Hello fellow hunters and makers! tl;dr Over 3 millions dogs are given up for adoption in the US each year. Unfortunately, it's often by well-intentioned people that weren't able to handle training their dog in the impressionable early days. This app is designed to guide people through the more subtle aspects of raising a dog so that they can have a wonderful companion for life. Through a gamified #12weekpuppychallenge, the app guides new dog owners through house training, leaving the dog home alone, socialization, and of course, some tricks as well 🎓 ... but since we're a community of makers, let me tell you the background of how this app came to be. I made this app to help my girlfriend and I raise a great dog. We wanted our dog to be friendly, chill, and a well-behaved companion when we bring her to the office, on trips, or leave her alone at home. After doing a ton of research, I found a new approach to dog training that got me really excited: positive reinforcement. I then scoured through as many books on the topic as I could and started to look for a good way to plan our training regime and keep track of our progress. Most of the apps out there are focused on teaching your dog tricks, but I wanted something to make sure we had a plan for basic obedience AND socialization. Since I couldn't find the product I wanted, I ended up doing what we all do: I made a spreadsheet 🤓 After sharing the spreadsheet with some friends, I decided to turn it into a free newsletter that anyone could sign up for. That was the moment when I got really excited about the idea because I was getting excellent open rates and very heartfelt feedback from subscribers. That's when I decided to go all in and applied to y-combinator's Startup School. Thankfully I got accepted into the fall 2018 cohort in a mentored group. It was a really helpful experience and I would love to do something like that again. It forced me to focus, be brutally honest with myself, and put a hard deadline on launch day. I launched the app at the end of 2018 and have been iterating since. Although I love to share my MVPs, I didn't feel it was good enough to share on PH... UNTIL TODAY 🚀 My long term goal is to help as many dog owners as possible get through the challenging first few months with their furry companion. Over the coming months I'll be implementing a paywall so that I can continue to work on this (hopefully full time). I would love to hear your feedback on the idea or the app itself. I'm also happy to answer any questions from business to technology to marketing... because I am juggling it all #startuplife Lastly, a big thanks to all the makers out there sharing their stories. I've been a wantrepreneur for a long time and couldn't have taken the leap without the inspiration gleaned from your launches, Tweets, and mentorship 🙌 Keep on shippin'