Insuring a Successful Launch:
CI&T Helps Start-Up Pumpkin Keep Pets Healthier

Introduction

Pumpkin Pet Insurance was founded on the belief that all pet parents should be able to give their sick or hurt pets medical care, as well as preventive care that keeps furry family members healthy for life.

Challenges

As Pumpkin’s engineering activity ramped up and the date for its public launch crystallized, the need to onboard a competent and flexible engineering team became paramount. Pumpkin had to supplement its existing capabilities with additional talent and skillsets to help it get to market quickly. They were also faced with navigating regulatory concerns as they sought to disrupt an established industry.

To make things even more challenging, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to move to a fully remote working model — within mere weeks of Pumpkin’s public launch date. With the support of CI&T and their ability to work in an iterative, flexible startup mode (versus the typical large enterprise client), Pumpkin was able to have a successful public launch on time, with all features complete.

Solutions

Project-wise, CI&T approached this engagement not from an “order taker” perspective, but as a true partner who helped by questioning the vision and challenging assumptions to quickly understand and validate business goals. On the technical side, they helped get the interface up and running quickly despite getting involved midway through the process. A quick knowledge transfer with the previous project partner was all it took from them to jump in and ensure that deadlines were met.
 
Fortunately, Pumpkin’s start-up mentality was something that CI&T was very familiar with — in fact, it’s often a cultural shift that CI&T has to facilitate in other projects. Operating under a shared mindset that “value should be shipped as it becomes ready” and that Business Metrics are more important than Technical Metrics enabled the team and the business to rapidly gain traction and deliver value to pets and parents. 

Results

CI&T helped Pumpkin become more successful, more rapidly. With the platform in place, Pumpkin and CI&T were able to follow results in real-time — and use those numbers to their favor to make quick adjustments for instant bottom-line impact. Pumpkin not only achieved but exceeded its initial KPIs quickly. The company has even been able to establish ArfMeowForVets, a relief fund campaign for veterinarians whose practices have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. Pumpkin is now well-positioned to meet the next round of goals for the business.

Conclusion

Startup or established organization, broad scope or single-focused, CI&T has the talent and experience to help any in-team achieve accelerated results. Their team members are exceptionally skilled at knowledge transfer and operate with an all-in, ego-free approach. They share without hesitation or reservation since the goal for partner-clients is always to do whatever it takes for them to fulfill their vision and sharpen their competitive edge.