The dearie industry continue to grow chop-chop , and now more pet owners than ever before wish they could aggregate their passion for dogs and cat with their entrepreneurial intent . If you ’ve been thinking about developing , marketing , and sell favourite supply or a specific mathematical product for pet owner , this podcast episode is for you .
Today ’s podcast guest isBarton O’BrienfromThe Chesapeake Bay Dog Company , a veteran - run eCommerce business enterprise selling dissimilar types of blackguard supplies and donating a dowry of earnings to charities . I ’ve interviewed Barton about his start and first struggle in thepet industriousness , and he also deal some helpful lead on denounce and running an online domestic dog supplies eCommerce storehouse .
heed to the instalment in the TV above and find the full podcast copy below . For more , visit this episode ’s post on the officialTheory of Petswebsite .
How to Break Into the Pet Industry(Podcast Transcript)
INTRO : Hello , and receive back for another episode of hypothesis of Pets . I have latterly find out a pipeline of cad product that is currently my favorite to use with our missy . We have a coffee Labrador Retriever , Sadie , who librate about 75 pounds , and then we have a little Beagle commixture identify Molly , and she was just under 30 pounds , so finding aproduct linethat can see our needs for both dogs can be kind of knavish . But the other daylight I stumble upon a company calledBAYDOGand it ’s the Chesapeake Bay Dog Company , their brand is BAYDOG . They have a telephone circuit of harness , collars , leashes , and dog toys , and they have a kickshaw pocket as well . And they actually customize their ancestry , one is for smaller breeds and one is for a larger strain .
After doing some research into the company , I realized that I in reality had heard of these products before , they used to be called Your Perfect Puppy . And I actually brush up their production for our sister site Topdogtips.com about a year ago . I did not actualise that they rebranded . One of the struggles that I encounter with the Your Perfect Puppy production were that they were really durable and made with quality materials , but they were a short bit too hard for our smaller dog , and little did I know the company actually make that as well . So they rebranded , they ’re now BAYDOG , The Chesapeake Bay Dog Company . It ’s actually a ex-serviceman owned line .
Today I got to talk with Barton O’Brien , who is the owner and creator of The Chesapeake Bay Dog Company . He discussed with me their merchandise , and we talked about being a veteran owned patronage and how that affects what he does with his byplay and how he run his business . So I got a lot of slap-up gratuity from him . He talked about the rebranding procedure as well . I mean that anybody that ’s out there that either has a small company that makes one or two products right now and you ’re attend to blow up or anybody out there that ’s looking to stigmatise a product or rebrand this is some really good information that I was happy to have .
So I ’m go to let you guy wire listen to the interview and hopefully you got as much out of it as I did speaking with Barton .
Interview with Barton O’Brien
Samantha : Barton , thank you so much for being here today . I really appreciate your clip . Can you get down out by telling our hearer a little bit about yourself , your military service and thank you very much for that by the way . And also just about how you got switched into the pet industry , because that ’s apparently quite a big saltation .
Barton : Yeah sure , so I started out in the military machine after college I went to the naval academy and I served as a marine for eight and a half days . And after the nautical corps I get out , go back to calibrate school day and end up turn in finance . I moved to London for a while and then I move back to New York and I worked in kind of a what I would call a complicated area of finance and structured acknowledgment . One twenty-four hour period I just woke up and said , you know what , I do n’t want to do this anymore , it ’s not what I see myself doing . If I ’m proceed to be in the business world I want to have my own companionship .
So I quit my caper and the very next day I nibble up my new puppy and I always desire to have a dog but as a leatherneck who was gone all the sentence and then crop on Wall Street and traveling all the time I just could never have a dog . So the first thing I did when I leave office my job and decided to take a couple month off was go out and get a puppy .
Samantha : Oh wow .
Barton : Yeah , and I nominate him Walter and he ’s now a dog , he ’s just turn three . I pass the first few months just civilise him . As you know having an eight workweek honest-to-god pup is a full time job .
Samantha : Absolutely .
Barton : And how I got to thepet industriousness , ab initio , if you ’re conversant with it , there ’s a caller called , puppyspot.com and their business model was my original idea , which was basically , helping people discover dogs and then demand care of that whole checklist of thing that you need to do for the great unwashed who want to purchase a dog , instead of deliver a pawl . Puppy Spot has taken my musical theme and gone bananas with it and done a really good job and make a company . I had the musical theme , but I did n’t know how to how to monetize it really .
So I had come up with this mind , and I called it Your Perfect Puppy . And matter of fact , if you mind to their radio spot , they even say it will serve you regain your perfect puppy and they put “ your utter puppy ” on their internet site . But I always thought , I have an idea or two for a production and maybe I can create those and maybe we can sell them online and that could be kind of a side stream of taxation for Your Perfect Puppy which was the name of my original company . What I found out passably quickly was I did n’t really empathize the financial framework of Your Perfect Puppy and I could n’t make it lick . But the merchandise I was creating were becoming kind of popular with store owner in the local area . So I made the decision you screw what , maybe I should just focalize on that . When I created a few products I retrieve well you know everybody ’s selling everything online now , so we ’ll make products and packaging that ’s staring for amazon.com and for vitamin E - commerce . And that ’s what I did .
So like our deuce-ace came in these really skillful boxes and things like that , but as it turn out , really our business was centered on the sweeping side and memory board owners want something that displays properly in a retail setting . So our leases coming in boxes and our treat pouch coming in boxes it was n’t a great tantrum , but people really like the product so they bought them anyway and we ended up in about 300 stores . I kind of realized , we live in Annapolis , Maryland and my workfellow Molly , who solve here , we were talking , we said if we ’re last to grow this into a literal business instead of just a brace of products , we in all likelihood demand to reinvent the company for retail .
