‘A Tail of Happiness’: Startup Studio Team Builds First Dog Emotion Tracker

Fitbit. Jawbone. Apple Watch. Humans are wearing their tech these days. But what about our trusted animal companions?

Enter DogStar.

In the spring semester of Startup Studio, DogStar built a wearable device for dogs that tracks their emotions. Worn around the tail, DogStar translates tail movements into actionable emotions to help pet parents improve the lives of their dogs. Using an accelerometer in the tracker, movements are sent to an application on the pet parent’s smartphone.

Mike Karp and Yannis Tsampalis, MBA ‘15, started working on the idea of a wearable for dogs last spring in Ithaca and brought fellow MBA Li Guo on board during fall semester 2014.

But to truly understand DogStar’s journey, you have to go back to Karp’s childhood. Growing up, Karp’s family dog Luna, a mexican beach dog was was a member of the family. But towards the end of her life, Mike and his family struggled to understand what she needed. Karp’s experience with Luna has served as inspiration for DogStar

DogStar isn’t the first wearable marketed for dogs, but it’s the first track emotion. Without any other similar products, the DogStar team had to start from scratch.

“There’s nothing that we can follow in the footsteps of in terms of how any of this stuff will work as an end product,” Guo explained. “It’s a lot of figuring out what the device itself should look like. What components should be on it? What the functionality should be and how it should be presented.”

But the collaborative and supportive nature of the Startup Studio has helped the DogStar team overcome setbacks and make rapid progress.

“To me one of the most pleasant surprises here—and I think this is just a part of Cornell Tech—is there’s no real competition,” Tsampalis said, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the studio curriculum. “It’s a great situation when other teams are able to share their ideas. It’’s like one big family, and I think that’s fantastic.”

Part of that family are practitioners that come from the industry to help guide students as they start their companies. DogStar has worked closely with Cornell Tech’s Entrepreneur In Residence Shuli Shwartz, whose background is in hardware. In addition to those inside Cornell Tech, the DogStar team has been advised by Dr. Pamela Perry, a pet behaviorist from the Cornell Vet School. This type of access to industry leaders has been key to DogStar’s success.

“One on one time with practitioners was the most helpful element of Startup Studio,” Karp said. “We had a one on one session with Dave Tisch and he was just very real with us. That alone was priceless.”

In addition to winning a Cornell Tech Startup Award, DogStar won the Cornell Electrical and Computer Engineering Competition in April where they competed against 25 teams of Cornell students. Also in April, DogStar was chosen to present at a Grand Central Tech event.

Learn more about DogStar at dogstar.life or follow them on Twitter @DogStarLife