Our Story

Meet PetDesk

Like you, we care deeply about the health of pets, everywhere.

The Three Laws of PetDesk

We work in the best industry in the world, building technology for the care providers of the best beings in the world – our pets. Alongside the insight and expertise of our Advisory Council, chaired by Eleanor Green, DVM, we are proud to continue spearheading conversations about improving and extending pet lives. We help keep pets healthy, happy, and give them more time to play with their owners – us!

We don’t follow a feel-good set of brand guidelines. At PetDesk, our vision is to generate 10 million additional years of pet life over the next ten years and have the data to prove it. To get there, we follow The Three Laws of PetDesk which are non-negotiable and give us the north star we always need to make the right choices.

The First Law
of PetDesk

PetDesk will extend and improve the lives of pets.

The Second Law
of PetDesk

PetDesk will improve the lives of pet care providers as long as that doesn’t conflict with the first law.

The Third Law
of PetDesk

PetDesk will improve the lives of its employees as long as that doesn’t conflict with the first or second law.

Our Company Values

Empower & Respect Vulnerability

 As the core value underpinning an inclusive and diverse work environment, we bring our whole selves to work: We ask for help, celebrate failures, and seek to understand. When we are vulnerable, we grow faster, progress further, and engage deeper.

Do More, Leave Fulfilled

We show up with an insatiable hunger and relentless drive to move the company and ourselves forward. This earns us the freedom to celebrate our accomplishments, success, failures, and learning. We go home content, recharge, and do it all over again the next day.

Unleash Curiosity

Every step forward starts with a question. We cultivate curiosity by encouraging understanding of all aspects of PetDesk so we can contribute and make the greatest impact possible.

Deliver Unexpected Joy

We go out of our way to create “Wow!” moments and exceed expectations, whether we are helping customers, team members, or the community.

Our Leadership

Taylor Cavanah

PetDesk Founder, CEO

Ken Tsui

PetDesk Founder, CTO

Aaron Bannister

PetDesk Founder, CCSE

Founders Story

My cofounder (Ken Tsui) and I (Taylor Cavanah) started our careers at a company in the nanotechnology space and spun out a division from that company and sold it off.  Realizing it was time to start a company ourselves, in 2011 we recruited another friend and co-founder, Aaron Bannister, to create a “better” Foursquare.

A physicist, computer engineer, and web developer, bootstrapping a consumer business turned out to be not the best idea. Luckily for us, we did two things right; we failed fast and we built great technology. And during this rollercoaster ride, we worked from home and had our pets to keep us sane.

My wife’s uncle is a retired veterinarian and from day one pushed us to try out our technology in the vet space. For a while we didn’t listen, until one day I looked down and noticed Molly Sue (my Shih Tzu) was missing an eyebrow and her paws were all chewed up. She was busy keeping me sane and calm and yet, I was ignoring her health and not getting her the regular care she needed. 

We realized our technology could easily be applied to fix this kind of issue and when looking across the industry, saw the problem was widespread. In 2013, I attended the Western Veterinary Conference and halfway through the first day, called Ken and told him to start building PetDesk. 

9% of vets were using text messaging. 65% of dentists at the time were using SMS. We realized that the veterinary industry was far behind the technology curve, and after some user-centric research, we decided to solve the pain point of requesting appointments. Since then, our goal has been to continuously improve the ways clinics can better connect with their clients (pet parents and pets)

It’s our ultimate goal to extend the lives of all the pets out thereby making sure they get the preventative care they need. We seek to generate 10 million additional years of pet life and have the data to prove it.