Share this
by MoeGo on Mar 25, 2025 2:43:08 PM
- Powered by the MoeGo Team & MoeGo Community 🧡
Why Every Dog Daycare Needs a Business Plan
Starting a new business is an exciting yet stressful experience. Whether you’re doing it on your own or with partners, it’s a daunting task, but with the proper guidance and research, it can be rewarding in many ways. For a small business start-up, like a dog daycare business, it’s essential you have a dog daycare business plan.
You may be thinking “why do I need a dog daycare business plan?” How tough can it be? You find a space, buy some kennels, and the dogs will come, right? If it were only that simple. A lot goes into starting a dog daycare operation, and one of the first requirements is a solid business plan.
This article will showcase what to include in a great business plan and what you’ll need to consider when putting it all together.
Key Components of a Well-Crafted Business Plan
It doesn’t matter what business you’re going into or how much money you need to get it off the ground, a business plan provides you (and potential investors) with a road map to long-term success. Most business plans include certain components that provide a fairly detailed overview of three things - what the business is, why it’s a good idea, and how you’re going to make money.
To be clear, more goes into a business plan to address the specifics of a business plan for dog daycare, but don’t overthink it. Get the first draft complete and then you can come back, review, revise, and get it, shall we say, “trained and housebroken.” Let’s start with the basics. A good dog daycare business plan should have the following:
💼 Executive summary: In a short paragraph, explain what your business is, its purpose and why it will succeed. “Summary” is the operative word here. Keep it concise.
📖 Company overview/description: Now you can go into more detail about your dog daycare business! Describe your goals, target customers, what differentiates you from other dog daycare/boarding businesses, and what problem your business is going to solve for your customers.
Start with a mission and vision statement (more on this later). Discuss your strengths and any competitive advantages, such as having an animal expert on your team or grooming and/or training. And, while your love of dogs may seem like a key differentiator, this isn’t the place to tell your favorite dog story.
🐶 Market research: This is where you show you’ve done your homework about the dog daycare industry. This section should include research on the growth and opportunities in the pet care industry, an analysis of the competitors in your local area, challenges for your business and how you can overcome them.
Give an overview of your target audience, demographics, household income, percentage of dog owners in the area, other services they use, and why they need your service. Ideally, you can provide statistics, data, and actual numbers to support your research.
The goal of this section is to prove that your doggie daycare business is needed and why you’re uniquely positioned to start it.
🧑💼 Management: Briefly describe your operational plan, how it will be structured, and who will be responsible for daily tasks. Describe the legal structure you intend to pursue, such as a C or an S corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship, or a partnership and who are the participants. If there are unique attributes your team brings to the table, mention them here.
🪄 Marketing: How are you going to launch your business, drive new customers and keep them, and grow your business? Go into some detail about your marketing strategy and sales process, but don’t get mired down in describing specific tactics in detail.
🏦 Funding request: As they say, you can’t get what you don’t ask for. If the primary goal of your dog daycare business plan is to acquire funding, you must first lay out your funding requirements, how much you’ll need for several years, and how you’re going to use the funding. Separate the funding request into buckets for open/launch, for the first year, and project out three to five years. Finally, briefly describe your longer term goals, like paying off your debt, expansion, and a potential exit strategy, like selling your business or transferring ownership.
🚀 MoeGo Capital provides essential funding to drive growth and expansion with no hidden fees or lengthy applications to fill out. Upon approval, you can receive your funds as soon as the next business day
💰 Financial Projections: Lenders want to understand how their investment will pay off. Your financial projections should demonstrate stability, potential, and provide a road map to success. Project your financial statements for the next 3-5 years, including a balance sheet, cash flow, and capital expenses. Any collateral you’re putting up against the loan should be provided here.
Be as detailed as possible for your first year projections, monthly if you are able. Show how many customers you need to acquire every month to be profitable and ensure your continued success. Also factor in some “melt” (loss of existing customers). Lastly, show how your projections match the funds you’re requesting.
