Suki

I grew up with cats, or rather with one cat at a time. The first cat I remember having as a kid was named Polly. She was a bossy lady type cat, a real feisty one. I think she had some sort of trauma. We were only allowed to pet her on the head because otherwise she went crazy. So I was a bit apprehensive of her. I didn’t dare to grab her or play with her.

I was 9 years old when Polly died. We got a new cat one summer later, a ginger kitten from a farm named James. That tiny ball of fur was my first true connection with a cat. Unlike Polly, he was easy to engage with. I could play with him and pet him everywhere. I got more confidence with cats and learned a lot about these animals through interacting with him. He was so much fun, just such a great character in my life.

I’ve been in love with cats since then. There’s something magical about these creatures. They are so elegant and smart. They are built for the kill. But I wouldn’t really call myself a cat freak. There are certainly bigger cat freaks than me on this planet.

The thought of doing some sort of project centered on cats has been on my mind for years. I have always been a creator. From around 2009 to 2019, I had a tremendously productive period as an amateur video installation artist. I traveled all over the world doing my so-called ‘video graffiti’ everywhere: Zurich, London, San Francisco, Istanbul, Berlin, Jakarta, and so on. While pursuing these artistic endeavors, I was also undertaking a PhD in the humanities.

The initial idea for this cat-themed project I was looking to do was actually a cat café. In 2011, my PhD brought me to New York to give a lecture. It was winter. I was feeling cold in that city, thinking it would be nice to have a warm cozy spot where I could pet a cat. I told my friends about this idea. Three years later the concept of the cat café came to the Netherlands, and my friends were saying: “Hey, you already had that thought years ago.”

In 2019, I finished my PhD and had my last video art exhibitions in Rotterdam and in Surabaya. There was supposed to be one more show in 2020, but it got canceled due to Covid. I was searching for new things to create. I wanted to do something for a bigger audience than just the art crowd, something that would be more accessible and easy to scale.

That’s when I got back to that cat idea. Cats unite, you know? They transcend the boundaries of culture and religion. They have a universal appeal. So I thought: OK, let’s combine my creativity with my passion for cats and create something truly unique.

I realized that the cat community seemed to be lacking a dedicated space where like-minded individuals could connect and share their love for felines. Then it struck me: let’s create a two-way matching cat-sitting app.

You know, there are plenty of cat-sitting apps on the market, but they all have one common flaw. As a cat parent, you can only search for a cat sitter on these platforms. But as a cat sitter, you don’t get to choose a cat to cat-sit with. These platforms don’t do that. They just provide a map-based interface to find cat sitters.

I was scrolling through these apps and thinking: I don't see cats on the platform. I want to see the cats. I want to swipe through them. Then again, as a cat parent, I want to be able to create a profile for my pet and tell the world about them. Everything should be engaging and interactive.

All these cat-sitting apps don’t have this sort of functionality. There’s no platform like that on the market. So I decided to try and make one.

Now it was time to find a CTO to help me build this app. Eventually I found my first companion, Magnus Kanholt. He wanted to build with bubble.apps low code program. But we didn’t manage to find a way to make the app two-way matching and weren’t able to come up with an MVP. Unfortunately, he also fell ill, so I had to search for someone else.

Shortly after I found another CTO, but he didn’t manage to pull off anything. Since finding the right person for the job turned out so time-consuming, I reckoned that in the meantime I should at least try to build something without a CTO that could help this yet-to-be-made app reach a wider audience. This is how my Cat PR Agency was born.

Our client base is mostly individual clients and non-profit cat organizations. Often the cats that get coverage already have some social media presence. Some of them have several thousand followers, others have something like 97k followers. Regardless of the popularity, we just get these cats on board and share their fascinating stories with the world.

We provide our services completely free of charge. But you know, these will hopefully become the first users of CatScanR when the app is ready. So I’d say it's a little product on its own and it's generating the audience base for the upcoming app at the same time.

In May 2023, I finally got myself a new CTO. His name is Roman Babenko. He is a Ukrainian software engineer with 25 years of experience, currently living in Switzerland. I think with him we’re finally onto something. He quickly established a productive working environment and delved into previous ideas and sketches I’ve done with Magnus. We managed to define the technical requirements for our upcoming app and he built a really nice prototype for our product.

We envision this platform as the ultimate tool for people who want to explore, connect, and share their love for cats. Something like Google Maps, Linktree, and WhatsApp all rolled into one for cat lovers. You can create a profile for your cat focusing entirely on specific cat characteristics, such as breed and color, as well as interests, such as cat walking, cat food, and cat photography. You can search on the map for other cats in your area. But you can also search for other cats with the same interests in a specific geolocation. If you want to see ginger cats which are into cat fashion in New York, you'll find them on our platform. And then you can also chat with other cat parents. That’s the idea. It's a perfect way to find like-minded feline friends.

There’s a lot of things you can build on top of that. For instance, we are planning to build a community feed where users will be able to browse for cat-related posts. I also foresee a lot of cat people who will want to date other cat people. Sort of like Tinder for cat parents. Maybe we’ll make something like that in the future. Likewise, we have ideas on a digital XR tombstone to commemorate cats who went over the rainbow bridge.

We intend for the core features of the app, such as profile creation and chats, to be completely free. If you want to hire a cat-sitter on the platform, you can do so. If you want to charge money for your cat-sitting services, you can do it individually, one-on-one. We won’t take any commission. But I think we’ll introduce some optional paid services somewhere down the road. One such feature could be a paid "Urgency Button" that allows you to stay on top of the community feed for 24 hours. So for instance, if you have some urgent matter and you need to find a cat-sitter for your pet at short notice, you can press that button and quickly get your request across to the whole community. This feature could be offered as a subscription or as a one-time purchase.

If we have enough users on the platform, at some point we could also introduce a marketplace for 3rd party vendors. Companies offering cat-related products like cat food or cat toys could sell their stuff on our marketplace, and we would charge a fee for their presence on our platform. This could be a great way for generating some additional revenue.

I’m really proud of how our Global Cat PR Agency is turning out. I think we truly are pioneers in this field. Nobody has done anything like this before. And I’m even more excited for the future of the app we’re working on. I believe we’re onto something special with this one. It really has the potential to unite cat lovers in a meaningful way and revolutionize the way they interact.