Alphaherd

An easy-to-use veterinary practice management software. Veterinary clinics in India run in a state of chaos rather than care, they are losing out on time and revenue due to repetitive tasks, inefficient processes and communication gaps with their clients. To address these critical problems, we built Alphaherd to help veterinary clinics manage their clients, patients, finances, billing, records & consultations.

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Type

Entrepreneurial Project (Startup)

Timeline

August 2023 - March 2025

Role

Co-founder

This project was executed in collaboration with Dhanush N.

Table of Contents

1. Preliminary Research - Opportunity Identification

2. Market Research - Problem Validation

3. Primary Research - Idea Validation

4. Pilot Partnerships - Concept Validation

5. Ideation & Development

6. The Web App - For Veterinary Clinics

7. The Mobile App - For Pet Parents

8. Website Design & Development

Introduction

Working towards the Canine First Aid Kit project, I gained context regarding the veterinary and petcare ecosystems. I decided to explore certain opportunity areas that were identified via executing this project.

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Opportunity Areas

72

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12

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5

Beginning with 72 ideas, we eliminated ideas resulting in 5 potential ideas to validate within the petcare and veterinary care ecosystems. We looked for ideas that were impactful, that we were the right team to execute for and that we were extremely passionate about.

  • At home vaccination & diagnostic services

  • Connecting Breeders with future dog parents

  • Vet Discovery Platform

  • Management software for vet hospitals/clinics

  • Canine first aid training app

Actionable Insights

We looked at market reports, companies performing well in the market, and across 3 fields: pet healthcare, human healthcare and animal breeding.

ERAF Map

We charted out the opportunity areas examining relationships within this elaborate pet and veterinary care system.

Idea Landscape

We created an idea landscape chart with the foll. objectives:

  • Product & market validation

  • Evaluating starting point for startup (for long term business model): Revenue, market demand, competition (current, future), pricing, ability to execute ideas (with our team, skillsets, money, availability to resources etc.)

  • Identifying & Prioritizing user segments

  • Evaluating need, demand, supply capabilities of stakeholders

Research Protocol

We conducted primary research to examine the 4 ideas above and narrow down to the best opportunity area. To the right, you can see the research protocol for the veterinary software management system.

Telephonic Breeder Interviews

Breeders did not have a need for a management platform /marketplace because it is not an industry with high demand on a day-to-day basis. They are already efficiently managing their operations on paper and were not enthusiastic about adopting a new solution

Telephonic Veterinary Interviews

Vets on the other hand seemed to show active interest in our proposition.
They very clearly had a need for a practice management software (PMS). Majority of vets were using a software called Vetbuddy, which upon investigation showed opportunities for improvement.
Clinics faced problems with data entry as it is time consuming.

Semi-Structured Interviews

Primary Research

Target Audience: Small to mid sized clinics with 1-3 vets and a receptionist

  • To understand how clinics are currently managing their practice and existing stakeholders in the system

  • Assess willingness to digitize operations and find pain points of existing digital software

  • To gain a greater understanding of their interaction with the pet parents and animals

  • Finding their most essential needs to establish a beginning point (MVP)

Insights

They prefer different devices for different roles as they often have different responsibilities with mobiles being convenient for vets and PCs being convenient for managers and receptionists

Waiting time is uncertain because duration of appointments is very variable due to animal temperament and cause of visit. Also, Indian clinics accept walk-ins which adds to variability

Software with exhaustive features is usually not utilized by newer/smaller clinics and can prove to be overwhelming as they have different requirements

It takes considerable time to train staff to use a software hence there is a hesitation to shift to a new software

Entering patient data post consultation was a major issues faced by most clinics using a software

Integration with equipment is done through emails to the main computer. These are not integrated with their PMS

Billing was the highest priority as Revenue analytics and keeping track of mode of payments was highly valued.

Mapping flows

Service Blueprint

Veterinary clinics using digital software had unique considerations that needed deeper understanding

Concepts for Idea Validation

We created some preliminary designs to showcase to the target audience for the next idea validation stage

Low-fidelity Wireframing


High Fidelity Wireframes

Designs we used to guide the problem validation research stage.