If you’re already in business and are requesting more funding, include income statements, balance sheets and other supporting documents for at least the last three years.
From here, we’ll go into a little more detail about the components of a dog daycare business plan.
Defining Your Mission for Your Dog Daycare
Crafting both a mission statement and a vision statement is crucial for a business plan. It helps you define exactly what your purpose is and where you see your business in the future. Both statements help potential investors understand in a nutshell what your business is and your vision for it. But there’s a difference between a mission and a vision statement.
How to Create a Mission and Vision Statement
As a rule of thumb, a mission statement is a short paragraph that describes what your business does and its purpose. A good mission statement also becomes a filter to help you make decisions – does this decision align with our mission statement? If not, rethink it. Lastly, a mission statement helps define your company’s core values and motivate your employees.
A vision statement is more about the future. Where do you see your business going in the best possible circumstances? The vision statement describes it.
Do some research and read the mission and vision statements of your favorite brands and well-known companies. It’s a fascinating exercise that can help you hone your message with your voice and personality.
Setting Achievable Goals for Your Dog Daycare
Your financial projections will be based upon achievable goals for your business. Set goals that will support your projections and funding request. For instance, what is the number of dogs per day you need on a weekly/monthly basis to break even at a particular price point.
Secondary goals may be to offer more services, like boarding, grooming and training. A third goal may be to generate enough business so that you don’t have to focus on the day-to-day operations and can work on increasing your customer base or offerings.
Longer term goals may include hiring an outside marketing and/or accounting firm, opening a second (third?) location, selling products, and offering better benefits for your employees.
The point is that these goals are achievable, and you have a strategic plan to make them happen.
Market Research: Knowing Your Audience and Competitors
Market research is key to understanding your audience and competitors. If you don’t know who you’re marketing to or how challenging the market is, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The following tactics will help you understand the marketplace, but don’t include the details in your business plan.
Identifying Your Target Audience in the Dog Care Industry
Your target audience are dog owners who need a dog daycare and can afford it. Another defining characteristic is the radius around your location that potential customers are willing to travel.
Start with online searches for various demographic information. You will find several tools that can tell you most of the socio-economic data you need, including dog ownership by zip code. Online searches can also yield helpful results in terms of dog boarding and ancillary pet care service providers in your area, like dog training and veterinary clinics. If they’re in your area, you know dog owners are there too.
Analyzing Competitors to Stand Out
The pet care industry is growing substantially, and it is likely there may already be dog daycare businesses in your area. Whether they are standalone businesses like yours or national franchises, they present an opportunity for analytics. Here are a few tactics to try:
- Visit their websites and social media: What’s your first impression? Can you book online? Is it easy? What are the costs of their services, and what services do they offer? Their website is ground-zero for gathering information. Look at their social media to see if they post often and get a sense of their level of care.
- Visit review sites: See what people are saying about the competition. What are the shortcomings and highlights? You may even post to local social media sites, like NextDoor and specific Reddit channels to inquire about dog daycare recommendations in your area.
- Visit their physical establishment: If you’re a dog owner, go ahead and use their services or at least inquire by phone and in person. See for yourself what services they offer, products they sell, and how you’re treated by the staff. Identify the good and the not-so-good. Go on different days and at different times to see what the foot traffic is like.
- Look at local business websites and publications: Often, they talk about new businesses that are opening up. It would be unfortunate if you got a long-term lease on a location only to discover, unbeknownst to you, a national chain was opening across the street.
As the “Dogfather” once said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” The more you know, the more informed your business plan will be.
Operational Plan: Structuring Daily Activities
What will your operation look like on Day One? What is actually going to happen, who will be there, what will they do, and who is responsible for what? These are all questions your operational plan must answer. It’s the day-do-day activities of your business, and there’s more to it than letting dogs in and watching them play all day. Learn more about how Bark Place signed up 120+ dogs before even the business opened with MoeGo’s tools to support your pre-launch campaign.
