Moving your life across borders is hard. Moving your pets? Even harder.
In this episode of Knoodle Founders Hour, Marisa Hoskins—founder of Paws Abroad—breaks down the hidden chaos behind international pet travel and how she’s building the first true infrastructure layer for a fragmented, outdated industry.
After spending thousands of dollars and navigating confusing, inconsistent regulations just to move her own dogs, Marisa realized something shocking: there was no centralized system to manage global pet travel. What followed is a startup redefining the space—think “Expedia for pet travel”—with digital pet passports, personalized compliance plans, and a growing global platform designed to give pet owners clarity, control, and peace of mind.
This conversation goes beyond logistics. You’ll hear how Marisa:
- Turned personal frustration into a multi-billion-dollar opportunity
- Built a global platform now operating across 14+ countries
- Applies systems thinking to scale complex, personalized experiences
- Leverages customer data to continuously refine and future-proof her product
- Balances technology with a deeply human, trust-first customer experience
Whether you’re a founder, a frequent traveler, or someone who refuses to leave their pet behind, this episode reveals the untapped potential in solving real-world friction—and what it takes to build something people genuinely need.
If you’ve ever wondered why pet travel feels so broken—and what it takes to fix it—this episode is for you.
Full Transcript:
Rosaria Cain 00:00
Welcome Marisa, thank you for joining us at the Knoodle founders hour podcast. We’re glad you could make it all the way from Canada. Tell us about Paws Abroad and how it’s positioned differently from traditional pet relocation services.
Marisa Hoskins 00:16
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be here. Yeah. Paws Abroad, just a bit of background context, it was started after I experienced the pains of moving internationally with my own pets. My two dogs are actually, I adopted in Hong Kong, and we moved back to Canada in 2018. Started my first company there, and long story short, since then, we’ve done multiple international moves together, and I realized through experiencing this myself that pet travel is extremely expensive, it’s confusing, and the regulations vary from country to country and airline to airline, and typically, pet parents were given the choice between poring through outdated forums and crowdsourcing advice or paying relocation companies at exorbitant amounts of money and then no kind of in between and choice. And so that’s basically how Paws Abroad was born. We realized, my brother’s my co founder, and he’s a software engineer, that there was no centralized platform for all of this confusing import-export regulations and airline policies. So we decided to build the infrastructure layer basically for international pet travel to help pet parents navigate these confusing import-export regulations and logistics. And the way our model is different is that we give pet parents choice. So we provide access to information. We have digital pet passports and personalized travel plans that give pet parents the options to DIY their trip with actually up to date information, and then for pet parents that want more support, we do offer different layers of personalized support as well. So that’s really our goal. Is to empower pet parents and make this process a lot less stressful by providing them choice and access to information.
Rosaria Cain 02:22
And how much fun is it traveling with pets?
Marisa Hoskins 02:25
So the actual process of traveling is not all that fun. The joy is, you know what? Traveling the world with your pets and experiencing them in different countries, that is incredible. So we currently split our time between Canada and Portugal. And I get so much joy of bringing my dogs around with me. We’ve been on the beaches of Thailand together. We walk around our little neighborhood in Lisbon. That aspect of pet travel is incredible. But the process of getting there, as you’re going through right now, Rosaria, is unnecessarily stressful because the regulations vary. But that being said, you know, I definitely encourage pet travel and people bringing their pets on experiences with them, because they are our family members, but planning in advance is honestly the number one thing to prevent any issues and making this as stress free as possible.
Rosaria Cain 03:28
Well, what problem, when you get down to it, what problem are you really solving? And why does this space need infrastructure instead of just service providers?
Marisa Hoskins 03:39
Yeah, so our biggest problem we’re solving is the compliance piece. So each pet is different. So different countries have different breed restrictions. There are different requirements in terms of vaccinations, depending on where you’re leaving from. There are export requirements, different airline policies vary even for different breeds. So our platform solves that by allowing you to enter your pet’s custom information and receive up to date import export regulations, vaccination timelines, airline recommendations, all personalized to your pet in easy to follow format. And we’re also releasing our pet friendly flight marketplace this week, that’s public facing that actually pulls in your pets data and pulls in all pet friendly flights for your pet, and we’re seeing a big rise in people not wanting their pet to travel in cargo, and we can talk to that after cargo, can be more than doable and easy for your pet if it planned in advance. But we’re seeing a rise in shared charters with semi private airlines, because people don’t want their pet to go in cargo and our flight marketplace, actually, we have partnerships with shared charters companies as well. So our goal is to provide personalized recommendations for different pets and for the budget and what works for the pet parent as well.
