Our story
Why I’m building Akyonis
Hi, I’m Celia. My partner Veronica is a dog trainer, and I build software. Akyonis grew out of our life with dogs, and a belief that the people who help dogs deserve more help themselves.
We loved our dogs. We still got it wrong.
When I was a kid, we had a Doberman. His trainer used traditional methods and a choke collar. Nobody questioned it. That was what good training looked like.
Years later, with dogs of our own, we made plenty of mistakes. We followed advice from TV, from friends, and from professionals we trusted. Eli, our dachshund, paid for it. He became reactive, and it took us a long time to see that we had helped make him that way.
Things changed when we discovered force-free, science-based training. Veronica went so deep that she became a trainer herself, and she has been studying dog behaviour ever since.
Looking back, none of it came from a lack of love. It came from a lack of knowledge. And it was Eli, not us, who carried the cost.
Listen to the dog.
That’s where the name comes from. Akouō, to listen. Kyon, dog. Akyonis means “listen to the dog”: the lesson Eli taught us, and the one every good trainer passes on.
Trainers carry the knowledge. And a lot more.
Good trainers are how dogs end up with better lives. They show owners a better way, one puppy class and one difficult walk at a time.
I see what that takes every day at home. Veronica runs Doggily, a dog training business in the Netherlands. I’ve spent twenty years building products, first at my own company, Ocaima, and then at tech scale-ups across Europe. So years ago I built a small tool to help her run it. That tool grew into Akyonis, and today she runs Doggily on it.
The work itself is demanding. The dog who is struggling. The owner who is finding it hard to put the advice into practice. The session that went well and still left her drained.
Then comes the business side: clients, bookings, packages, invoices, messages late in the evening. Most trainers run all of it on their own, making every decision alone, with no one to think it through with.
What I want for every trainer
When I think about the trainers I’ve met, I don’t want to give them another app. I want them to have someone on their side.
Someone who knows the whole business: every client, every dog, every package, every session. Who tells them what needs their attention today, keeps the admin moving without being asked, and does the work it can do alone, so they only have to say yes. And someone to think things through with when a decision is hard.
That’s what I’m building Akyonis to be, for every trainer who runs their business on their own.
Less weight on their shoulders means more energy for the dogs. And trainers who stay in the job reach more dogs.
Let’s talk
I’d love to hear how you run your business: what works, and what drives you up the wall. Book 30 minutes with me, or send a message.
Get in touch