Setting Up Daily Operations for Efficiency
Identify the daily workflow(s) and tasks that support them. There are lots of moving parts to a dog daycare, and it may be easier to break up the daily operations into blocks, such as:
- Open and closing procedures
- Drop off and pickup procedures
- Daily routine for the dogs (group play, individual attention, rest, enrichment activities, etc.)
- Feeding (dogs may have strict diets and times at which they eat. Or not.)
- Emergency procedures (dogs will fight and injuries will take place)
- New customer onboarding procedures (assessment of their dog(s), proof-of-vaccines, emergency contacts, veterinary preferences, etc.)
- Cleaning and sanitizing
The list goes on, but this is a good start for a daily operations guide. For more information, you might reach out to dog daycare owner support websites, such as the International Boarding & Pet Services Association and a variety of Facebook groups specializing in dog daycare owners and their staff.
Using Software to Manage Your Dog Daycare
You don’t have to do this alone. MoeGo is literally a one-stop dog business support solution. From managing your daily schedule, staff, and payments to marketing, membership and loyalty programs to accounting software, reports, and even an app for your customers. Find out how MoeGo can help you get your business started, grow and thrive.
Planning Your Finances
Knowing what it’s going to cost to successfully launch your dog daycare business and operate for a reasonable period of time is paramount.
Estimating Start-Up Costs for Dog Daycares
There’s obviously lots to be done prior to your grand opening, like securing the location (if not in your home), acquiring permits and licenses, legal fees, hiring staff, purchasing equipment and any necessary upgrades to your physical location, signage, parking, upgrades, construction, technology (security cameras and computers), etc. Make a list of everything you need and assign a cost to each.
Once you have an idea of what it’s going to cost to open the doors for your dog daycare business, what is it going to cost to keep the doors open? Typically, the major ongoing costs for a dog daycare include:
- Payroll (including healthcare and other benefits you offer)
- Rent/mortgage of your location
- Utilities
- Insurance
- Office supplies
- Software subscriptions
- Food
- Cleaning services
Don’t forget annual fees like property taxes, inspections, certifications, and licenses that must be renewed. If you’ll be selling products, you’ll have to consider how much those products cost versus how much you sell them for, otherwise known as “cost of goods sold” (COGS).
Finally, there will be costs associated with marketing your business. This number can be small, provided you have some expertise and willingness to make it happen on your own.
Revenue Streams and Profit Projections
Once you have an idea of your start-up costs, your business plan should show how you’re going to pay for its ongoing operation. Lenders won’t expect you to be profitable from day one, although that would be great.
First, identify your revenue streams. Day/weekly charges for dog daycare are probably your primary revenue stream. Are there others you can add initially or after 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months? This could include home pick-up/drop-off service, grooming, training, overnight boarding, and sale of products like dog food, accessories, toys, and more.
Second, map your projected revenue against all of your estimated costs and the money you’ve already spent to get the business started. How long until you’re making a profit?
The answer to these important questions lies in how many customers you need to have in order to generate enough income to 1) pay your monthly bills, and 2) recover the monies spent to launch the business.
Marketing and Sales: Attracting Dog Owners and Converting Them Into Customers
The key to your success is reaching dog owners with the right message, converting them to your customers, and keeping them as your customers. If your projections indicate that you need 50 customers to operate your business profitably, then that’s your initial target. But, what is it going to cost to acquire those customers (cost per acquisition)? That depends on how much you can do on your own and what you can afford.
To be clear, your dog daycare business plan does not need to include a detailed marketing plan. But you should include a section on how you’re going to market it – building a website, launching social channels, local advertising outlets, direct mail, and software to help you manage your marketing strategy. If you can identify an accurate cost-per-acquisition, two Scooby snacks for you!
Also include a paragraph on the actual sales process. For example, when a potential customer contacts you, how do you convert them into a paying customer? Identify the steps in your process – outreach, scheduling an appointment, evaluating their pet, presenting buttoned-up paperwork and documents. A lender wants to see that you’re ready to convert customers who are in your “purchase funnel.”