Rosaria Cain 05:14
What made you take this idea to market?
Marisa Hoskins 05:18
So it’s really interesting. So this is my second company in the pet space, and so it’s kind of was a full circle moment. So just to give a bit of background context, as I mentioned, I adopted my two dogs when I was living in Hong Kong. One of them was a breeder dog at a puppy mill, and had all of these different health problems. And background context, I made it my mission to heal her health through whole foods. Decided I was moving back to Canada, and that was my first foray into international pet travel, back in 2018 and for context, I didn’t even consider doing it on my own. I paid a relocation company 1000s of dollars to help me with the paperwork. I was so stressed. It was very impersonal. I wasn’t really given any guidelines of how to crate train them and how to prepare them. And it was, quite frankly, an awful, stressful experience, and famous last words at the time, to be honest, I thought, “Wow, I’m never going to do this again.” Yeah, obviously that’s changed. And then moved back to Canada, healed my dog’s health through whole foods. And that led me to start my first company, which was called Puppy Gang Fresh Foods, which was an award winning, direct-to-consumer, human grade dog food company that was inspired by my dog’s health transformation. And so my company got acquired in 2022 and I was working for the group that acquired us for two years, and I was really daydreaming about living abroad again, and without getting into detail, went through some personal challenges. So had some unexpected freedom. And so, I had my exit out of my company, you know, personally, had had the freedom to move abroad again. And I was dreaming about moving abroad, but thought, Wow, I can’t do this. Tthe pet travel is so stressful and initially, but then I thought, “You know what, it’s been seven years. Surely the industry has improved”, is what I thought. And then I was shocked to find that it hadn’t. So I decided I was going to move to Thailand for a year and enjoy beach life with my dogs. And again, I didn’t even consider doing it myself. I reached out to a relocation company.
Marisa Hoskins 07:35
No, a different one. This is back in Canada at this point. So Canada to move to Thailand, and I was given the wrong information. I was told I couldn’t fly into Bangkok, or, sorry, into Phuket. I could only fly into Bangkok. I was deterred from the airline I wanted to fly. And I just didn’t enjoy the call, didn’t feel good about the call. And then I got a quote to work with them, and it was, you know, $1,300 after being given the wrong information. I thought, “You know what? The hell with this. I’m gonna figure it out on my own”. And that’s when I dove into the problem and realized, “Wow, this isa logistical nightmare. And no wonder even relocation companies are finding this challenging because there is no centralized platform for this data”. I spoke to vets and realized they were having this problem. They were relying on, say, you or I to go in and say, I’m moving to Italy, for example, this is what my pets need. So my brother is a software engineer, and that’s why we decided to build Paws Abroad and, yeah, that is basically the story of how we started.
Rosaria Cain 07:35
Same one?
Rosaria Cain 08:45
It’s great. How big is this market? It must be huge.
Marisa Hoskins 08:49
So it’s a multi billion dollar industry that no one was doing really anything about from a technology standpoint before now it was quite outdated.
Rosaria Cain 09:00
Are people following your lead, or do you still have some runway?
Marisa Hoskins 09:04
In terms of people jumping on the bandwagon? Now, no one is quite doing what we’re doing. We like to say we’re building the Expedia of pet travel. So we’re trying to help with the pet travel journey from end to end. So there are some companies in this space that are working on, like we’re seeing pet friendly airlines rise up, but we see ourselves as a partner to them, that they can plug into our ecosystem. We see some people focused on the vet facing side of health certificates, and we’re like, great, you know what? Let’s look at. How do we partner? We basically want to be the central layer in pet travel is the goal.
Rosaria Cain 09:40
That makes sense. So with all this wrapped up, what’s your elevator speech?
