Goose CEO Discusses Metrics that Matter (and More) 

This Goose is silly and serious.  

In fact, the pet care operating system—offering industry pros tools for booking, client management, daily operations, financial reporting, and so much more—stands firm in its belief that the pet services industry was in dire need of a reimagining, and that its ground-up design is the answer.  

“We have a very thoughtful but firm perspective on the right way to do these things,” says CEO and co-founder Drew Brinkoetter. “And we build software to support that.” 

Hard to argue: the company reports fivefold year-over-year growth since its 2022 launch.  

Goose is the brainchild of industry veterans Chris Tilson—third-generation owner-operator of Indianapolis’ The Kennel at Arbor Lane—and Brinkoetter, a pet-industry investor and co-founder of Yardstick, a multi-location boutique, boarding, and daycare provider with facilities in Nashville and Dallas.  

Although they both attended Purdue University at the same time, their paths never crossed until years later, when their shared vision for Goose brought them together. 

Fortunately, they knew pet care.  

After college, Tilson returned to work at his family’s operation on the South Side of Indianapolis. Coming back into the business, he realized just how far behind pet care was in a world that was increasingly e-commerce driven. Determined to change that, he founded petbookings.com—believed to be the first of its kind—allowing pet owners to seamlessly book online, while incorporating elements of revenue management.  

Tilson and Brinkoetter connected officially in 2021, drawn together by a common frustration with the state of the pet care industry. Fueled by Tilson’s expertise as an owner-operator and Brinkoetter’s operational and investment experience, the idea for what would become Goose began to take flight.  

“Every other hospitality industry has always been online and available,” Brinkoetter says. “Fully self-service. Yet pet services—or hospitality for you and your dog—was antiquated and, for the most part, offline. We felt that the pet owner was being underserved from a digital perspective.”  

Together, the duo identified three core areas that their opus could improve: enhancing the pet owner experience, supporting multi-service capabilities, and enabling scalable operations. A frictionless experience from top to bottom was the overriding goal, Brinkoetter says—with multi-location capabilities and optimization for scalability. 

Ruffling the Status Quo  

There’s no question: in the pet care software arena, Goose has a gaggle of competition—a small but noisy group. 

But where other platforms attempt to accommodate every possible use case, Goose has chosen a different path. Instead of piling on complexity or bending backward for edge-case scenarios, Goose pushes technology forward by focusing on how pet care operators should operate. 

From the start, the company has distinguished itself from legacy providers by adopting a business-driven approach rather than supporting every possible industry configuration.  

Overly complex, unusable software requiring “power users” to navigate is a no-go, as are niche setups that would hinder innovation and enhanced customer outcomes. 

“I think much of the technology in this industry was built to the detriment of the provider,” Brinkoetter continues. Legacy databases were traditionally designed for single services and gradually adapted over time. Providers were historically told, “‘This is the way it’s done, because this is how the technology works,’” he says.  

Not Goose. Whether supporting single locations to multi-facility enterprises, the software was designed from the ground up to handle the nuances of boarding, daycare, grooming, and training while maintaining profitability and high customer satisfaction.  

Goose’s confirmation-based booking engine avoids blocking reservations for requirements like vaccinations at the point of sale. The result? Increased conversions, upsell opportunities, and better overall outcomes.  

“We come at problems with a firm point of view, grounded in our own experience in the pet care industry,” Brinkoetter says. “But we also listen closely to providers, and we’re open to new approaches when they make sense. At the end of the day, our focus is on business outcomes—and we build solutions that deliver them.” 

The bottom line? “We’re delivering the things that move the needle,” Brinkoetter continues. “And we’re trying not to spend much time on the things that don’t.”  

Honk If You Love Data  

“Our data model at Goose is capable of producing any metric you would want,” Brinkoetter says. “We have yet to come across a metric we couldn’t produce quickly. The challenge, though, is that there are A LOT of metrics. A lot of places to look. And, so, we started taking a firmer perspective on that.”  

Ultimately, the team boiled success down to four key performance indicators that deftly balance growth and customer satisfaction:  

• Pet Counts: Considered clearer and more indicative than occupancy rates, pet counts reflect the actual volume of pets served and, subsequently, revenue potential, since pet services charge per pet, not per space. Brinkoetter notes that active, new, and at-risk pet cohorts can be monitored for growth and retention. 

• Average Daily Pet Rate (ADPR): Daily revenue per pet offers more effective insights than average booking value by normalizing for length of stay and number of pets per reservation, Brinkoetter says. The metric is broken down into offers (primary services), add-ons (additional merchandise or services), fees (such as late pickup or medication administration), and discounts (vouchers, memberships, promotions). This granular approach aids in revenue optimization, merchandising flows, and benchmarking. 

• Labor as a Percentage of Sales: According to Brinkoetter, labor is the largest cost driver in pet services, by far, with industry benchmarks clocking in at around 45% or less. Goose, he says, can help providers manage labor efficiency, leveraging its robust data model to predict staffing needs based on bookings and service types. 

• Customer Satisfaction: Emphasizing customer feedback and review integration, Goose is building tools to maintain high customer and pet satisfaction without resorting to review gating. The goal, Brinkoetter says, is to balance growth metrics without negatively impacting customer experience.  

Goose’s regular customer insight meetings help providers better understand this data. 

“We look at booking values, upsells, and online versus admin conversions to identify opportunities,” Brinkoetter says. “We’ll make recommendations on conversion improvement. We’ll discuss ideas on how to package at the primary level or how to control merchandising at add-on levels. We get detailed with the right partners, because if you do these things, we know they will get the right results.” 

From Goals to Golden Eggs   

Because of this, the team isn’t standing still. Deeper labor insights, richer training workflows, and financial tools to help smooth cash flow are on deck; keeping operators focused on solid outcomes, not busywork. The company is also rounding the corner on a robust reputation management product.  

Other platforms? They want to close a sale and implement functionality, Brinkoetter says. Some of it sticks. Some of it doesn’t. But with Goose, better data yields better outcomes. You want an extra three to five points of growth per year? “Goose can give it to you because of how we operate.”  

“When you start with providing a frictionless experience to the end customer—the pet owner—and then give providers the ability to run their businesses with control, efficiency, and a wide range of revenue optimization tools, a lot of good things happen,” he says.