Best pet sitting marketplace for bootstrapped startups

There are roughly 8-12 consumer-facing pet sitting marketplaces globally (Rover, Care.com, Wag, Pawshake, etc.), but almost zero infrastructure built specifically for bootstrapped founders to launch their own pet sitting networks cheaply. Most existing platforms are venture-backed and bloated, optimizing for growth over unit economics. The common failure mode: founders try to build a full Rover clone and run out of cash before hitting product-market fit. The actual gap is a lightweight, open-source or heavily discounted SaaS marketplace stack—payment processing, sitter vetting, real-time booking, reviews—that costs under $500/month to operate. Bootstrapped pet sitting operators (local networks, neighborhood-based services, niche segments like exotic pet care) are currently duct-taping together Stripe, Airtable, Google Forms, and spreadsheets. A new entrant should focus on vertical integration: pick one region or pet type (e.g., dog walking in Austin, exotic pet sitters nationwide), build the absolute minimum product (messaging, scheduling, payments, ratings), and charge 10% commission instead of 20%. Growth comes from becoming the default platform for quality sitters in one vertical, not by trying to compete with Rover nationally.