FARGO — At a time where the pet market is glutted with at least 11,000 different types of dog food, dog owners face a doggone conundrum.

Canned or kibble? Freeze-dried or raw? Grain-free or omnivore?

And that doesn’t take into account all the options formulated for life stages, breeds, sizes or health concerns.

Now a new North Dakota-based company has introduced technology to help veterinarians and dog owners navigate the labyrinth of Lassie lunches. VetNexus has created digital tools that sort through the thousands of food options, look at the health profile of a particular dog and then use a proprietary algorithm to match the best foods to that dog.

“It solves a lot of problems and it prolongs a dog’s life. We talk about adding 10 dog years to your pet’s life, which is two years real, just by adding pet nutrition,” said Paul Lien, founder and CEO of VetNexus, from his office in NDSU’s Research and Technology Park.

Lien believes it’s the prime time for this product, as younger owners have contributed to the “humanization” of pets over the last decade or so and view their four-legged friends more as family members than pets.

“Young people are spending $75 to $100 a month on dog food and don’t think a thing about it,” he said. “The new dog owners are very proactive in health care. And we think where we’re really going to gain the most traction is with the Gen Zs and the millennials.”

Now Lien is traveling North Dakota to try to persuade owners and practice managers at the state’s 74 veterinary clinics to try the new technology.

“I can tell you this, that of all the clinics I’ve visited, only two have said they’re not interested,” he said.

Lien wants to offer VetNexus exclusively to veterinarians because he said they have thousands of dog owners who visit them regularly and look to them as respected resources.

Owners routinely ask vets which foods are best for their dogs, but the market has grown so unwieldy that veterinarians themselves aren’t always sure what to recommend, Lien said.

“We’re trying to clear a lot of the clutter and come up with something that really gives, for the first time, an optimal diet plan,” he said.

Paul Lien is developer of VetNexus, a new North Dakota-based company using technology to help veterinarians pinpoint the best dog food for an individual dog’s age, breed, lifestyle and specific health needs. Here, he shows the subscriber guide to VetNexus, which is given to veterinarians around the state to help them understand how the software platform works. Lien has been traveling North Dakota to visit with veterinarians about the product and said feedback has been promising. Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum

Lien, who previously founded the largest professional diversity recruiting business in the country, joined the pet industry in 2009 when he was brought aboard to save a struggling cat litter company. “It took me six months to turn the company around and make it profitable,” he said.

In 2015, the long-time dog lover asked a friend why people don’t turn to their veterinarians anymore for pet food advice. His friend told him there were so many dog foods out there that even animal nutritionists couldn’t keep on top of them.

Lien knew the answer was software. While running a pet-products manufacturing and distribution company, he devoted his spare time to working with software developers on his vision for VetNexus.

In 2017, he met Joe and Blake Wayman, a St. Louis-based father-son team who were also addressing the dog food quandary and had built a foods database. He suggested they join forces and they agreed. Blake now serves as co-founder and director of animal health technology and Joe serves on the board.

Three years later, Lien devoted himself full time to VetNexus, moving into the Iowa State University Research Park in Ames with hopes of working with its College of Veterinary Medicine. He was there when Brian Opp with the North Dakota Development Fund contacted him and began recruiting him to bring VetNexus to North Dakota. Opp told him North Dakota was the No. 1 state for start-ups and the state eventually invested $400,000 in his business through funding like LIFT loans.

Lien commuted between Ames and Fargo for almost seven months before permanently moving to West Fargo a year ago.

Lien said VetNexus has put 100% of the state-issued funds into perfecting the technology. A team of seven, including an internationally known pet nutritional expert, has worked on perfecting the platform’s data. “We’re brand agnostic,” Lien said. “We’re science-driven, data-driven. Otherwise, we would be just like any other company that’s trying to hawk a certain dog food.” He believes the technology could help smaller manufacturers who make high-quality food, but can’t afford the marketing and premium shelf space that big manufacturers can pay.

Lien realizes that veterinarians today have huge caseloads, so has tried to make the VetNexus as easy to use as possible. He also offers it to veterinary clinics at no cost: VetNexus only makes money off the special “service offerings” sold to owners through VetNexus and the veterinarians themselves can make anywhere from 66 to 90% off the revenue from each nutrition-related service sold.
The process starts with the vet or owner filling out a brief pet health profile, including whether the pup is purebred or mixed breed, age, health conditions, daily exercise range and allergies. In response, the software produces a free, general health profile on common issues with that particular breed, behavior characteristics and the breed’s ancestry.

For $99.99, the owner receives the optimal diet plan, which offers a list of recommended dog foods, nutrition analysis of each one, cost per day of recommended diets, links to online stores where the food can be purchased and feeding instructions.
By the end of this year, VetNexus also plans to offer an Optimal Lifetime Diet Plan for $19.99 a month, which features a canine DNA test, up to two wellness visits per year, discounted in-clinic service offerings, allergy screenings and an annual pet nutrition counseling review.

As over 50% of our canines are mixed-breed, Lien said the DNA component will help the algorithm more precisely match nutrition to an individual dog’s needs.
In fact, he sees the platform as a neverending work-in-progress, as new foods continually hit the market and as more veterinarians use it and provide feedback. He plans to keep adding filters to the software to create increasingly more precise results.
Once the software gets a thorough test drive in North Dakota, Lien’s team would like to take it to vets in Minnesota. If funding permits, he hopes to take the technology nationwide in the next few years. Next up, VetNexus plans to offer the same digital tools for cat owners and possibly horse owners.

Granted, there aren’t nearly as many cat breeds or types of cat foods. Even so, the feline will present its own significant challenges.

“Having sold cat litter, I know how finicky cats are,” he said. “So that’s a whole other issue.”

https://www.inforum.com/business/new-north-dakota-companys-software-can-sniff-out-the-perfect-dog-food-for-your-pup
For 35 years, Tammy Swift has shared all stages of her life through a weekly personal column. Her first “real world” job involved founding and running the Bismarck Tribune’s Dickinson bureau from her apartment. She has worked at The Forum four different times, during which she’s produced everything from food stories and movie reviews to breaking news and business stories. Her work has won awards from the Minnesota and North Dakota Newspaper Associations, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Dakotas Associated Press Managing Editors News Contest. As a business reporter, she gravitates toward personality profiles, cottage industry stories, small-town business features or anything quirky. She can be reached at tswift@forumcomm.com.