Marisa Hoskins 09:45
So yeah, I think the best is Yeah. Paws Abroad is building the Expedia of international pet travel, helping people navigate confusing logistics and paperwork so they can enjoy traveling the world with their pet.
Rosaria Cain 10:01
Now, the world is a little bit tumultuous right now, with emergencies that seem to crop up every other month, especially the one that’s been happening the last couple weeks. Does that affect you with pet to the pet travel market?
Marisa Hoskins 10:16
So this is really interesting. We work with some private airline operators, as I mentioned, and we are seeing a big rise of pet relocations out of out of Dubai currently. But here’s the thing that’s really interesting. So pets are family, as you and I know and I think that this needs to be long term, you know, my big dream for this is that there’s more of that global recognition of pets as being family, but pets that are wanting to leave the country and are opting to fly private, for example, because they don’t want their pets to go on cargo and risk this in these uncertain times, they’re still running into the paperwork barrier. So, you need to have all of your vaccinations in order. You need export certificates upon each the country. Requirements vary for what you need on the arrival side. So even in emergency situations, it doesn’t negate all of this compliance stuff, which is why the work that we’re doing to help pet parents navigate these confusing timelines is so important.
Rosaria Cain 11:25
I bet. Is there a big call for services in the Middle East right now?
Marisa Hoskins 11:28
Yeah. So I woke up to an email from one of our partners saying we’re getting a flooding of requests. Can you help us on the compliance side? So yes, I think that’s just, I imagine going to keep continuing for the next little while.
Rosaria Cain 11:43
Well, there’ll be no lack of crises. Well, going back to your journey, because I always find that so fascinating. When I talk with founders like you, you scaled and exited Puppy Gang. That’s the name of your dog food brand, before building Paws Abroad, what did that experience teach you that changed how you’re building paws abroad?
Marisa Hoskins 12:10
Yeah, so I tell everyone. I say, Well, firstly, I picked the most diff— for my first business, I can say this now that I’ve exited, it the most difficult business model possible dealing with frozen food. So I always give advice to other founders, never pick a frozen food business. But if you can be successful in that, you can be successful in anything
Rosaria Cain 12:34
Logistics, I imagine.
Marisa Hoskins 12:35
Oh yeah, dealing with cold chain logistics was a nightmare in and of itself. Oh my gosh. We used to do the cooking ourselves on the evenings and weekends as well. Yeah, so I used to say, I was like, “Wow. I never, if I had a crystal ball, I never would have said I’d be cooking dog food for a living, five years ago”. All this to say, I feel like I learned so much from my first business. I think you make all the mistakes in your first business, because you just don’t know what you don’t know. I mean, big things like, for us, we’ve just, you know, I learned, like, how valuable you know customer experience is. I became a real expert with storytelling marketing, and as you and I spoke about before, for a while, I was consulting with different brands as kind of fractional chief revenue officer, and, you know, helping with that full life cycle marketing. So I would say, with Paws Abroad, from day one, our goal was, you know, we launched for early access beginning of May. And I think you were one of our earliest, earliest customers. And we really appreciate you.
Rosaria Cain 13:39
I was in need of a solution, and I saw it, and I snapped it right up,
Marisa Hoskins 13:44
And no, and I’m so glad. And that was the big thing for us was we want to build relationships with our early users, get them on calls, get feedback. What do people actually need? And I feel like that’s been really instrumental in continuing as we continue to grow the product, like really trying to design our solution with pet parents needs in mind.
Rosaria Cain 14:06
Well, tell us. Tell us how this began. Tell us your origin story. I mean, were you always an entrepreneur, or did did life kind of move you in that direction?