Market Research

We conducted a case study with the foll. objectives:

  • Devise a Go-To-Market strategy based on high quality data and guided assumptions

  • Create a plan to scale the product and expand the company offerings in line with the vision

  • Create a pitch deck to communicate the business plan and gain investor interest

  • Understand how to globalise and expand beyond the Indian Market

  • Understand how similar companies have launched and scaled successfully.

We spoke to experts in the field within and outside of India, including founders of competitor companies, successful founders in the Indian pet care ecosystem and leaders of the veterinary sector in India. We examined the GTM and growth journeys of successful companies in this market as well as comparative markets, especially Indian vertical SaaS companies.

We reviewed existing literature, including but not limited to market reports within the larger pet care and veterinary market and the nucleated veterinary management software market.

Overarching Insights

Pet healthcare is seeing global growth with USA leading it & India having the fastest growth.

There is fragmented competition in the veterinary healthcare market in APAC which is steadily growing, especially in China, India & South Korea

Healthtech companies that started in India expanded globally by entering small south Asian countries (mainly Singapore) & UAE after 3-7 years of inception

Growing opportunities within veterinary healthcare market include diagnostic services, geriatric & preventive care, telemedicine & innovation in pet tech

Vets are overloaded with 1 vet per 5000+ animals. This ratio is amongst the lowest in the world and is indicative of the severe stress that vets face in caring for them.

The Asia Pacific market is anticipated to register a lucrative CAGR of 11.1% during the forecast period due to the growing demand for veterinary practice management

One of the most prominent issues faced by vets was the burden of administrative tasks. This includes tasks such as scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, and managing billing and payments.

Major trends observed in the global context was the increasing adoption of digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and Telemedicine.

Pet Population

  • USA has the most number of pets 200million pets (2019)

  • India's pet population, estimated at around 32 million (2023), is steadily expanding at an annual rate of 11 percent

  • In China, pet ownership increased 113% between 2014 and 2019, and by 2024, China will have the most pets in the world

Expenditure on Pets

  • North America is the region that has the highest expenditure on the pet, $149.25 a month, per pet (2016)

  • Indian pet parents spend $48 a month, per pet where food & treats account from 75-80% of the cost & rest is spent on grooming & veterinary services

Global shortage of vets & vet clinics

  • The average ratio of pets per veterinarian is 1: 5345 globally; and the average ratio of pets per vet clinic is 1: 11375 in globe.

  • India has 63,000 veterinarians and requires more than 150,000 veterinarians.

  • U.S. will have a shortage of 15,000 vets by 2030 to meet pet care needs

  • UAE has the least number of veterinarian work in the country, only 83 vet clinics on service and 1:2997 ratio of pets to vets, which 1.78 times smaller than the world’s average ratio

In addition to 12,452 veterinary clinics in India, there are 26,451 veterinary dispensaries who can become potential customers for selected modules of our PMS (Eg: Finance & inventory management).

GTM Strategy

Growth Strategy

Practice Management Software

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B2B Marketplace for Veterinary Clinics

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Data-as-a-Service Platform

The Pitch Deck

Leveraged to provide experts with context about our product and business and aid in developing partnerships and investor interest.

View Pitch Deck

Competitor Analysis - Secondary

We analyzed 19 competitors within and outside India to identify strengths and opportunities. We considered various criteria like key partners, pricing plans, revenue streams, and other performance indicators to gain a broader view of the market space.

The main competitors in India are using outdated technology and have badly designed interfaces cramped with too much information and redundant flows.

The competitors abroad have well-designed features, but fail to consider the unique needs of the informal veterinary care system in India.


Ideas & Insights

Competitor Analysis - Primary

We still had a ton of questions that we felt were integral to answer post the global competitor analysis, questions which weren’t getting answered through secondary research or expert interviews.

Thus, we conducted primary research to answer these questions regarding in-depth pricing strategies, customer acquisition, positioning and future plan. Here's the process we followed:

Competitor Demo Calls

Set up demonstration calls with competitor companies


Competitor Software Charts

Software Analysis

Obtained access to competitor software for in-depth analysis

Usability Study with Pilot Partners

Performed usability studies with pilot testing partners using competitor products


Usability Study + Software Analysis

We conducted usability studies with relevant stakeholders to build on top of the competitor data obtained during the market research. This enabled us to gather the following:

  • Feature priority

  • Frequency of use

  • No. of steps involved

  • Time taken to complete the task

  • Auxilliary functions

  • Bugs & issues

  • Constraints

  • User remarks

This was later compared to the offerings of our product during beta testing.


