What we learnt at Crufts 2024 as a PetTech startup

We joined Purina at this year’s Crufts 2024, which gave us the unique opportunity to engage with 100s of people from the dog world, including many dog breeders who we gained some amazing insights from and are helping shape the future of our dog breeding app.  

Breedera headed to Crufts with one aim – to help breeders spend more time with their dogs and less hours on paperwork.  

Primed and ready at the Purina Breeder Connect stand with our free dog breeding licensing packs and live demos of the app, our team spoke with so many breeders either already using Breedera or looking for a way to save time on record keeping.

It was fantastic to catch up with some of our partners and friends at Crufts. We met with the guys from UNLEASHED, Pets4Homes and ZigZag.  

From the very beginning of Breedera, we have worked closely with the dog breeding community to help shape our technology. So, for us, speaking to real-life breeders is always a highlight of Crufts.  

Here’s what we learnt at Crufts 2024  

Our Heat Cycle Calculator is the most popular feature 

So many breeders told us that our heat cycle calculator is the reason they first signed up to the app.  

With Breedera, you can log and forecast your bitch’s heats and keep track of where she is in her cycle with a visual countdown. 

Breeders at Crufts told us they were looking for a heat cycle calculator app when they first discovered Breedera and that it’s an invaluable tool when planning a new litter.  

Exporting digital dog records is a game-changer 

The main reason Breedera exists today is because our Founder, Mike White, spotted that the dog breeding community were still relying on paper records, which were time-consuming to keep and difficult to store.  

However, as many breeders discussed with us at Crufts, we still recognise the need to export and print dog records to share with vets, new puppy families and other health professionals.  

We spoke with multiple dog breeders who were already sharing puppy weight charts with their buyers and printing out information to include in their puppy packs.  

Many people aren’t aware of Breedera’s document storage capabilities 

Speaking with our customers about how they used the app, we quickly realised many were unaware of the fact you can store health certificates, test results – and really any file or document – in Breedera.  

Our content team will be creating some quick demos of how our customers can get the most out of the app. 

We still have work to do! 

What we love about our community is their openness and honesty.  

Truly, your feedback has helped us go from what was originally a simple puppy weight-tracking tool to an app that supports you throughout your breeding programme – from calculating heat cycles and logging matings to tracking pregnancies and creating litter growth charts.  

At Crufts, breeders were full of ideas of areas we can tackle next – many of which were on our radar.  

We’re now working on the Breedera Blueprint to show you what we’re working on for the future – watch this space!