Tele-Vet Service Modern Animal's CEO o​n How the Pandemic Boosted App Adoption

Before CEO and founder Steven Eidelman launched Modern Animal in 2018, his most concerning question was, are people going to be comfortable relying on a mobile app to provide pet care?

The answer appears to be a resounding "yes," and the pandemic has helped prove the point, he said Tuesday at a dotLA Summit panel.

It was April 2020, when Modern Animal opened its first physical clinic in West Hollywood. The company offers both in-clinic and virtual appointments 24-hours-a-day and seven-days-a-week telemedicine via a fully-featured mobile app.

According to Eidelman, the clinic has had a few thousand assignments come through, and not a single person has entered its doors. He said, the current times have highlighted, "where we're at today in innovation and how technology is enabling a lot of, even, more traditional legacy businesses."

Apps tend to come easy to the younger demographic. Eidelman said, "The reality is I think the older population is still a little bit resistant to having everything happen through a mobile app or everything happen though a website. A lot of our customers primarily are millennial or Gen Z. For them, it's become second nature — even over the course of this six months — to expect pretty much everything to be done virtually."

Eidelman, an L.A. native who recently returned from the Bay Area where his previous company, Whistle, was based, has noticed the region's business embrace technology

"Technology's finally found its way into changing workflow, changing the way companies do business, changing the way consumers consume content, whether it's services products. There's a strong culture of brand, of creativity," he said. "And I think those additional resources that exist in L.A., I think en masse don't exist, necessarily, in the Bay Area."