Competitor Pricing Chart

Helped in pricing our own product and offerings, while identifying further revenue streams and reprioritising pre-existing revenue streams.


Insights

  • Client communication accounts for high percentage of total charge (however most of this will be needed to pay the service providers)

  • No one is providing free no. of Whatsapp messages to start off with

  • Vetbuddy: doubling base price on inclusion of pharmacy and inventory management

  • Kokovet: pay as you grow model seems affordable despite the high charge per message, if a clinic has 10 clients, they pay a very small amount but for 1000 clients they'll be paying much more while still completely being able to afford it

  • Vetbuddy and Digitail have most benchmarked features and are well established: this gives them the ability to charge very high for features that other companies can't

  • Only Vetbuddy, Digitail and VetPMS have per vet pricing - they all provide their software in other countries as well. Looks like per vet pricing would be difficult to implement in India

  • VetPMS is able to acquire customers within and beyond India despite per email cost

  • Digitail AI features are highly priced - they justify this by saying they're heavily undercutting other companies providing specialised AI features for veterinary services


Financial Model

Built a robust financial model to guide funding, hiring and other operational decisions.

Preliminary Primary Research

We conducted studies with 9 clinics with the following objectives:

  • Conduct an in-person survey collecting demographic information, purchase intent and spending behaviours

  • Further validate the problem and concept

  • Identify contextual requirements to refine the rudimentary designs

  • Conduct semi-structured interviews to identify opportunity areas, pain points and priority

  • Card sorting to prioritise business tangents in terms of intervention requirement

Observations from the study were affinitised in accordance with themes that align with their business activities. These were then leveraged to derive insights.

Critical Problem Areas

This process illuminated the 8 core problem areas that veterinary clinics struggle with.

Iterative Exploratory Research

We visited over 140 clinics and conducted studies with 85+ clinics with the following process:

  • Conduct an in-person survey collecting demographic information, purchase intent and spending behaviours

  • Presenting the client pitch which develops based on findings and iterated designs

  • Presenting user flows via high-fidelity prototype/screens for features wherein interest is showcased

  • Conduct semi-structured interviews to identify opportunity areas, edge cases, pain points and priority

  • Identify pain and gain points of existing features to increase their value and usability.

  • Build pilot partnerships for directed research and to target initial customers.

This was an active process where we performed 2-5 studies per week, enabling us to constantly empathise with potential customers and systematically iterate on our designs as and when valuable information was retrieved.

Outcomes

  • Obtained 5 design partnerships with veterinary practices for pilot testing

  • Identified our minimum viable customer segment - newly established veterinary clinics in India with 3 - 10 vets

  • Refined product offerings, avoided critical failure points, removed unnecessary offerings and improved the overall usabliity of the product.

  • Prioritisation of key features via KANO analysis resulted in a roadmap dividing the product launch into the MVP, Version 1 and Version 2

  • An 83% product interest rate was gathered from unbiased interviewing, 15 clinics pro-actively communicated purchase intent.

KANO Analysis

This process enabled us to prioritise features based on collected data.

Product Roadmap

Based on prioritised data, technical feasibliity and manpower, I created a product roadmap aligning pilot partner relationships with business goals.

Goals

  • Align all team-mates with product direction & strategy

  • Make sure that there’s no friction and/or bottlenecks

  • Make sure we’re on time

Pilot Partnerships

Through the exploratory primary research, we pitched to veterinary clinics that fit into out target customer segment.
This built 5 partnerships:

  • The timeline of the partnership was 6 months long:

    • 1-2 months of internal research

    • 2-3 months of usability testing

    • 2 months of beta testing

  • We drafted and signed contracts with these practices to gain access to sensitive information

  • We negotiated discounted pricing for the MVP

Stakeholder Interviews

We conducted conversational interviews in the veterinary practices with each and every stakeholder, foll. is a stakholder information chart for 1 partner.


Ethnographic Study

We followed along as different stakeholders went about their activities, resulting in observations and new lines of questioning for active product iterations.

