Grooming,at home.
A two-sided marketplace for mobile dog grooming: an owner books a groomer to come to the house, and the groomer runs their whole round, from availability to payout, from the same app.
Two apps in one, because the two sides need different things
A pet owner wants to book quickly and trust who turns up. A groomer is running a small business, so they need availability, job control, clients and earnings. Shaggy is built as a matching pair rather than one app bent to fit both.
The service travels
Grooming happens at the owner's home, so the booking captures the address and time as first-class detail, not an afterthought at checkout.
Trust is built into onboarding
A groomer joins through profile, photos, testimonials and a background check before approval, so an owner books someone the platform has already vetted.
Two apps, matched to two jobs
An owner books and pays; a groomer runs a small business of availability, jobs, clients and earnings. Shaggy is designed as a matching pair that share a booking, not a screen.
The owner's convenience only exists if the groomer's side of the app actually works.
Someone has to control which dates are open, which jobs are accepted, which clients repeat and when the money lands, or the owner's easy booking has nothing behind it.
A mobile groomer's day is finite. Answer → a calendar the groomer opens, pauses or blocks themselves, so an owner only ever sees slots that are really free.
A request is not a guarantee. Answer → the groomer sees the full detail and accepts or rejects it, so no one is booked into a job they cannot take on.
things a groomer has to control before an owner's easy booking means anything.
What Shaggy had to get right
A pet owner wants to book quickly and trust who turns up; a groomer is running a small business around that booking. The goal was to serve both without bending one app to fit two jobs.
Two sides, fully built out
- Dog profiles. A profile per dog, with weight and age, feeds straight into the booking wizard.
- A 6-step booking wizard. Date, time, location and dog selection carried through as one flow.
- Vetted onboarding. Profile, photos, testimonials and a background check before a groomer goes live.
- Availability the groomer controls. A calendar opened, paused or blocked by date range, with jobs accepted or rejected.
Why it was hard
- Availability has to be the groomer's to set, not assumed free by the app.
- Jobs are accepted, not just assigned, so no one is booked into work they cannot take.
- Getting paid — Stripe payouts and earnings — had to live inside the groomer's own app, not a separate tool.
- Trust has to be built before a groomer ever appears to an owner, not left to a first review.
Who is on each side of a booking?
The owner and the groomer see completely different apps behind the same booking — 2 sides sharing one booking.
The owner
Books an at-home groomer for their dogs and manages the visit — profile, payment, chat and review, all in one app.
The groomer
Runs their grooming round, from open dates to accepted jobs to Stripe payout, in the app.
Booking a groomer, screen by screen
The path an owner walks, from setting up their dogs to a request the groomer can accept.
A short introduction to how at-home grooming works before sign-up.
A profile per dog, feeding straight into the booking wizard.
Photos, services and reviews of the groomer before booking.
Choose a day from the groomer's real availability.
Set the time and the home address the groomer comes to.
Choose which dogs from the profile the booking is for.
The booking goes to the groomer to accept.
Track the booking through upcoming, active and past.
What does each side see on the same day?
An owner picks from real availability; a groomer is the one who sets it. Switch between the two views behind one booking.
The scope, in one panel
Every number in this panel is delivered scope — what was designed, built and handed over on the pet care build for Shaggy. It leaves out traffic, conversion and revenue on purpose: those figures belong to the client, and we don’t publish numbers we cannot stand behind.
- Category
- Pet careAt-home grooming
- Two sides
- Pet ownerMobile groomer
- What we did
- UX + UI designMobile app design
- Spans
- Booking · Groomer businessPayouts
The look, and why
A confident green carries booking and trust moments against a calm ink-on-mist palette, so a two-sided marketplace reads as simple rather than busy on either side.
Building a two-sided marketplace app
How long does it take to build a two-sided marketplace app?
How do you keep a home-service marketplace trustworthy?
How do payments and groomer payouts work?
Why build separate apps for the owner and the groomer?
Building a marketplace with two sides to serve?
Tell us how your business actually works and we'll tell you honestly what it takes to build — the two apps, the payouts, the lot. No deck, no pitch.