Marisa Hoskins 14:16
Well, it’s interesting. What I used to do my, you know, my old world, I lived in Asia for eight years, and I used to do technology strategy in private schools. So it’s bringing in disruptive technologies like 3D printing and coding programs. And I did a lot of kind of design thinking and product design cycle work. And so through doing this, I knew I wanted to have my own business like I thought, I just had it. I did have a calling to become an entrepreneur, but I wasn’t sure in what. And then when I healed my dog’s health through whole foods, it just changed my life, because it was just the most personally rewarding thing I ever went through, seeing her heal through whole foods. And then I saw the gap in the market, and it was. Just like, instantaneous, oh, I’ve got to do this as my business, and then with Paws Abroad. You know, everyone’s like, you’re a glutton for punishment, like doing another, you know, starting another business again. But for me, it’s very much problem driven, like, I see a problem that I really feel strongly about, and have to solve it because I was burnt out after my business acquisition. I wasn’t planning to, like, start another startup so fast. But then it was just, wow, oh my gosh. This is a problem that I just, yeah, felt a calling to solve, I guess is the best way to put it.
Rosaria Cain 15:33
Well, how international is your business? And when I ask that, because people all over the world can share this common need to have a pet with them as part of their family. Are you seeing requests from different countries, primarily US, Canada, or how broad is it?
Marisa Hoskins 15:51
Yes, so as I mentioned, so we’ve, we’re building quite a global community and I’ve lived in Asia for eight years, so I have community in Thailand and in Hong Kong as well. So we’re live in 14 countries. So we are live in Canada, the US, Costa Rica, Mexico, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, and then Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand. So we’re seeing a lot of demand between the US and Canada and EU and UK, and then I would say also from the UK on to Hong Kong and in UK onto Hong Kong and in Singapore, into Singapore and Thailand.
Rosaria Cain 16:40
That’s very exciting. So you probably haven’t seen that many highs and lows in Paws Abroad yet, because you’ve just really gotten moving. Although I imagine there’s a lot of highs because it’s going so well so quickly. But with your first company, what kind of highs and lows did you see that you’re kind of bringing into your second company as experience?
Marisa Hoskins 17:00
Oh my gosh, so many. I would say, well—
Rosaria Cain 17:03
I went about some of them on on LinkedIn, and I found them fascinating.
Marisa Hoskins 17:08
It’s well, I would say the biggest thing. We’ve built this really amazing community around us, like, who you do business with, is so important. And I would say we’ve got incredible investors that are supporting us. And as I mentioned, I’m building this with my brother. We’ve really got this great community of customers now, like our founding members, to kind of help, help shape this. I would say, you know, building relationships like with the right people, that makes all the world of difference. And I also always look, now is, I’m always thinking about in terms of systems thinking. I think your first business, you’re very reactive, and you’re putting out fires, whereas with Paws Abroad, I’m like, leveraging. As like, I’m talking to my customers and like, and I’m always getting great data. Like, you know, each customer has a unique thing. Like, you and I are talking about things about Beau right now, for example. And I’m like, Okay, how do I… I’m always thinking of like, you know, as I’m helping you now, how do I turn this into a process? Because this is a unique situation, right?
Rosaria Cain 18:13
Psychological bend to it, right?
Marisa Hoskins 18:16
Yes.
Rosaria Cain 18:16
Psychology and how you penetrate it.
Marisa Hoskins 18:19
Exactly. And so I’m thinking, like, okay, like, so Rosaria’s unique problem… how do I now, like, preempt this for someone else now. So every time I have, like, a new problem to help solve, it’s like, how do I leverage that to help others? Basically, is how I’m always thinking. Whereas I think your first business, you’re very reactive also, I mean going just a silly anecdote about my first business, as I mentioned, I used to do the first until we got we grew to the point we got a manufacturer that head hunted us, as I mentioned, and I used to have my day job and tech strategy, and we’d be doing the cooking in a commercial kitchen on the evenings and weekends. And it took us about a year we used to spend hours prepping vegetables and including, like, a big bin of the green beans. And it was a year in of doing this, till I realized I could buy frozen, chopped, pre chopped green beans for cheaper.
Rosaria Cain 19:15
That’s alot of stringing you don’t have to do.
Marisa Hoskins 19:20
Exactly, saving us labor time. So, yeah, those would be my biggest ones. I would say,
Rosaria Cain 19:26
Well, with this being your second company in the pet space, you’re doing things differently because of all your experience and you’re speaking to that, does anything stand out? Well, besides the frozen vegetables that you’re doing differently.
