How DogPack App Scaled with Community, Verified Services, and Goldie & Frenchie
Jonathan Punski, CEO & Co-Founder of DogPack App Inc., shares the evolution of their dog-centric app that connects pet owners with services, marketplaces, and travel options. This interview digs into how they transitioned from a simple park meetup tool to a 2.5 million user platform and the key decisions that shaped their growth.
In this edition of the Ecommerce Authority Playbooks series, we dive into how
DogPack App Inc. grows, retains customers, and prepares for the future of search in 2026 and beyond.
The interview
1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?
Jonathan Punski: My brother Dov was a dog walker during covid. He called me up as I was also a dog owner and told me about what he faced constantly and how it would be cool if there were an app for it. I agreed, it would be cool if we could build communities around dog parks and let the park followers know which dogs we’re going with and when. Instead of ‘hoping’ to meet you and your dogs’ pals there during the evening rush, you could co-ordinate ahead of time and make sure to meet up. That was the very initialy idea for the app. It since turned into a discovery engine for dog owners, and we now link Verified Services, Marketplace, Travel and more into the platform.
2. Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?
Jonathan Punski: Well, we shifted away from strictly having dog parks and dog-friendly areas on the map, and included something that could actually monetize – services: vets, trainers, walkers, dog-friendly cafes, can all very their accounts and get tons of exposure to their target market. A second thing is Goldie & Frenchie, since creating them in August 2025 we gained 2.2M followers across our social media channels and it helped shape our brand and narrative, and expanded our partnership opportunities.
3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?
Jonathan Punski: Most of our revenue is coming from discovery on our app – that was the goal all along as we grew to over 2.5 million users. Marketplace products, Travel bookings, verifications, it all happens through the app. Besides for that, we noticed people and businesses getting to the ‘pay to get verified’ page and not converting, how much we were leaving on the table with abandoned carts, seeing people clicking around in different cities and not booking an accomodation, etc. So we just hired our first lifecycle person who’s charged with increasing conversion rates based on signals that users are giving us, we have high hopes for them!
4. How are you thinking about search in 2026 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?
Jonathan Punski: We have been offered so many products that promise to help with AIO, but we still believe the best AIO starts with good SEO practices. AI gets their answers from top rated search results most of the time. One thing we have on our to-do list which we haven’t done yet is to make a comparison page between us and similar apps and businesses, apparently that’s good for SEO.
Besides for that, we are very focused on SEO, just had an audit and continue to build our website according to best SEO practices. As an app we are also very interested in ASO, App Store Optimization. When someone searches: dog parks, we need to be the first results, but sometimes what pops up instead are apps that haven’t been updated for years. ASO is confusing, but worth investing in.
5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?
Jonathan Punski: For consumable products like dog treats, we make sure to email them to buy again – we don’t have subscribe & save yet, but plan on implementing it.
Right now, we are not really able to guarantee the fastest shipping or the absolute best price on all of our products, so we’re very creative with our marketing and lifecycle strategies to make sure first time purchasers have a good chance of coming back. Starting a Marketplace is hard, but we really see how much money is moving into e-comm – specifically for pet products (no one wants to pick up heavy kibble at the store, just have it delivered for free).
6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?
Jonathan Punski: Our own e-comm site sells print on demand Goldie & Frenchie merch and it does very well. What’s great about POD, is it lets you create many different products quickly and test if the market likes it, if it’s a winning design before ordering any inventory. We still haven’t ordered any Goldie & Frenchie inventory, it’s all POD. Otherwise, our marketplace is powered by other e-comm sellers plugging into our custom-built marketplace and tapping into our audience. We charge only $5 per month and 7% commission on each sale made. I would say – definitely start with Shopify it’s been the easiest platform to work with, and avoid ordering any inventory until you’re sure you have a winning product/design.
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