late submission made my feelings down. But in the end, when the website was completed, my satisfaction rate exceeds other points to become the highest one.
  • Transaction (purple line graph): Even though our service has a high growth rate, our margin still in a low ratio compares to the total amount of income. While after P’Tan and P’Ronnie suggested increasing basket size by increasing the charging price rather than the number of customers, this made me see the whole picture of the future path on what way we should do to accomplish our goal. This conforms with the upward trend of the line graph.

May — December 2021

After we launched the website, some bugs or dissatisfaction of some customers might be arisen from moving to the website affecting them to gain bad experiences. Therefore, at this point, it is crucial for our team to explore the cause and plan on how to tackle or handle this problem. After that our platform will continually go upward and have the creditability to sign MoU with incredible vet schools which might lead to the hospital partner network at the end of this year as the highest success.

From the first class of this semester until the last week, I can gain many aspects related to the new perspective of business, better know each team member and new members, and have the experience doing multi-tasking by work in many departments. Lastly, I have to say thank you to P’Tan our mentor, P’Film, and P’Ronnie to provide precious opportunities to learn and insightful perspectives to make us grow up and become at this point. 🙏🏻

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