Again, MoeGo’s marketing software is a fantastic starting point, and it shows lenders that you’re ��in it to win it!”
Legal Requirements and Risk Management
Like any business, there are legal requirements, permits, inspections, and more that you need in order to open your business. Some will be specific to the dog daycare industry. Also, you take on some risk with a dog daycare business. Your business plan should briefly discuss these topics to show that you understand what’s at stake and have plans in place to mitigate problems that arise.
Licensing and Permits for Pet Care Businesses
Opening a dog daycare has multiple legal requirements and documentation that must be in place. This includes business and other pet care licenses, zoning permits, insurance, and inspections (health and fire). Check with both state and local resources to find out what you need.
Risk Assessment and Backup Planning
Not to overstate the obvious, but you’re responsible for the care of people’s pets at your dog daycare. Your business plan should address that you understand the various risks involved, but again, not too much detail. This includes:
- Liability: Dogs fight, and dogs will get injured. You may be on the hook for medical bills in certain instances. Have a plan in place to care for injured dogs and get legal advice on how to protect yourself from liability if a dog is severely injured, or worse, while in your care.
- Health: All dogs in your care should be up to date with vaccines and not come to you sick with a communicable illness or disease. Keeping track of vaccines and veterinary contacts for your clients is crucial. MoeGo’s software packages help manage all client information and provide reminders for vaccines that need to be updated.
- Staff: As soon as you start hiring, there is risk involved. Do background checks for new hires. Once hired, be clear on their responsibilities. Also have a process in place for onboarding new hires and dealing with performance and other HR related issues.
- Financial: This ties back to planning your finances. If your business plan is solid, you’ve done your risk management for the financials.
Reviewing and Evolving Your Business Plan
Your first draft isn’t your final draft. Have your business plan reviewed by professionals that have started businesses and/or lent money to start a business. It’s a good idea to have a lawyer review all your documentation to ensure it meets legal requirements.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls with a Dog Daycare Business Plan
Writing a dog boarding business plan, dog daycare business plan or dog kennel business plan can be overwhelming. But once you get all the facts, details, and numbers in place, you need to review your work, edit it, and make sure you avoid these common mistakes.
- Too little detail: Your business plan needs some meat on the bone. Address the “why’s and how’s” so you demonstrate a well thought out, strategic position for your new business.
- Too much detail: Don’t write a book on the dog day care business. Focus on how your plan is going to be successful.
- Not addressing a problem and a solution: Just another dog daycare on the corner of Main Street and First Avenue isn’t a reason to lend you money. Your business plan should show that there’s a need in your area, that your business fulfills that need, and you have a key differentiator(s) to be successful.
- Don’t overestimate your potential success: Be reasonable with your numbers. It’s better to be pessimistic than project an unrealistic view of your potential.
- Not answering the questions: If you were a lender, what questions would you be asking before investing in this business plan? Anticipate the questions that will be asked and answer them in your business plan.
- Not proofreading: This is your first impression with potential lenders. Make it the best one possible. Make sure your grammar is correct, you haven’t misspelled anything, and your formatting is tight. If you’re the primary writer, have someone else review it closely. You’ll be surprised how many simple mistakes you’ve made.
Once you feel like your dog daycare business plan is ready for review by lenders, let it sit for a few days. Review it again, one last time.
Looking Ahead to Your Grand Opening!
Congratulations! You’re one step closer to opening your own dog daycare business. It’s exciting and scary but so fulfilling to actually run your own business. The team at MoeGo is here to help in any way we can. Check out our MoeGo Care Program which is specifically tailored to meet the needs of new pet care business owners. Click HERE to find out more!
Dog Daycare Business Plan Guide 2025 | MoeGo
How to Start a Dog Daycare | MoeGo
Smarter Tracking, Faster Conversions, and Easier Evaluations for Pet Boarding and Daycare