Owning a pet is a big part of your life,
so it makes sense to look for
a significant other who shares
your love of man's best friend.
There's a new matchmaking app
that hit the Seattle market.
It can help you find love or
friendship with other pet people,
and it's called off leashed.
And we're joined now by its creator,
Manish Mathai and his dog Ladu.
Welcome to new day.
Both of you. Thank
you so much. Love you doing here.
OK, he's doing well doing well.
We just took him on a walk this morning
so he's a little tired. So
that's it. We're excited kids
and pets. It works the same way.
You just you. If you want
them to behave really well,
just wear them out so they have
no fight left in them, right?
Yep, so where did this idea come
from to to bring people
together through their pets?
Yeah, so it actually
all came from my wife actually.
So it's what I met her in 2018.
And when I asked her to be my
exclusive girlfriend, she said, well,
my dog approves of you and that's
why I approve of you. A year later.
We actually ended up getting married.
And then I couldn't get that
idea out of out of my head.
You know, because my dog approved,
and that's why I approve
of you and so literally.
I went to a local dog park and I
just started questioning people.
Hey, would you use something
like this and every single
person said absolutely can we?
How can we create a dog experience a pet
experience on an app we would love to see?
Something like that.
How does it work then?
So we have two modes,
so off leashed is we have the friendship
side and we have the dating side and.
Essentially,
you're building your profile with your pet,
and so we have two modes essentially,
so we have the friendship side where
you're building the profile with your
pet to find friends in the area.
So whether you're married
or in a relationship,
there's no pressure just looking for friends.
We have that mode,
and then we have the dating side,
so we help you connect through the
commonality of animals on that mode.
So do we find then that people have,
say, say, if you have similar pets,
you end up having similar
personalities in the end
exactly exactly?
But what makes this unique is that we
actually have added pet personality traits
and characteristics on the app itself.
So your typical your social
networking and dating app,
the way that it works is we connect.
They connect people through
location and gender.
Well, what we've done is that
we've implemented actually
the pet personality in it.
So is your pet adventurous?
Is it, you know?
Does it prefer quieter homes?
Is it vegan?
Is it a meat eater?
So we aren't only connecting the humans?
But the pets as well,
that's amazing.
And does it work for other?
We talked a lot about dogs because
that seems to be the one where that
brings people together the most
in a sociable way, but doesn't
work for cats. Ferrets, we are mice.
That's a great question,
so we are the first app that's
open to all pet people. You know.
I remember I met this lady at
a dog park and she's like,
well I come from an equestrian family
and my ex-boyfriend broke up with me
because I was spending too much time.
With my horse I would love to find
horse people and so we I wanted
to open the app up to everybody.
Yeah, so it's open to Red
Telecommunity horse community cat,
you name it, I
love it. What a great idea
and it so you're going.
You're trying it here in Seattle.
If it takes off here,
is it going to be all over
the world before we know
it? That that's the goal.
So Seattle is the first city that we're
launching and and it made sense to launch
it here with all the dog friendly bars
you have cat cafes we have erectile.
Expo that happens in Puyallup,
which a lot of people don't know about
and you have companies that have done it.
Here we have Rover, we have Trupanion.
They've been wildly successful,
so it made sense for us to start
here in Seattle. Yeah.
And so the people, yeah,
it's kind of like our beta beta city.
That's great.
And then we're going to California next.
That's the goal
that'll it'll be great.
It'll work out great there.
So are you involved in these
community events then do you?
Do you get in on the ground floor and
kind of let people try out the product?
Absolutely, we had our
launch event right here in.
Downtown Seattle.
We've participated and bark in the
park with the Seattle Mariners.
We've partnered with a pause
organization to also give back
so we're hosting events and and
we've definitely participated
in quite a few events,
so I imagine there will be a lot of
friendships made through this app.
But also there will be love connections,
and I'm just picturing, like,
maybe a year or two from now
weddings with lots of pets in
them, right? That's exactly
exactly. I mean, that's the goal, right?
Is through the commonality of animals,
and I mean there's.
I think there's one thing or two things
we can agree on as humans, right?
You can't really hate children.
You can't really hate pets.
Yeah, right?
So we want to provide the love
through the commonality of pets.
That's great. And the people who do
hate those things aren't people.
You want to probably have a relationship
with friendship or otherwise,
because I think it really
says a lot about a person.
What kind of pet they have, how they
treat their pet too is probably a big thing.
And if you're on if you're on this app.
You're probably treating
your pet pretty well.
You're not gonna go on here if
you're somebody who's you know.
Chaining up animals out somewhere you're
not going to be a real sociable person.
You're not going to be if you're good
to people, you're good to animals.
That's that's the way I've pretty
much noticed it most of the time.
Well, thank you so much,
and I wish you all the best with this.
I think it's a terrific idea.