Dogs cannot tell people when something is wrong. They hide pain, carry stress quietly, and by the time an owner notices, the problem is often no longer small. One in three dogs develops depression or anxiety, yet many owners discover the signs far too late.
After speaking with more than a hundred dog owners, Nikola found that almost every conversation ended with the same two questions: What do I do now? And why didn't I see this sooner? That second question stayed with him. These were not careless people. They were devoted owners who simply had no way of knowing something was wrong until the signs became impossible to miss.
By then, the solution was often expensive: specialist consultations, behaviorist sessions, and treatment that might have been avoided with earlier intervention. The problem was never that owners did not care. It was that nobody had given them anything to act on while acting could still make a difference.
That is why Nikola and his team built WellPet.ai. The collar reads a dog's emotions, behavior, and early health signals in real time, turning them into insights an owner can act on today, rather than after a diagnosis. The technology behind it is complex, but the promise is simple: know when to act and when to relax.
The past two years changed how Nikola thinks about building. Four hardware prototypes were developed in six months. Veterinary researchers challenged the team's assumptions until the science truly held up. Early customers paid before there was anything polished to sell and gave direct, honest feedback about what was not working.
Every correction made the product better than any original plan could have. What changed most was his definition of speed. He once believed building fast meant shipping fast. Now, he believes it means being wrong early, learning in front of real users, and fixing problems before they cost someone something real.
Nikola is not building another tracker. He is building a way to help people give their dogs more good years. And that, he believes, is worth getting right.