Pawsie

Context:

My wife and I started offering pet sitting services in Sydney and scaled quickly: over 50 boarding services delivered to 30+ customers in under six months. We initially relied on Pawshake, the platform used to offer our services, which charges pet sitters close to a 19% commission per booking.

As our volume increased, platform fees started to meaningfully impact profitability.

Problem:

As the business grew, two main issues emerged:

• High commission fees significantly reduced margins

• Managing repeat customers outside the platform (via SMS and WhatsApp) introduced manual work, lack of structure, and operational risk.

We needed a way to handle direct bookings efficiently while maintaining a good customer experience.

Initial solution (MVP v0)

I created Pawsie to manage direct bookings with recurring customers. The initial goal was simple: reduce dependency on third-party platforms and streamline operations.

However, as development progressed, the idea evolved into a two-sided pet-sitting marketplace, designed to connect pet owners and sitters in a simple, trusted, and scalable way.

Core Product Features

For Pet Owners

• Account creation and authentication
• Profile management
• Search sitters by service type and city
• Booking creation and history
• Mock payment flow and receipt generation

For Pet Sitters

• Account creation and authentication
• Profile, services, and pricing management
• Booking confirmation and rejection
• Access to accepted services and booking history

Technical Details:

Pawsie is a full-stack web application built with Flask (Python 3.11) and deployed using CapRover with Supabase-hosted PostgreSQL.

• Backend: Flask, SQLAlchemy ORM, Flask-Bcrypt for authentication

• Frontend: Jinja2, Bootstrap 5, JavaScript

• Architecture: Stateless containers enabling horizontal scaling

• Security: Environment-based configuration and secure session handling

The platform supports role-based dashboards, structured booking workflows, and mock payment processing, backed by a relational database model connecting Users, Services, Bookings, and Payments — providing a solid foundation for a scalable two-sided marketplace.