Usability Study + Software Analysis

We conducted usability studies with relevant stakeholders to build on top of the competitor data obtained during the market research. This enabled us to gather the following:

  • Feature priority

  • Frequency of use

  • No. of steps involved

  • Time taken to complete the task

  • Auxiliary functions

  • Bugs & issues

  • Constraints

  • User remarks

This was later compared to the offerings of our product during beta testing.

Beta Testing

We conducted beta tests by installing our software on the computers of the pilot partners. We provided some basic training and mandated the execution of tasks in a daily (eg: 5 invoices) and weekly (eg: 1 purchase order) manner. This was done in parallel with their existing software, following a double entry method where the users had to first enter detais onto our web app, following which they enter it onto theirs.

Impact of Pilot Partnerships

These partnerships enabled evidence-driven prioritisation, validated real-world usability, and resulted in refined, efficient workflows aligned with user behavior and business viability.

This is what the sales invoice creation feature looked like prior to the partnerships, here are some insights we gathered that guided the final design:

  • The feature feels easy to use, it is simple to learn and understand when compared to competitor software

  • There are too many steps, many of which take the users out of the current environment

  • Did not allow for inclusion of services in tandem with items

  • Item discount line does not follow the mental model of receptionists

  • Inability to save invoice as draft for busy scenarios

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This was the final design implemented and refined through beta testing, on conducting usability studies with our partner clinics, we observed the following:

  • The number of steps taken to create an invoice is the lowest of all competitors

  • The time taken to create an invoice was higher for the first 2-3 invoices, post this the time taken to create an invoice after gaining some familiarity with our software was less than that of the competitor software

  • The flexibility provided to move between items, provide payments and move between invoices empowers the receptionist to work quicker.

  • The receptionists and managers of our partner clinics preferred our invoice creation to their existing software’s functionality.

Ideation & Development

We began by iterating the designs used for idea validation via a problem solution matrix leveraging insights from the exploratory primary research.

We also ideated along the core business functionalities with reference to their user goals.

Concept Development

Concepts were created in accordance with 2 ideation formats:

  • Ideal User Flows - created to optimise user journeys and disrupt existing tech,

  • Lean User Flows - created while prioritising speed & complexity of execution.

Lean User Flows

Crafted for benchmarked requirements to solve core problems and easing technical execution, while still providing integral value to the different stakeholder of the veterinary practice.

Ideal User Flows

Ideal user flows were created to solve for core opportunity areas. I designed and evaluated end-to-end Ideal User Flows for the entire web app as well as the mobile application.

Data Schema

Design and technical decisions evolved in parallel, with constant feedback between both sides. UI/UX concepts defined the intent and experience, while technical architecture informed feasibility, scalability, and long-term maintainability.


Design System

I created a scalable design system in Figma, defining core components, variants, and states (typography, color tokens, tables, tags, buttons, and input fields), and iterated on them in close collaboration with front-end engineers to ensure technical feasibility, consistency, and efficient implementation.


Design-Engineering Collaboration & Lean Process

I co‑led the project alongside engineering, following a lean, iterative methodology focused on fast feedback and continuous alignment.

We worked in weekly sprints, supported by daily stand‑ups to ensure clear communication, quick issue resolution, and shared ownership of decisions. Design and engineering stayed closely aligned throughout the build, rather than working in isolated phases.

Designs were delivered with:

  • Clearly defined user flows

  • Interaction rationale for key decisions

  • Developer notes explaining edge cases, states, and data expectations

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Alphaherd Dashboard Vs. Vetbuddy(Main Competitor) Dashboard

User Goals

Goal 1 - Save Time

Intuitive user flows, high speed invoicing, payment tracking, AI-powered history summarisation and smart queries help clinicians make faster, more informed decisions.

Goal 2 - Increase Revenue

Opportunity identification to generate more revenue and reduce losses via in-depth insights, simplified inventory management and automated reminders for credit and debit tracking,

Goal 3 - Close Pet Parent Gap

Empowering pet parents by keeping them in the loop via vaccination and payment reminders, pet owner app, automatic invoice sending, bulk messaging and online consultation booking.

Goal 4 - Eliminate Critical Errors

Catch and tackle potential issues early to tackle them before they cause trouble with the help of swift payment tallying, admin approvals for high-priority tasks and ‘denied treatment’ records.

