Welcome to this month’s InFocus: Industry Experts! This issue brings you an inspiring conversation with Gabriel Betancourt, the creator of Petme, a unique social media platform for pet lovers worldwide🐾💙. Inspired by his love for animals and a drive to connect pet owners meaningfully, Gabriel shares how Petme stands out with unique features and his vision to create a safe and genuine community.

Gabriel, thank you for this opportunity to get to know Petme better and learn about your platform’s journey. As a pet owner, I look forward to sharing your story with our audience, so more people can benefit from engaging with a like-minded community that loves their furry companions.

What inspired you to create Petme, and how did you envision its role in the social media landscape for pet lovers?

There were many factors that eventually came together. Since childhood, my family always had animals—dogs and cats—so the respect, appreciation, and love for them were always part of my life. As a software engineer, out of all the projects I worked on, the ones related to animals, whether directly or indirectly, were the ones I enjoyed the most.

Then, about three years ago, while living in Sofia, Bulgaria, I found a kitten in a trash can, barely clinging to life. Naturally, I rescued him and adopted him. That little kitten became the main inspiration for Petme. Like every pet parent, you want to share their funny moments and everything they do. But when I looked at my options, I realized:

• Instagram: My profile there is practically inactive. Create a new one? Definitely not.
• Facebook: I barely use it anymore. Lately, it feels like 80% bots and scams.
• TikTok: Not a chance.

None of these platforms were really designed to capture the true connection we share with our pets. I realized there wasn’t a platform for animal lovers or pet parents to share their love in peace, tailored to how we interact with our pets. But such a space needed to exist. So that same day, I started designing and coding what would become Petme.

With social platforms expanding rapidly, how does Petme differentiate itself from other pet-centric apps and social networks? What is the strategy for establishing Petme as a leader in this niche?

Petme introduces a brand-new concept of integrated profiles. Your pets are with you, just like in real life, not separated into different profiles. If you're a cat parent and I visit your home, the first thing you’ll likely say is, “Look, this is my cat—he's awesome!” That’s the idea behind Petme. When I visit your Petme profile, your pet’s profile is there, clearly visible alongside yours.

We break the "one-profile-at-a-time" rule that 100% of social platforms follow. Even pet-centric platforms only allow a single profile, and it's just for your pet. I started Petme with a single goal: to become the number one platform in this niche worldwide and it has become my life’s mission. The strategy? Simple—create a product that people love. We're not overly focused on the competition; we’re focused on our users. After all, our primary growth channel has been through pure referrals.

As Petme scales, what role does AI play in content review and moderation? How does the platform address the limitations of AI, especially in catching nuanced content that may require human insight?

I believe that out of the more than 80,000 posts we already have, fewer than 20 have been reported or required moderation. People come to Petme purely to enjoy themselves and their pets. So far, they’ve embraced the positive vibe of the platform and just go with it. This hasn't been a major issue for us.

Our approach is to focus our time and effort on the more critical aspects of the platform, leaving the things that "work" as they are—until they don’t. Of course, as we grow, we’ll begin integrating AI throughout the platform to help with these processes.

Petme includes features like sharing pet profiles and getting karma points - it’s very cute! One of my personal favorites is the “Looking for a Home” tool. I believe it's vital to help those less fortunate furry friends to find a loving family.  What are some other unique features that set Petme apart from competitors?

Oh, we have a few really cool features. The following two, for example, are unique to our app:

We have the "Relatives" feature, which allows multiple people to share the same pet profile across different accounts. This way, the followers and likes of the pet's profile are shared with everyone’s account. For instance, a family of five people with one dog can all share the dog's profile and enjoy the app together, just like in real life.

We also have "Petme Talks," which is like a mini-chat to share silly and funny conversations with your pets. Every pet parent talks to their pets a lot on a daily basis. After launching it, interestingly, some people started using it to ask questions or write text posts (when there's only one message in the talk), so we ended up with two features instead of one. It wasn’t the original idea, but it's cool. Now we also have "text posts" on Petme because of it.

And there’s more to come, especially for business accounts.

What have been the biggest challenges you faced in building Petme, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge we’ve faced in building Petme is that it’s a large-scale project with a lot of moving parts, but we have a very small team. We’re trying to create a platform that combines social networking, pet profiles, community engagement, and unique features like "Petme Talks" and "Relatives." Each of these requires significant development time and attention to detail, but our resources are limited.

