 Let me introduce you to a member of my family, Sunjae.

She is a spoiled cat who sleeps

next to me all the time. While I can’t imagine my family without her, we had to jump
through hoops in order to adopt her. This frustration about rescue animal adoptions is
shared by many.

 The problem is that as we did, potential adopters face discouragement in the adoption
process.

 As more people get discouraged during the adoption process, 47% or 5 million animals
die in shelters every year. That’s 5 million Sunjaes that could have found a forever home.

 According to our interviews of pet owners and national surveys, we identified three main
roadblocks in the adoption process.
First, information on rescue animals is scattered, and adopters have to browse through
thousands of animals on different platforms in order to find an animal they want.
Next, people have the underlying bias that rescued animals are “unhealthy and
unhygienic”, and hastily taken photos showing the animal in poor condition only reinforce
this idea.
Last, even if the adopter did find an animal they wanted, they would be deterred by
complicated adoption processes. Some shelters only accept phone calls, other only visits
– and adoption apps often lack clear instructions on how to proceed with adoption.
Due to these obstacles, if 10 people wanted to adopt, only one person would end up
actually adopting a rescue animal.

 Our goal is to remove these obstacles in the current adoption process.

 First, based on personalized preferences and categorized information, our AI-powered

algorithm would match the perfect pet to each adopter. Adopters who might have been
unable to find the animal they want due to scattered information would instantly meet
their dream animal.

 Second, our app would feature refined photos with the background removed, which shifts
the user’s focus from the unhygienic shelter environment to the animal. According to the
survey we conducted, this reduces negative stigma by half. Furthermore, we would use
data from shelters to assure users that these rescued animals are healthy.

 Last, we are going to encourage adoption by having a streamlined in-app adoption

process. Currently, as seen from this user review, most adoption apps are simply listings
of animals and provide scant instructions on how to proceed with adoption. Through
Furfect, however, adopters would be able to file a form right away if they like an animal.

 Our primary business model is mediating adoption between shelters and adopters,
providing information to adopters and nation-wide exposure to shelters. Our main
revenue would be commission fees, taking 30-40% of 110k, which is the average
adoption fee in Korea.

 Based on our key features, we have a clear competitive advantage. We provide refined
images that encourage adoption, AI-based matching, a streamlined in-app adoption
process, and automated tools to lessen the registration burden for shelters.

 We would target the rescued pet adoptions market first, which includes 30k+ adoptions
per year and 330k+ revenue. We would further target all pet adoptions, as well as the
 entire pet industry in Korea.

 We would first target Gyeonggi shelters, as they have the highest number of shelters,
rescue animals, and euthanasia rates. This implies that there would be a high demand for
a fur-fect adoption app. ;) As they are overcrowded and understaffed, our automatic
photo refinement tool that helps increase adoption, and AI generated descriptions that
reduce registration time would be highly attractive.

 Our target consumer demographic is women in their 20s to 30s, who are the most active
users of adoption apps. For our marketing strategy, we would use ads on Instagram –
while it is the 4th most used app for our target demographic, it is cost-effective and can
be targeted towards users with an interest in animals.

 Our goal is to increase adoption by 200%, save 100k pets per year, and reduce the
burden on shelters. We believe this is possible through Fur-fect.

 You might recognize the cat in the photo. That’s Sunjae when we first got her from a
shelter. We believe in a future of more Sunjaes, sleeping in warm bed with their family
instead of shivering on a cold floor. We believe in hope. Please, adopt not buy.