Why Veterinary Service Startups Struggle to Build Trust
In last week's Thavma Insights, “They’re Not Buying It, Because You’re Not Speaking Their Language”, we explored what happens when your message misses the mark, not because it lacks features or polish, but because it fails to reflect what’s really happening in your customer’s world.
Mark Massaro, DVM shared how reframing messaging around what the team cares about, not productivity, but peace of mind, led to stronger buy-in and real impact.
This week, we’re taking that one step further.
Because it’s not just about understanding your customers day-to-day. It’s about earning their trust, across every touchpoint. Most veterinary service startups don’t fail because of poor products. They fail because they never earned the belief required to adopt them.
In this edition, we’ll walk through:
→ Why traditional funnels fall flat in vet med
→ How to replace them with a trust-first growth strategy
→ And what every founder can learn from the “in-between moments” that shape lasting relationships
Most veterinary tech and life sciences companies are stuck in founder-led chaos and disconnected marketing. Most early-stage veterinary service startups do have a marketing problem, just not the kind they expected. It’s not about visibility. It’s about connection, clarity, and consistency. You’re building something innovative. Maybe even category-defining. But no one knows who you are yet. And the few who do? They’re skeptical.
You’re trying to show up with confidence in a space that is inherently cautious. You’re educating a market while proving your credibility, with limited resources and a lean team.
That’s why traditional funnels fall short. And that’s where the Marketing Hourglass™ changes everything.
In Practice: A Hospital Administrator’s Perspective
Each edition, we bring you insights from industry leaders shaping the future of veterinary innovation and just as importantly, from the people living it every day: veterinarians, practice managers, and veterinary technicians.
This week, we connected with Brian Carlson arlson, the Hospital Administrator at Old Derby Animal Hospital, someone who’s on the front lines of operational decision-making. I love how Brian leads with a “trust-first” mindset. It’s a clinic-side perspective every founder and marketer in this space should be learning from.
“Establishing trust is a foundational element of any successful practice and when you step into the exam room, you quickly realize the stakes have never been higher. Pet parents are bringing new expectations to the table, driven by the deepening human-animal bond, increasing access to information, and rising demands for convenience, transparency, and personalization.
This shift challenges our traditional approach to trust. Client trust isn’t given or earned through clinical outcomes alone. Today, gaining pet parent confidence means empowering them throughout every step of the care journey. It means offering convenience through online booking, 24/7 access to records via pet portals, and home delivery that meets clients where they are. Building trust also requires transparency, using treatment care plans to clearly communicate proposed treatments and their associated costs; and offering wellness plans or flexible payment options to remove barriers to care. Trust is forged by delivering an exceptional, engaging client experience that continually reinforces they made the right choice in partnering with you for their pet’s care.
As we see, trust must be built through every touchpoint, from the first phone call to follow-up care. It’s in how we communicate diagnoses, handle billing, and show respect to pet parents as the primary caregivers. But for veterinary practices, trust doesn’t stop at the exam room door and it isn’t confined to what happens inside the building. Trust extends across every part of the care journey, including the industry partners we choose to support our practice. Whether it's diagnostic labs, pharmaceutical companies, or home delivery services, these partnerships impact the client experience in ways that pet parents may never directly see but definitely feel.
That’s why, it's crucial when we enter into partnerships, we must hold our partners to the same standards of diligence and care we use in treating our patients. By doing so, we safeguard the integrity of our client relationships and their confidence in our practice. Trust becomes a shared commitment, a “circle of trust”, uniting the practice, the client, and every partner we bring into the fold. Partnerships in veterinary medicine go far deeper than contracts and services; they represent an extension of our core values and our commitment to care.
To truly establish ourselves as lifelong care providers and ensure both success and sustainability, we must lead with trust in every interaction, partnership, and point of care.”
Why Funnels Fail Veterinary Service Startups
Traditional marketing funnels are built to guide large audiences from awareness to conversion, but this linear, transactional model often falls short in the veterinary services space. For startups in this sector, success depends less on volume and more on trust, credibility, and long-term behavior change among a specialized audience. What veterinary service startups need isn’t just more leads, they need belief, buy-in, and sustained clinical adoption.