To overcome this, we’ve had to be extremely strategic in how we allocate our time and resources. We focus on the most critical aspects of the platform first, prioritizing features that will have the biggest impact on user experience. We also adopt a “leave it alone until it breaks” philosophy—if something works well, we keep it as is and focus on areas that need immediate attention.

With social media trends constantly evolving, what do you see as the next big trend for pet-centric platforms?

Trends are hard to predict, but I truly believe that overly curated, "fake" content will continue to lose popularity as people grow tired of it. Real life isn’t like the mini-movies we see in reels. Nowadays, people want a more genuine experience from creators. The great thing about this is that, no matter how many filters are applied, if there are pets involved, that part is real—and our concept fits perfectly with this trend.

Other trends we've noticed include the increasing humanization of pets, the premiumization of pet products, the rise of e-commerce and pet-related tech, and a shift towards interest-based social platforms.

Are there any plans for Petme to expand its features or reach into new markets? What can users expect in the coming months?

In a few months, we’ll be launching business profiles, all of which will be paid and verified. In other words, scams on Petme will have a hard time succeeding.

These profiles will come with tailored features to help businesses connect with their audience more effectively. This is not limited to pet-related businesses; it's open to all kinds of businesses. The philosophy of Petme is simple: come here to promote your business, connect with people, and share your passions—just bring your pets along.

So far, we have law firms, event planners, marketing agencies, and hotels confirmed to join once the business profiles are ready.

Additionally, pet profiles can be shared with business accounts, so on Petme, you can literally make your dog the CEO! Trust me, with this concept, you'll reach your audience in a highly effective way

We take content moderation and online safety very seriously at Petme. We currently have a dedicated team member focused on content moderation to ensure that the platform remains a positive and safe space for all users. However, what has really stood out is how proactive our community has been in this regard. Our users often report problematic content before we even have a chance to see it, allowing us to address issues quickly and efficiently. But, as I said before, these instances have been very few in general.

Looking ahead, we plan to implement a more advanced moderation system that combines AI and human review. This will allow us to scale our content monitoring efforts as the platform grows, while still maintaining a personal touch to ensure the nuances of certain situations are handled appropriately.

Given that pet owners are diverse, how do you approach multilingual customer support to cater to a global audience? How do you gather and implement feedback from Petme users to improve content and features on the platform?

We’ve made it a priority to ensure that Petme is accessible to a global audience by translating the app into the main languages spoken by our target audience: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian. Together, these languages cover approximately 30-40% of the world's population, allowing us to reach a significant portion of pet owners globally. Additionally, we’ll be adding French very soon, with plans to include more languages as we continue to scale.

For multilingual customer support, we use a combination of available translation tools and collaborators to provide assistance in multiple languages. This ensures that users can communicate with us easily, no matter where they are located.

As for gathering feedback, we listen closely to our community across all available channels, both inside and outside the app. Whether through app reviews, social media interactions, or direct user feedback within Petme, we make sure to collect insights and suggestions. This feedback is then carefully analyzed and used to continuously improve the platform's content and features, ensuring Petme remains a place where pet owners feel heard and valued.

Can you share the current number of active users on Petme? What are your growth targets for 2030?  How do you envision the platform evolving in the next few years?

As of now, we have thousands of active users on a weekly and monthly basis, with more than 100 new users joining daily. What’s exciting is that we’ve achieved this growth organically, without spending a single dollar on paid advertising. Our growth has been driven entirely by hard work, leveraging other social platforms, and strong SEO strategies.

Looking ahead to 2030, our growth targets are ambitious. We aim to expand significantly, reaching millions of active users globally. To support this, we plan to invest more in marketing, partnerships, and platform features that will drive user engagement and retention.

As for the platform’s evolution, we envision Petme becoming not just a social network for pet owners, but a comprehensive ecosystem that caters to everything pet-related. This includes features like business profiles, pet services, e-commerce integration, and AI-driven tools for pet care and management. We see Petme as the go-to platform where pet owners can connect, share, and access a wide range of resources to enhance their experience as pet parents.

By continuously listening to our users and implementing feedback, we plan to scale the platform while keeping the core values that have resonated with our audience.

As Petme continues to grow, its commitment to fostering authentic connections and supporting pet owners shines through. Gabriel’s insights on balancing innovation with community values give a glimpse of the future for pet-centric social media✨. We hope you enjoyed this look into a platform that celebrates the bond between pets and their people, building a space where they can share, connect, and belong🐾❤️. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories in upcoming editions!📰