The Web App

Pet Parent Mobile App - Alphaherd Version 1

The pet parent app was prioritised to be implemented in phase 2 of the development cycle. The pet parent app was also split into the ideal version and the lean version.

The Lean Version

Making use of a web viewer as an in-app browser window to adopt and translate developed features for the web app to quickly execute funtionality in the native pet parent app.

  • Enable client-end registration for client and patient registration

  • View prescriptions and invoice history

  • Receive important reminders for follow-ups and payments

The Ideal Version

  • Book appointments with vets

  • Keep track of payments, invoices and reminders

  • Keep your pet's records in one place

  • Interact with our in-app AI to get help with pet care queries

Competitor Feature Analysis

Information Architecture Diagram

Sign Up/Log In

  • Simple 2 step mobile registration with OTP

  • Ability to scan the QR code of the veterinary clinic to directly register within the clinic

First-Time User Registration

Ability to fill in personal and patient details required from the clinic end eliminating the need for re-registration every visit.

Adding Your Clinic

We are very careful at this stage to make sure not to advertise any clinics, rather we are enabling communication between the pet parent and their selected clinic(s).

Appointment Bookings

Pet parents can easily book an appointment for their pet, select their desired date, slot, veterinarian and consultation details to directly book an appointment which is tied in to the clinic’s schedule. They can also walk in and scan the QR code first to enter the details of the consultation.

Check-in for Consultation

When the client (pet parent) reaches the clinic, they can either go to the receptionist to be checked in, or self check in by scanning a QR at the entrance

Navigating through the App

  • Home - users can book a consultation, gain information or communicate with the clinic as well as deep dive into their pet details and medical records

  • Visits - Users can keep a track of their prior visits including the prescriptions and other medical records as well as manage follow ups and future visits

  • Records - a repository of electronic medical records to solve the problem of losing physical copies and unorganised digital copies, equipped with simple yet powerful filters

Pet Details

An overview of the pet’s details and medical history, the users can directly book a visit for the pet from this screen or examine prior visits and reports.

Online Store - Version 3 Feature

Since the clinics are already inputting their inventory details onto the web application, this data can be leveraged to build them an online store, this was a feature that gained a lot of interest through our exploratory research

Reminders

Important reminders, mainly payments are surfaced on the home screen, the user can pay directly via Google Pay or pay manually.

Exploratory Feature 1

Ask Alpha - Basic Questions to Online Store

An AI chatbot that provides answers to simple pet parent questions and nudges the user to buy products that aid with the problem from the respective clinic

Exploratory Feature 2

Ask Alpha - Basic Questions to Booking a Visit

An AI chatbot that provides answers to simple pet parent questions and nudges the user to book a visit for more complicated questions, eliminating unnecessary questions to the vet and promoting visits.

Website Design & Development

I used Framer to create our public-facing website, here’s the process I followed:

  • Analyse inspiration across content, interactivity, information and style

  • Summarising information from our research and decks to finetune website copy

  • Creating low fidelity wireframes to quickly brainstorm and finalise on site structure and features

  • Developing the website using Framer

Objectives - In Priority

  • Professionalism & improved communication while speaking to experts, investors & clients

  • Applying for funds & grants

  • Lead gen amongst clients

Low Fidelity Wireframing

Low Fidelity Wireframing

View The Copy Of The Wesbite

Project Outcomes

5 clinics were converted into pilot testing partners.

An 83% product interest rate was gathered from unbiased interviewing, 15 clinics pro-actively communicated purchase intent.

The developed core feature (invoicing and payment recording) performed better than that of the competitors in terms of number of steps, time taken, and usability during the beta testing.

Features finalised for stage 1 and 2 proved an improvement in usability via contextual inquiry results

Have a look at my other projects

Smart TV - Typing

  • Academic Research Project

  • HCI Researcher

Admin Console Chatbot

  • UX Design

  • Interaction Design Intern

Boulderly

  • Design for Society

  • Product Designer & Front-End Developer

Canine First Aid Kit

  • Tangible Design

  • Product Designer

Hi, I'm Pranav Ashwin Ramesh

I’m a curious, self-motivated and passionate user experience designer and entrepreneur. Here’s some of my best work grounded in my experience navigating academic research, real-world industry challenges, and entrepreneurial ventures.

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Interested in working together?

Shoot me an email if you'd like to chat.

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