Here’s what usually goes wrong:
Founders pour resources into awareness campaigns — Founders spend big on awareness campaigns; booths, press, social buzz, but without connection (and a strategy) and clarity, they get attention without traction.
Messaging misses the mark with veterinarians — It's often too technical, too product-focused, or too generic to resonate with veterinarians who are skeptical of new tools and fiercely protective of patient outcomes.
Pilot programs show promise but don’t scale — You might gain traction with early adopters, but without the right infrastructure to translate pilot wins into repeatable growth, momentum stalls.
This isn’t a failure of effort or intent; it’s a failure of structure. Veterinary service startups need a different go-to-market strategy: one that’s rooted in relationship-building, education, and a deep understanding of clinical workflows and decision-making dynamics. Without that, even the most innovative solutions struggle to gain a foothold.
In Practice: Brian Carlson Perspective: As Brian Carlson points out, “trust isn't earned through a single interaction, it’s layered across every moment in the care journey.” When startups focus too heavily on conversion and not enough on consistent, trust-building communication, they risk breaking that journey before it begins. Funnels fail because they miss what Brian calls the 'circle of trust', the interconnected ecosystem of client, clinic, and partner. And without that, belief doesn't scale.
Build What Funnels Miss: Trust, Trials, and Long-Term Growth
Traditional funnels are designed to drive transactions, but they rarely account for the relationship-building and behavior change required in the veterinary space. The Marketing Hourglass™ offers a more holistic alternative. It aligns marketing with how real trust is built over time, especially in fields like veterinary services, where credibility, clarity, and consistency are everything.
This model supports the entire customer journey, from initial awareness to long-term advocacy and provides a practical structure for founders to guide potential customers through a series of intentional, trust-building experiences.
Stages of the Hourglass
Know and Like Introduce your solution in a way that’s both understandable and emotionally relevant. Use approachable language and visuals that connect with the values and priorities of veterinarians, practice managers, and decision-makers. Position your brand as helpful and aligned with their clinical mission, not just pushing a product.
Trust and Try At this stage, your job is to reduce skepticism and friction. Use clinical data, peer endorsements, real-world case studies, and transparent messaging to establish credibility. Make it easy for practices to test your solution, through low-risk trials, demos, onboarding support, or pilot programs that prove value without overwhelming busy teams.
Buy, Repeat, Refer Once you've earned the first purchase, the real opportunity begins. Design a customer experience that reinforces trust and delivers consistent results. Provide training, support, and touchpoints that make it easy to continue using your solution. Then, build in mechanisms that encourage referrals, whether that’s through formal programs, content sharing, or community-building among your most passionate users.
In Practice: Brian Carlson Perspective: Brian reminds us that trust is built in the “in-between moments”, how you communicate costs, how you support client understanding, and how seamlessly partners integrate into the practice’s standard of care. The Marketing Hourglass™ mirrors this layered trust-building. It isn't about pushing a product; it's about showing up as a credible partner through every phase of the relationship.
Turn Strategy Into Momentum: 3 High-Impact Moves You Can Make Today
You don’t need a full rebrand or massive campaign to start building traction. These three strategic actions can help you create immediate alignment, strengthen your messaging, and accelerate customer adoption, starting right now.
1. Map Your Customer Journey: Most teams focus on awareness and conversion, but real growth happens when you understand the full journey from first exposure to long-term loyalty.
Ask yourself:
Where do potential customers first hear about us?
What earns their trust and builds confidence in our solution?
What motivates them to take action, try, buy, and refer?
Mapping this journey helps identify gaps, uncover friction points, and focus your energy where it matters most.
2. Build Content with Purpose: Random content doesn’t drive results, strategic content does. Match what you create to the specific stage of the customer journey you're trying to support.
Examples:
Know: A one-line explainer, quick value prop, or 60-second intro video
Trust: A clinical case study, third-party validation, or founder origin story
Try: A free trial, educational webinar, or limited-time pilot offer
Refer: A follow-up email with a shareable case study or a referral incentive
This kind of content accelerates movement through the hourglass and supports both initial and long-term engagement.
