PetSeek

Problem Statement

• Many animals are surrendered to shelters each year, leading to overcrowding and resource strain.

• A significant number of these cases involve lost pets.

• Pet owners often turn to social media or animal organisations for help, but search efforts become fragmented due to multiple platforms.

• Chronological order of lost pet reports causes earlier cases to be overlooked.

• This fragmentation reduces outreach and information-sharing, hindering efforts to reunite lost pets and prevent shelter surrenders.

Objectives & Product Goals

• Develop a solution to mobilise the public and enhance collaboration in pet searches.

• Provide a central platform for reporting lost pets.

• Enable seekers to stay connected and updated while assisting in the search.

• Combat the negative effects of channel fragmentation.

Research & Approach

Our approach to building the product:

1. Gathering pain points:

   • Collaborated with Pawprints team to survey shelters, veterinary services, animal feeders, and the public.

   • Held discussions with government agencies to understand current processes for surrendered animals and the needed support.

2. Research and ideation:

   • Brainstormed solutions with Pawprints team, assessing ideas based on impact, feasibility, and interest.

   • Researched global tools to address challenges and what's already available in the market.

3. Build:

   • Started development based on initial ideas, refining the solution through iterations.

4. Validate:

   • Conducted user testing: interviews with pet owners and mock tests with seekers to ensure usability.

Main challenges faced:

1. Navigating government bureaucracy and policies:

   • Previous pet-related Hackathon group found that collaborating with government agencies required navigating their policies and safeguards, slowing solutioning.

   • Decided to focus on empowering the public to make a direct impact.

2. Avoiding further channel fragmentation:

   • We had to avoid exacerbating the issue of channel fragmentation by adding our product to the mix of existing channels for lost pet reporting.

   • Three aspects of our product give it the potential to capture the space and reduce overall fragmentation: (i) superior functionality that attracts users to the product, (ii) a funnel system to help users congregate in a single channel, and (iii) superior legitimacy as a Government-recognised project.

3. Narrowing down issues:

   • Faced difficulty selecting solutions from many potential issues; assessed based on impact, effort, and team interest.

4. Policy limitations:

   • Pivoted from aggregating lost pet posts due to platform terms of service prohibiting data scraping.

5. Tech and time limitations:

   • Used existing technologies (e.g., Telegram, Firebase) due to limited engineering resources and short Hackathon timeline.

Solution Overview

PetSeek: A web application to improve:

1. Mobilisation of the public in lost pet searches

2. Collaboration between seekers of lost pets

Improving mobilisation:

• Logs lost pet location data onto a single map for easier assessment.

• Recommends nearby lost pets, reducing the need to search posts.

• Allows reward-minded users to easily assess incentives.

• Increases search efficiency by showing multiple pets in one area.

• Raises awareness of lost pets (dependent on public adoption rate).

Improving collaboration:

• Integrates Telegram for individual chat groups per lost pet.

• Funnels seekers from various channels (e.g., social media) to one platform.

• Facilitates coordination and discussion among seekers.

• Allows lost pet owners to share updates with all involved.

• Provides useful search tools like location sharing, media sharing, and chat notifications.

User Flow

Click on the “Sign In” option and create an account

Successful sign in brings user to the landing page

Click on “Report lost pet”, fill up the pop up form and submit report. A Search card along with main details will be created on the landing page along with the other live cases

Click into your Search card to view the full details. Pet owner can choose to either add friends directly into the Telegram group or share the Petseek card for friends to join the group independently.

The “End Search” button is only viewable to the ticket creator.

A Telegram chat group will also automatically be created with the details of the lost pet pinned as the first message, and pictures automatically uploaded.

Others can view ongoing Searches from the main PetSeek page. To join a Search, the seeker must navigate to the desired search card and click on the “Join Search on Telegram”. Once in the chat, user can view all messages associated to that particular search and also share updates.

To view other ongoing Searches, user can either view from PetSeek landing page (where Searches are arranged by proximity) or view the PetSeek Telegram channel.

Seekers can choose to save a search by entering a Search card, signing in to their account, and bookmarking the Search. Saved searches will be reflected on the Saved tab.

Outcomes & Impact

User Testing Overview:

First test (Pet owners submitting a mock lost pet ticket):

• Conducted via virtual call with 2 participants.

• Feedback:

  • Web app was easy and quick to use (form took under 2 minutes).

  • Telegram chat group creation was a pleasant surprise.

  • Some concerns about numerous chat groups becoming overwhelming.

  • Participants didn’t view it as a major usability issue.

Second test (Live exercise with team member creating a search card):

• Testers communicated through PetSeek while searching for a team member.

• Observations:

  • Testers teamed up to improve search efficiency.

  • Chat groups helped prevent duplicated search efforts.

  • Search continued actively even without the initial reporter's presence.

  • Activity was engaging and rewarding for participants.

Areas for improvement:

• Risk of disruptive individuals in Telegram (open platform).

• Some participants didn’t update the chat initially, only following suit after others did so.

• Initial Telegram message was too long and lacked an image of the lost pet.

• Solution: Shortened the message and added the pet’s picture to the chat.

Next Steps & Future Vision

• As a platform which relies on participation to achieve its objective, a high adoption rate by the public is essential. The ideal state would be for government, NGOs and pet-related social media to recognise PetSeek as the default platform for registering and finding lost pets.

• Next step would be to polish existing and add new features based on feedback from user tests and our own roadmap to achieving the product's vision.

• Potential to expand with features for broader animal welfare:

  • Combat fraudulent donations for pet medical care.

  • Provide a unified portal for pet adoptions.

  • Create a referral system for shelters when an animal is surrendered.

• [Update: 20 June 2025] Due to other priorities, PetSeek has been decommissioned for the time being.

Created By: Ershad Tan, Kay Purnama, Wenjia Dong, Amitha Fernando

Get in touch with us at: petseek@open.gov.sg