🥇 Larette Took First Place - and Rewrote How Animal Rescues Run

<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><img height="648" width="1232" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cR0i!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb1dc8133-c96d-46dc-a8ad-1b80ac2bb1f3_1232x648.png"></figure></div><p>Larette isn’t built for a market with healthy margins. It’s built for the people who show up every week, unpaid, to keep rescue animals alive.</p><div class="native-video-embed"></div><div><hr></div><h3>The Project: Larette</h3><p>Larette is a sidekick for animal rescue volunteer coordinators - the people managing end-to-end operations alongside paying jobs. It replaces 4–5 disconnected tools and a 100+ step manual process with one system designed around how coordinators actually work: structured data extraction from casual carer updates, integrated matching logic, and a full adoption pipeline. Built alongside a real pilot organisation in Australia from day one.</p><blockquote><p>“We have been building alongside our pilot organisation from the start of the accelerator - there was no room for shortcuts.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>Why the Women in AI Accelerator?</h3><p>Sruthi came in with a specific problem, not a broad domain to explore - and that turned out to be the right call.</p><blockquote><p>“I wanted to understand what AI was actually capable of by building something real with it rather than reading about it. I walked away with a grounded view of what is possible and the confidence that the best way to learn is to just start building.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>Challenges</h3><p>The hardest part of the build was invisible to anyone watching the demo.</p><blockquote><p>“Getting security right for real organisational data took far more time than any visible feature. Row-level security, multi-org data isolation, auth hardening, prompt injection, SQL injection, secret key management - I was learning cybersecurity fundamentals alongside the build. If you are building with real user data, do not underestimate this part.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>Highlights</h3><p>The technical wins mattered. The human moments mattered more.</p><blockquote><p>“Taking the partner organisation through the first demo and sharing that excitement with them. Seeing real data on real dogs start trickling into the system for the first time. The showcase and the few minutes before kick off - looking around and reflecting on how much energy the programme had generated.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>What’s Next?</h3><p>The foundations are still being locked in for the pilot, with a second rescue organisation lined up as the next validation test.</p><blockquote><p>“Onboarding a second rescue organisation over the next few months is the next real test. Longer term, the goal is to expand to rescue organisations across Australia and New Zealand.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>Advice for Future Builders</h3><p>Get to a real user before you fall in love with your solution.</p><blockquote><p>“Get in front of a real user as soon as possible. The problem you think you are solving and the real problem may not match. Your time is best spent learning how to build for a real solution, not just to build.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><h3>Big Picture: Point AI at the Right Problems</h3><p>Most AI investment flows toward large addressable markets. The organisations doing the most social good sit almost entirely outside that framework.</p><blockquote><p>“Builders have to choose it - and that choice is available to more people now than it has ever been.”</p></blockquote><div><hr></div><p>📌 <strong>Connect with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sruthipillai/">Sruthi</a> on LinkedIn</strong></p><div><hr></div><p><em>Larette was built as part of the Build Club Women in AI Accelerator. Want to follow along with what our community is building? <a href="https://buildclub.substack.com/">Subscribe to Build Club Wrapped.</a></em></p>