Industry
Retail
Challenge
Limited resources and high user expectations made VetChef’s digital launch challenging. To attract health-conscious dog owners, they needed a sleek, fast-to-market app with compelling UX and seamless recipe integration.
Solution and Results
Datavid built a React-based app that translated VetChef’s algorithms into a fast, user-friendly platform, live within months. Continuous feature updates kept engagement high. The result: thousands of users onboarded quickly, strong adoption via word of mouth, and an active user base that fueled further product investment.
Technology used
AWS, React
About VetChef
VetChef is a consumer service startup that focuses around the idea of home-made, fresh food for your pets to help them lead a healthier life.Setting the Scene
In the fast-moving world of consumer health and wellness, personalization is king - and pet nutrition is no exception. VetChef, a UK-based startup, identified a growing demand among pet owners for healthier, tailored meal options that go beyond generic, mass-produced pet food.
Their ambition? Launch a digital product that empowers dog owners to create customised, nutritious meals - built around VetChef’s own supplement range - and establish an early foothold in a niche but rapidly expanding market.
To achieve this, they needed more than just a functioning product - they needed a compelling user experience that would drive adoption, encourage repeat use, and validate their go-to-market strategy. With limited internal tech resources and high expectations from early users, VetChef partnered with Datavid to accelerate the development of the “My VetChef” app - from idea to user-ready platform in a matter of months.
This case study explores how a strong UX vision, lean development practices, and strategic front-end choices helped VetChef move fast, attract thousands of users, and gain valuable product-market insights to fuel future growth.
The Challenges
Developing a compelling & modern user interface
VetChef sells a variety of products and services to help dog owners prepare nutritious, natural food for their pets instead of using highly-processed, mass market food.
Joe and Edward are the co-founders of the startup, and they wanted to build a modern-looking web app that could attract dog owners who have the time to prepare food for their pets to keep track of all the natural recipes that go in line with VetChef supplements.
The challenge for them was to take care of the user interface and overall front-end development of the “My VetChef” application, which is now live for people to use.
How My VetChef works in 3 simple steps
How do you design a compelling user interface that keeps the user engaged? How do you go to market fast enough to get enough value back from the development process?
These are the key questions that were presented to Datavid in light of VetChef’s efforts to bring their business development strategy together on the web.
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The Solution
Going to market fast with a React application
Web technologies evolve so fast that it’s often hard to choose which tool to use for the job, especially when you’re a startup with limited resources.
Datavid’s approach to VetChef’s problem was to:
- Understand the underlying algorithms developed by Edward
- Design a User Interface that would match the users’ preferences
- Develop the frontend using the React ecosystem (JavaScript library)
Since the data that would power the app was already there, Datavid focused extensively on the tooling and development necessary to ship frontend features fast and effectively.
My VetChef provides recommendations (above) based on your dog’s profile (below)
This resulted in the app being released to the public just a few months after the project started (January 2021), allowing VetChef to market it and start capturing users.
In the months following the release, Datavid helped deliver a number of new features to the app, including a shopping list, dashboard, diary, and favorite recipes.
The Outcomes
Gaining 1000s of active users in a few months
Software isn’t helpful if it isn’t used, and that’s why Datavid focused on developing a compelling interface that would attract people to use the application.
Once released, VetChef experienced a relative ease in users signing up to the application when it was pitched to them either via digital marketing campaign or word of mouth.
The signup process is easy and takes less than 3 minutes to complete
They have gained upwards of 1000 users quickly, which enabled them to invest in the application further and develop features that would help their user base.
Most importantly though, people are becoming more and more active users of the applications, saving more recipes and adding them to their diary.
Want results like VetChef?
