The challenge: Building to scale from day one.

Roberto Bustillos didn't set out to run a dog daycare. After years as a product management director in corporate finance, a 2024 layoff opened up a window he hadn't been looking for. His friend Luis Lozada, a veterinarian with over a decade of dog daycare experience, had been talking about starting something. Roberto decided to back him.

What surprised him most wasn't how hard it was. It was how much he liked it.

"I'm doing something that I like, and I have more time," Roberto says. "It's working out."

But liking the business and being able to grow it were two different things. Roberto came in with a clear goal: build a model worth replicating across multiple locations, not just manage one. For that to work, he needed the day-to-day to run without him in the middle of it.

"My biggest fear was that I was getting into a very complicated business," he says. "I had no idea how to manage schedules or deal with payroll."

— Roberto Bustillos, co-owner of Lombard Doggy Daycare

There was also a cost challenge baked into their business model from the start. Roberto and Luis made cleanliness their main differentiator: professional deep cleans every night, strict protocols during daycare hours, a facility that looked and smelled nothing like the one that had been there before. Clients noticed immediately. So did the books. In those early months, the cleaning contract alone was eating up around 30% of monthly expenses. Roberto needed a way to track where money was going and make smarter decisions about it, without that work taking over his day.

The solution: One app for the whole operation.

Luis had used Homebase at his previous businesses and recommended it before they even opened. They started a free trial on day one and never looked back.

"I want to have everything on just one platform," Roberto says. "So I don't have to jump between different tools."

That mattered from the start. Roberto was already managing Square for payment processing, QuickBooks through their accountant, and Pet Exec for dog check-ins and vaccination records. Homebase became the tool that handled everything to do with his team: scheduling, time tracking, and payroll, all in one place, without adding more to the pile.

The scheduling setup covers five to six team members running across three shifts daily. Morning, afternoon, and evening. Employees clock in and out on mobile, with location-based verification so Roberto knows his team is on-site. When shift needs change, the app handles it without Roberto having to intervene every time.

Time tracking feeds directly into payroll, so when it's time to run payroll every two weeks, there's no reconciling hours from a separate system. The numbers are already there.

Roberto also used Homebase's job posting tools heavily in the early days to find his first hires. Once the team stabilized, the posting became less frequent. But it was there when they needed it.

"Homebase has made my life very simple."

— Roberto Bustillos, co-owner of Lombard Doggy Daycare

The impact: Payroll done in under an hour.

These days, running payroll for Lombard Doggy Daycare takes Roberto about one hour, every two weeks.

That might not sound remarkable. But when you consider that Roberto is also managing permits for a second location, scouting a third, coordinating with architects, and building the franchise model he came into this business to create, that one hour represents something significant: the rest of his time belongs to the bigger picture.

"As a business owner, the best use of my time isn't operating the business," Roberto says. "It's figuring out how to take it to the next level."

The scheduling and time tracking data Homebase captures also gives Roberto visibility into where labor is going across shifts. Early on, their biggest operating expense was professional cleaning. They hired an outside company to do a deep clean every night, which was critical to their positioning as the cleanest daycare in the neighborhood. In the early months, that cleaning cost made up around 30% of monthly expenses. Today it's down to 10 to 15%.

Roberto is careful to note that improved revenue plays a role in that shift. But having the scheduling and labor data in one place made it easier to spot where they were staffed well, where they weren't, and where money was going.

"We can focus on strategy," Roberto says. "How do we get our next location up and running? How do we deal with permits? How do we find investors? This is the stuff that helps us grow the business, rather than dealing with the day-to-day of the operation."

That's the model Roberto is now preparing to replicate. When Mountain View opens, he'll run payroll for two locations out of the same app. His operations partner will shift focus to get the new location running, a manager will step into the Lombard location, and the same system that got them here will do what it's supposed to: keep working without much owner involvement.

"We have created a model that works with minimum participation of the owner," Roberto says. "So we can focus on a strategy."

The next trick.

Roberto came into this business with a plan. Not a plan to own a dog daycare, but a plan to build something worth scaling.

He knew what that required from his corporate career. It required figuring out which parts of the operation could be standardized, then actually standardizing them. It required being honest about where his time should go and where it shouldn't. And it required building on tools that could grow with the business instead of slowing it down.

"We divide and conquer," Roberto says. "Luis runs operations. I focus on the finances and growth. That division works because the tools let it work."

Two years in, Lombard Doggy Daycare has a growing roster of loyal clients, a team with strong retention, and two locations in development. The permits are the hard part. The admin isn't.

"At the end of the day, our goal is to scale and create a franchise," Roberto says. "If I'm getting into this, I want to get into this as big as I can."

He's well on his way.

"Homebase has made my life very simple."

— Roberto Bustillos, co-owner of Lombard Doggy Daycare