Why We Built Furlo

It started with a group chat called WEOAS.

My fiancee had come up with the name herself: Watching Each Other's Animals Society. It was a little goofy, intentionally so, but it described exactly what the group was for. A handful of close friends, all apartment dwellers, all with pets they loved. If anyone had a trip coming up or got stuck at work late, they'd drop a message in the chat and someone would step up. No payment, no apps, no awkwardness. Just friends taking care of each other's animals because that's what friends do.

It worked beautifully, right up until the moment it didn't.

The Night That Started Everything

We were all out together, the whole friend group, the same people in the WEOAS chat. It was one of those good nights where nobody wanted it to end. And then, almost at the same moment, everyone started doing the math in their heads.

The cats needed feeding. The dog needed walking. Someone had to go home.

But we were all there. There was nobody left on the bench. The group chat that had always solved the problem was the problem this time, because we'd all shown up to the same place at the same time. The choice was either cut the night short or let the pets go without.

That was the moment I started thinking: what if this wasn't just a group chat between friends? What if every pet owner in an apartment building had access to this, not just the ones lucky enough to know each other already?

The People Behind It

I spent years as a firefighter paramedic and now work overnight shifts as a police dispatcher. My fiancee works in the hospital. Between the two of us, we have covered just about every shift pattern a schedule can throw at a person: overnight, rotating, on-call, mandatory overtime, the works.

We have two cats, Huxley and Finley, and a dog named TJ. And the reality of loving animals while working the hours we work is that pet care is never an afterthought. It is a logistical priority that shapes every decision, every shift swap, every plan we make.

Having people we could rely on was not a luxury. It was a necessity. And we knew we were not the only ones.

The Idea Behind the App

The thing that always struck me about WEOAS was how natural it felt. Nobody was being paid. Nobody was keeping score. It was just neighbors who happened to also be friends, showing up for each other because they genuinely wanted to.

The problem was access. Not everyone has a built-in friend group in their building. A lot of people move into an apartment and spend years not knowing who lives two floors above them, even when that person has a dog they walk past every morning. The connection is right there. It just never gets made.

That's what Furlo is built to fix. It takes the WEOAS idea and opens it up to an entire building, not just the people who already know each other. Dog owners, cat owners, anyone who has a pet they love and a life that sometimes gets complicated. It connects them through care requests, pet profiles, and a shared community that actually means something because it's closed to your building only.

And it is completely free for residents. That part was never up for debate. Pets are not a budget line item in a good home. They are family. Huxley, Finley, and TJ are not expenses. They are part of our life. The app was always going to reflect that.

What We Are Building Toward

Furlo is still early. We are in the pilot stage, working with apartment buildings in Nashville and growing from there. But the vision has never changed from that night out with friends when the question was simply: who is going home to take care of the animals?

The answer should never have to be "I guess I will." It should be: someone in your building has it covered, because that is what your community does.

That is what we are building. We are glad you are here for it.