Happy Sunday!
Last week, I wrote about the growing “pet economy” and the infrastructure emerging around how people travel, rent, and spend alongside their animals. One founder who kept coming up in those conversations was Luis Zamora.
Luis is the founder of PetsVivo, a platform helping hotels and property managers rethink what “pet-friendly” actually means. Instead of treating pets as a compliance headache, PetsVivo helps operators turn pet owners into a higher-value customer segment through better policies, amenities, and operational tools.
At a time when AI dominates every startup conversation, Luis is building in a category that feels deceptively simple but touches real consumer behavior, housing dynamics, hospitality economics, and emotional spending patterns.
Here’s Luis’s 5 Questions.
Luis Zamora
5 QUESTIONS WITH LUIS ZAMORA
1. What’s the problem you saw that others underestimated — and how did it first show up in your own life or work?
I have two dogs, Banzo and Tuck. Banzo is a pittie, Tuck is a German Shepherd. Try booking a hotel or finding an apartment with those two. Half the properties won't take them because of breed restrictions, the ones that do charge you a $150 pet fee on top of a $200/night room, and when you show up the 'pet-friendly' amenity is a poop bag holder. I saw this as a massive market failure. Pet owners on average spend more and stay longer that an average guest or resident. These industries was treating pets like a liability instead of a revenue driver. And the more I dug in, the more I realized how badly everyone had underestimated the size of the opportunity.
The ‘pet friendly” amenity is usually a poop bag holder.
2. What category do people most often mislabel you as — and what’s the truth?
People think you can't serve two masters. That properties and pet parents have competing interests. We're flipping that on its head. By giving properties the tools to lift restrictions, attract more pets, and actually deliver value for the fees they charge, it's a win-win for everyone. Pet owners get treated like the high-value guests they are, and properties unlock a customer segment they've been neglecting
3. What is a decision the company made that slowed growth or limited optionality in the short term, but ultimately strengthened the business model or customer trust over the long term?
When we broke into housing, every property manager wanted the same thing: an ESA document verification tool. Easy sell. We pushed back. We had to show them that restrictions were the actual problem. The more you restrict, the more residents find workarounds. When properties removed restrictions and added real benefits and amenities, ESA letters dropped and signup adoption came in significantly above industry average. Harder conversation upfront, but the properties that got it didn't just buy a tool. They bought into a different way of operating.
4. What’s a decision you made that hurt short-term momentum but preserved your long-term vision?
We had the opportunity to work with an airline early on. On paper it made sense, pet travel is pet travel. But we already had housing under our belt and knew what it meant to operate in a heavily regulated environment. Airlines would have been a second one, with a market that is still figuring out the kinks at scale. We passed. We doubled down on hotels and housing, where the customer pain is more evident and solvable. Saying no to that slowed us down in the short term but it kept us focused on the markets where we can actually move the needle right now.
The more you restrict, the more residents find workarounds.
5. Share one metric, study, or real-world data point that validated (or disproved) your original thesis.
The assumption we kept hearing was that you can't have more than half your units occupied by pets without total mayhem. Noise, smell, damage, complaints. Honestly, we weren't sure they were wrong. But pet related incidents actually dropped at properties that put real policies in place and gave staff actual tools to handle common pet challenges instead of just winging it every time. Turns out guests have also just gotten used to seeing dogs everywhere, because they are everywhere. Restrictive policies were never solving the problem, they were just hiding it.
To get in touch with Luis and learn more about what he is building, hit reply!
If you’d like to be featured in an upcoming 5 Questions, reply to this email. In the meantime, here’s how you can support Bear and the Bull:
🤝 Become a sponsor and reach a curated audience of tier 1 VCs, tech founders, and operators.
🔓 Upgrade to become a paid subscriber to access my curated early stage market maps and list of early stage investors and companies.
Click on the ad below.
Till next week,
Ilona
P.S. Interested in working with me as a speaker or moderator? Hit “reply” to this email.
Attio - the AI CRM for modern businesses.
Attio is the AI CRM that keeps you ten steps ahead.
Ask Attio anything. Where should I focus? What deals are at risk? Search, update, and create across your customer data.
Ask more from CRM. Ask Attio.
Bonus for paid subscribers: What’s one piece of advice you wish investors understood about building in your category?
Subscribe to our premium content to read the rest.
Like what you have read so far? Become a paid subscriber to access the full archive, exclusive deep dives, market maps, and insights from founders and operators at the cutting edge of innovation.
Upgrade