The Future is Cltch
My name is Justin Kobylka, and I’m obsessed with Ball Pythons.
It’s a truth I’ve reckoned with since I started working with the species in 2003, when I spent every spare moment tracking new combos, scribbling Punnett squares, and planning (and re-planning) pairings.
I had a small collection back then, so I lived vicariously through others’ breeding endeavors online. A top breeder named Ralph Davis posted breeding records, outcomes, and clutch photos on his website, and I followed his updates religiously. I “wasted” more time than I care to admit scanning through every one of his clutches and dreaming of creating such incredible snakes.
When I began producing my own dream combos in 2008, I followed in Ralph’s footsteps by sharing my clutches on my website throughout the breeding season. As other keepers and aspiring breeders dreamed along with me, my “incubator” page grew in popularity, eventually garnering over 100,000 annual visits.
But by 2020, my site was feeling ancient. The incubator was still hugely valuable to my followers as it allowed them to keep up with my projects in real-time; however, it was clunky and nearly impossible to search, rendering it useless to my business from a records-keeping standpoint. As a result, keeping it up-to-date was starting to feel like a major chore – one I simply didn’t have time for as my business continued to scale.
I began conversing with my friend Sebastian of Showcase Serpents about my dilemma. I wanted to continue sharing my clutch records, but efforts from various web designers to modernize my site had yet to hit the mark. Having founded a software startup recently, Sebastian offered to take on the project himself. He was convinced his team at Method Data could revamp my incubator page from an old-fashioned blog to a fully functional, searchable database.
As we laid out plans and discussed my incubator’s ideal features, we discovered the need for an animal ID system so customers could quickly look up records for the snakes they had purchased from me. At that point, we had an epiphany: we were no longer building a web page but a Ball Python inventory system. It was immediately clear such a platform would be transformative for my business – and, more importantly, for breeders and hobbyists everywhere.
In May 2021, I flew to Washington, DC, to meet with the development team for a whirlwind brainstorming session. How could we turn this wild idea into an incredible reality? Using my twenty-years worth of knowledge of the reptile industry and their technical expertise, we explored every possibility – some big, some small, and some crazy. Six hours later, we had a wall full of sticky notes and a vision for the future of Ball Python keeping in the modern age: Cltch.
Cloud-based software that makes managing your Ball Python collection simple.
Learn more at cltch.io.
Current Features
After much anticipation, Cltch officially launched to the public at 9:00 AM Eastern, February 9, 2023! We’re offering all users a 30-day free trial of Cltch premium so everyone can discover the power of their collection through the streamlined simplicity of our service.
We’re just getting started, and the future is ripe with possibilities for improvements, advancements, and expanded features for Cltch. We can’t wait for what’s next.
