The story (so far)

Hey, I'm Lucas, the person behind Scritches. 👋

I have two cats and not always enough time. I always booked sitters the way a lot of people do. Open the Rover app, tap a few times, see the price, get a confirmation. Done. It was easy.

Then I tried to book independently. I wanted the sitter down the street. The person who knows every animal on the block. The people who do this because they love it.

The care was better. The booking was a mess.

Now I was texting to find a date. Guessing at the price. Filling out a paper form. Talking about availability over text. Paying through whatever app they happened to use.

The best people had the worst tools.

So I looked closer. This wasn't only a "they have no software" problem. The software that did exist looked built fifteen years ago and left there. Clunky. Joyless. Made for filling out forms, not for people.

That left two bad choices. A slick app that treats your sitter like a line item. Or someone you trust, plus a booking experience that feels like sending a fax.

Nobody was building both.

That's why Scritches exists. I want booking a pet sitter to feel like it belongs in this decade. And I want independent sitters to look as good as the big apps, because they're the ones who earned your trust.

I care about how it feels to use. Not as a feature. As the point. Booking should be simple. A report card with a photo of your happy dog should feel like a gift, not paperwork. Paying should take one tap. When the small things are good, people come back, and the sitter spends more time on the part they love.

Simple. Easy. A little bit of joy. That's the whole bar.

Today about 150 pet care businesses run on Scritches. Real people, real clients, real dogs who can't sit still. I talk to a lot of them. When something's clunky, I usually hear about it, and I usually fix it that week.

No roadmap committee. Just me, the people using it, and a long list of things to make better. That list isn't a secret, either. Everything I'm fixing, building, and planning lives on the public feedback board, where anyone can post an idea and vote on what's next.

I'm not building this to flip it or to get big. I'm building the thing I wanted when I was looking for someone to trust with my dog. And the thing those sitters deserved instead of sticky notes.

I just want to keep making it better.

If you run a pet care business and you want your clients to actually enjoy booking you, give it a try. If something's missing, tell me. There's a good chance I'm the one who will build it.

Thanks for reading this far. Give your pets a scritch from me.