3. Align Your Team Around the Entire Journey: Marketing isn’t just a top-of-funnel activity, it’s an organization-wide responsibility. Everyone from sales to support plays a role in building customer confidence and loyalty.
Use these questions to create internal alignment:
Which stages of the journey are we actively supporting and which are we neglecting?
Where are we losing momentum or missing opportunities?
What can we do today to better support customers after the sale?
When your team is aligned on the full customer journey, your growth strategy becomes clearer and your execution becomes far more effective.
In Practice: Brian Carlson Perspective: Brian’s insight is a powerful reminder that trust doesn’t live in a single department. It’s operational. It’s cultural. It’s embedded. The most effective growth strategies treat marketing as part of the client care experience. When your team understands that trust is earned across every touchpoint, just like in clinical care, your execution becomes more cohesive, and your results more lasting.
Real-World Application: How Hilltop Bio Is Rebuilding the Journey
To make this framework real, let’s look at a recent application with one of our clients: Hilltop Bio. They’re an innovative regenerative therapy company with promising solutions for equine and companion animal health. But like many veterinary startups, their strongest value propositions weren’t reaching decision-makers in the right way or at the right time. We conducted a Marketing Hourglass™ audit, and here’s what we found:
THAVMA INSIGHT: Hilltop didn’t need more content, they needed the right content, mapped to the full journey their buyers take.
Turning Attention into Action: The Trust-First Growth Strategy
Result
Hilltop Bio's marketing is no longer centered around awareness alone. It’s now a full-system approach to earning trust, increasing usage, and creating clinical advocates.
THAVMA INSIGHT: When marketing supports every step of the experience, adoption becomes natural, not forced. Structure your journey with purpose, and trust becomes your momentum.
Your Next Step: Build a Growth System That Works
The Marketing Hourglass™ isn’t just a framework, it’s your strategic lens for transforming disconnected marketing efforts into a clear, consistent, and scalable customer journey. If you're tired of guessing, second-guessing, or watching good ideas stall, this is your moment to shift from chaos to clarity.
DOWNLOAD the Hourglass Audit Worksheet - Instructions: For each stage of the Marketing Hourglass™, jot down what you're currently doing, what's working, what’s missing, and where your team can improve.
THAVMA INSIGHT: Strategy-first marketing is not about slowing down; it's about speeding up the right things. When you lead with structure and purpose, you stop spinning your wheels. You stop chasing trends. You start making the right move, for the right audience, at exactly the right time. And that’s when growth gets real.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still wondering how to apply the Marketing Hourglass™ to your business? Start here:
❓ Why don’t traditional marketing funnels work for veterinary service startups?
Traditional funnels are built to drive quick conversions, but veterinary service startups require trust, credibility, and long-term adoption. Practices don’t just need to hear about your product, they need to believe it will work in their world. Funnels miss that deeper decision-making process.
❓ What is the Marketing Hourglass™?
The Marketing Hourglass™ is a strategic framework that guides buyers from first exposure to long-term advocacy. Unlike funnels, it accounts for the full trust-building journey: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, Refer. It’s built for industries where credibility and consistency matter, like veterinary healthcare.
❓ How can veterinary service companies build trust with practices?
Start by proving you understand the practice's daily challenges. Use peer quotes, real-world results, and messaging that reflects their reality. Then follow through with onboarding, support, and responsiveness. Trust isn’t earned once; it’s reinforced at every step.
❓What’s the first step to mapping our veterinary customer journey?
Begin by asking: Where do buyers first meet us? What earns their belief? What keeps them coming back? Then build around those milestones, especially after the first sale. That’s where most startups stall, and where your growth strategy should begin.
Want help mapping your Hourglass and turning strategy into traction? Lets map it together! Schedule a Consultation
Let’s connect: Fotine A Sotiropoulos | LinkedIn.
Want to sharpen your strategy? Access our free marketing resources today.