Marisa Hoskins 19:43
I mean, a lot of it, I feel like the things that I’m doing the same is the reason my first company was successful is that we built a really loyal following. So, I think having integrity in business is one of the most underrated things that you can can do in business, especially when you’re dealing… In my first business, it was dealing with pets nutrition, and in this business, it’s dealing with compliance, both are, you know, very important spaces when, like, your pets are like family. And so my first company won awards for the most nutritious pet food in Canada. So we always, firstly, had a real commitment to having, like, the best ingredients possible, and never compromising on that, and also really providing a solid customer experience. And I would say that that is something that I’ve brought into Paws Abroad as things that are the most important to me. Like, how do I improve the customer experience? And give them peace of mind, like, that’s my number one goal. Is to help pet parents feel relief. And, you know, how do I make sure that I’m always improving our processes to be be able to do that. Because, as we scale and grow, the thing that I am adamant that must always stay the same is feeling humanization, and a real personal touch to the business because if you don’t have that, I think you lose the soul of your business.
Rosaria Cain 21:15
Now that makes sense. What characteristics do you think makes a good leader.
Marisa Hoskins 21:22
I would say empathy is definitely one of them. And I think, you know, a lot of business people don’t have that. Maybe they win in the short term, but I think that, you know, in the long term, they don’t. And care. So in this case, you know, I think no one is perfect. Especially in a situation like this, and dealing with pet compliance. There’s always possibility of errors in a high risk space. I think the real— it’s not perfection, it’s more just like constantly evaluating things, looking at how do we avoid / lower our potential for margin of error as much as possible, and for like, the safety of the pet and the human and yeah, and always be having conversations with customers of like, how do we leverage what they actually want and improve.
Rosaria Cain 22:13
Well, and I imagine perseverance rates pretty high in characteristics,
Marisa Hoskins 22:19
Yeah, I would say perseverance and resilience is the big one for an entrepreneur, for sure.
Rosaria Cain 22:25
And speaking of which, has there been a moment that you really, and in either company, probably your first, because it was longer, where you thought you might, you might not get, you might not get through it?
Marisa Hoskins 22:37
Yeah, there’s definitely, yeah, without getting into the details on that one, because, yeah, there’s still some storytelling to be done there on that…
Rosaria Cain 22:51
That never ends.
Marisa Hoskins 22:53
Yeah, it’s in the works, but hopefully on a positive, on a positive note. In terms of never ending. Well, I would say my first business was very, you know, resource intensive, like with, you know, in terms of with food, right? Like, you’ve got very high margins you’re putting, as a founder, you’re having to put all of your time and resources and energy into something, and you just really have to have that, almost like a blind hope and optimism that things are going to work out. So I would say, yeah, there were definitely, definitely hard times in terms of, like, fears of, oh my gosh, this is growing, but we still have a burn rate and and, yeah, there are some things I can’t really speak about right now, because they’re ongoing in terms of that. But yes, I would say there are definitely moments like that. Whereas I think the way we’ve built Paws Abroad as a business model, we’ve also protected against those things because we’ve built all of our technology in-house and stuff like that. I think trying to build your product and business leanly is one of my best pieces of advice as an entrepreneur that can kind of protect you as you’re scaling and growing.
Rosaria Cain 24:13
Well, what’s the future of pet travel look like right now? Who are those pet travel but?
Marisa Hoskins 24:22
Well, I we hope that we become, the go-to for international pet travel. As I mentioned, we’re building like the Expedia of pet travel. We want to be like when people think about pet travel. We want to continue seeing a rise in pet travel, because there’s a market of people that already you’re thinking about relocating and traveling, and then there’s also a large number of people that are like, Oh my god, I would love to go to Europe with my dog, but it sounds so overwhelming, right? So I think we can tap into that market as well. So yeah, my vision is for us to become synonymous with pet travel. Like, oh my gosh, I want to travel the. The first place I go to get my flight, understand all the logistics I need, and then book through our infrastructure, different pet friendly amenities and travels and things like that.
Rosaria Cain 25:10
One of the things I love about your business is it’s an insight based business. What is the insight. Is the insight that, for those that don’t know, you can enjoy travel with your pet, and it’s not impossible. Is it that, or is it something different?
