How Yedynka Helped Furry Fitness Validate the Market, Cut Costs by 70%, and Get Funded

A Founder with Four Huskies

The founder of Furry Fitness is a second-time entrepreneur based in Norway. He had previously exited a successful startup in the UK and was now building something more personal — a mobile app to help dog owners take better care of their pets’ health.

The idea came from real frustration as a dog owner. More than 50% of dogs in the UK are overweight, often due to poor feeding habits or a lack of exercise. Pet parents tend to underestimate the risks or aren’t sure what “healthy” looks like. He wanted to change that. 

So, the client decide to create an app that would help people track their dog’s condition, weight, nutrition, and wellbeing. But before committing to product development and funding rounds, he needed to know if the market was ready. 

That’s when the client contacted Yedynka.

Objectives and Constraints

When we joined the project, Furry Fitness was still at the MVP stage. This meant that while the product existed, the business model was still being shaped. The client needed to:

• Test user interest and willingness to pay
• Validate personas, pricing, and positioning
• Understand which marketing channels worked best
• Prepare a go-to-market plan that could also support grant applications
• Do all of the above at a fixed cost, without ballooning spend

We started with a research sprint. First, we explored the pet tech market: who the competitors were, what kind of messages they used, where they found traffic, and how they positioned themselves. Then, we moved into persona development, identifying six types of pet parents we wanted to learn more about.

Audience Research and Persona Development

To move from theory to insights, we started recruiting dog owners in the UK who matched our persona profiles to run a series of interviews.

Recruiting lead users took time, but it gave us insights we couldn’t have gained otherwise and introduced the client to a new way of finding qualified interview participants.

The conversations helped us explore questions like:

• What triggers people to take action about their dog’s weight?
• What objections do they have to using an app?
• What emotional language do they respond to?

As a result, we refined personas, adjusted the feature roadmap, and reshaped the messaging based on what users actually cared about, not what we thought they would.

Testing the Market Without a Product

Although the app wasn’t fully released, we didn’t need to wait to test the market.

Instead, we used a fake door approach:

• Designed landing pages that mimicked the signup flow
• Ran targeted ad campaigns for different personas
• Measured what people clicked, what they read, and what they ignored

We also built early engagement campaigns on Meta and Google, running ads that highlighted different pain points and value propositions, from pet health concerns to curiosity about the Body Condition Score quiz.

This let us test dozens of ideas quickly, without writing a single line of app code.

Real-Time Validation That Paid Off

In just a few weeks, we had statistically sound data to work with. At that point, we could already see:

• Which personas responded best
• Which messages got attention
• Which platforms were most cost-effective

Over the course of testing, we reached 278,638 dog owners, reduced Cost per Acquisition by 70%, and saw CPI fall well below pet tech benchmarks.

The insights helped the client shape their product strategy, tighten the scope, and — most importantly — win a government grant from Innovation Norway to fund the next stage of development.

A GTM Strategy That Became a Funding Toolkit

We focused on delivering a roadmap that could be put into practice. It was structured around real campaign data, included tested messaging and channel strategies, and was tailored to the client's available resources.

Overall, we delivered:

• A validated go-to-market plan
• Channel and message recommendations
• A working landing page system

During this project, we even built special tools to help our client make faster decisions:

• Performance benchmarks
• Budget and campaign calculators

The roadmap became a central part of the application that secured grant funding for the startup.

What Happened Next

After launch, the Furry Fitness team decided to keep working with us on a marketing subscription model. We now provide:

• Paid media management
• SMM support
• Visuals, copy, and campaign testing
• Weekly strategic check-ins
• Landing page and quiz funnel development

All this happens at the cost of a single full-time hire but with more flexibility and broader expertise.

This ongoing work, including how we helped the app reach over 1,000 downloads, is detailed in the case study Furry Fitness: Marketing Team on Subscription.