Marisa Hoskins 25:33
I would say you can. That is the insight, the main insight. But in terms of what pet parents are coming to us for I think that we the biggest thing that people say to me when they come. It’s like they typically book their flight first, and it’s a fear of getting something wrong. And that Paws Abroad exists to give people peace of mind. But I would say that, yeah, the insight that I want people, my goal is for people to feel like listen, with planning and with support. This is more than doable, and it’s really beautiful to travel the world with your pet.
Rosaria Cain 26:10
That sounds like it. So when you’re not traveling the world with your pet, or maybe when you’re traveling the world with your pet, what habits and routines keep you grounded?
Marisa Hoskins 26:21
I am a big fitness junkie, so I typically do, I haven’t boxed in the past few months since being in Canada, but I typically do CrossFit, and I was doing Muay Thai in Portugal and in Thailand. So I’ll get back to into Muay Thai again when I go back to.
Rosaria Cain 26:41
zcan ou tell me what that is?
Marisa Hoskins 26:43
Thai boxing.
Rosaria Cain 26:44
Oh, okay, okay,
Marisa Hoskins 26:46
Yeah, like kickboxing. So I’m not that good, but I enjoy it. I love doing different fitness things. I do hot yoga. I’m very outdoorsy. So I love, like, surfing, sailing. I was on a sailing racing team, and I’m a big, reader as well, and like, love cooking and eating. So, yeah, pretty chill. Life with my dogs, I guess.
Rosaria Cain 27:06
no, I understand. I think they’ll never disappoint you, that’s the thing about about dogs, and they’ll love you no matter what.
Marisa Hoskins 27:14
Well, they’re the best company, for sure,
Rosaria Cain 27:16
Absolutely. What would surprise people about you. Besides, you could deal a knockout blow with your boxing.
Marisa Hoskins 27:25
I’m not that good. What would people are surprised at? Um, I don’t know, that’s a good question. What would surprise? Yeah, hmm.mI mean, I guess when I say I’ve been on a sailing racing team, that’s something.
Rosaria Cain 27:44
That’s pretty good. I think that’s a great answer. Not many say that, and I am surprised so see, I’m sure many other people are too. Now you recently, in your spare time, you recently published a book, Harley and Kalinda go to Thailand, tell us about that, and what inspired you to write it, and how storytelling kind of connects with everything you do.
Marisa Hoskins 28:08
Yeah. So Harley and Kalinda, adopting them changed my life, obviously, eight years ago.
Rosaria Cain 28:16
Is Harley the big one?
Marisa Hoskins 28:18
Yes, Harley’s the golden one and Kalinda is the little one. And it’s just so funny, because my dogs, you know, I’ve had so many adventures from Hong Kong to Canada. They’ve been on TV in Canada and inspired two companies now, been to Thailand into Portugal. Yeah, just inspired the the two dogs that changed my life. I wrote a story just, it’s basically Kalinda’s perspective of traveling in cabin and Harley’s in cargo and then ending up from the eyes of a dog moving to a new place. So, you know, I think it really emotionally resonates with families or moving abroad. And I’ve had friends that have said, Oh my gosh, the number one thing that our kids ask when we’re moving is, oh my gosh, what’s going to happen to to the dog? So, yeah, that’s how it started, long term, I would love for it to take off and be a whole book series, because I can already think of six other titles in the adventures of Harley and Kalinda. But yeah, we’ll see how it goes.
Marisa Hoskins 29:08
Now, it’s a children’s book, correct?
Marisa Hoskins 29:14
Yes, it is a children’s book.
Rosaria Cain 29:23
That sounds great. Well, this was incredibly interesting, and I’m sure everyone will find it helpful. And I want to thank you so much for being on our podcast, and I wish you every success, we’ll be working together for who knows how long till we get this done, but, but you are a credit to pet owners everywhere and a need, and I’m so glad you made it on the show.
Marisa Hoskins 29:49
Thanks, Rosaria, I really enjoyed being on the show, so thank you for having me.
Rosaria Cain 29:53
Well, have a great day, and I will talk to you soon.
Marisa Hoskins 29:57
Thank you.
Rosaria Cain 29:57
Okay, bye.