Our idea was to , if you ’re familiar with the brand Vineyard Vines in New England ?
Samantha : Yes , I really I live in Maine , so yes .
Barton : OK , certain . So , Vineyard Vines is a great trade name , and they ’re kind of centered around Martha ’s Vineyard and that whole kind of New England coastal lifestyle . But whether you ’re buying a Vineyard Vines shirt in Arizona or in Massachusetts , it ’s always got that kind of geographic affiliation with it , with a sealed lifestyle . And we go to the Maryland waterbird festival which I did n’t even know survive , but Molly spring up up here and she ’s been go since she was a little kid . I did n’t even actualize this , but the Chesapeake Bay where we endure is the best duck’s egg hunting part in the world . And with that there ’s a lot of sporting wienerwurst acculturation , and we went to this thing that we sell one thousand of dollars of dog harness in just a couple of days .
We resolve to create a fellowship that like Vineyard Vines for people has a geographic and ethnical affiliation . Only instead of Martha ’s Vineyard , ours is the Chesapeake Bay . That ’s how our business , The Chesapeake Bay Dog Company came about and we sell into the brand BAYDOG .
So what we did was we took those original Your Perfect Puppy products and we upgraded all the promotional material and made it great for retail and we really listen to our store owners about what they wanted to see . We upgraded all of the products and then we built out the line to be a more complete transmission line , that a fund owner can stockpile the full contrast instead of just one or two products . We re launched the company as BAYDOG , just at the Global Pet Expo about three week ago .
Samantha : congratulation on that , that ’s very exciting . First of all , give thanks you for your service . My husband too he was he was in the army , but he was in the war machine . So thank you for your servicing , of course .
And for anybody that ’s listening that follows my reviews and my article on Top Dog Tips I ’ve actually tried — I conceive it was late last year — theYour Perfect Puppy product , the harness and the tether and the treat pouchas well . So I did reviews on those . I intend along with what you say , I agree with the packaging and things like that . But , the products are very high quality . One of the thing that I noted in my review for our viewers , I always have people call for me for character product at a fair price point . Quite often people in thepet industrywill urge , bed come to mind , they ’ll recommend these like super awesome orthopedical dog beds , but they cost four hundred dollars , and not everybody can give that . you could see that in any type of product and especially I think with training products for wiener , you could just get into these extortionate terms point that people ca n’t afford .
So that was another matter that I really liked about Your Perfect Puppy , it ’s not only were they quality intersection , they were at a monetary value percentage point that most people can afford . So I was happy to see the rebranding into BAYDOG . Now , you have some other harness and additional products add up out , which is majuscule , I ’m excited to try those . I actually just pick up some that I ’m going to be test out and posting reviews for those as well . And when it put this up on … Oh , sorry , go onward .
Barton : No , I was move to say , I can make a duad of head on that . So as part of the BAYDOG rebranding one matter we decide was strategically as a company we ’re go to be dedicate 100 % to supporting main retailers , which intend we ’re not going to be on Amazon and we ’re not going to be on Chewy . You ’re never going to have a customer take the air into your store if you ’re a stock owner , see a BAYDOG harness , seek it on your frank and then pull out your phone and buy it for eight bucks less on Amazon . So we ’re 100 % attached to support the main retailers . And as part of that we had to mean about if we ’re going to be in stores where are we ’re going to go in the retail structure and this is to your tip about a quality product at a good price .
So we adjudicate to make products that compete with the premium brands in the market so Ruffwear , EzyDog , Kurgo — I think our products really do vie on that layer . But mean about some of their harness that you see retail for $ 40 , I conceive our Chesapeake harness is as good as anything on the market , even good than most . And we endeavor to keep the retail damage around # 30. So when I think about it from a store owner ’s view , they all have kind of a commoditized trade name which are your basic trey , collars , harness and then they have a stride up trade name , a premium steel for people that want a nicer option . That ’s where we desire , to be , but we want to be that alternative that people can afford instead of having to pay for $ 40 for a harness or $ 30 for a leash .
Samantha : Yeah , perfectly . I correspond . Often prison term people look purely at price point and then you ’re shop for a III that be you four dollar , at Walmart or one of the big box stores and it ’s a very thin , tacky nylon product that ’s going to scratch and come asunder and you ’re pop off to end up bribe another tierce down the road . So I think one of the things I always recommend to people is do n’t look strictly a price pointedness , but at the same meter everybody ’s on a budget and you do have to factor in that . So bump the gamy quality product at the lowest price point does emphatically for me , seem to be one of the biggest issues for best-loved parents and it ’s not just in supply like leashes and harness , but everything from nutrient to grooming products and everything else . So that really piqued my stake about your party . And another thing that interested me was the fact that you guy are focused on the small retailers . In this day and years you see very few companies that in reality do that , most of them do n’t care how they betray the product and how they make a profit as long as it get out to people . So the fact that you stand behind your smaller retailers and the independent retailers , that ’s a big attractor for me as well
Barton : Yeah I conceive there ’s … Nowadays you kind of have to be one or the other as a new ship’s company . It ’s tough to do both . If you ’re a premium name in the manufacture , then you could do that , as a young caller we ’re not . So we decided that we ’re dependable off go with self-governing stores and so far we ’re in several hundred stores already . I retrieve when we produce our pricing structure we essay to make enough margin in there to accommodate distributors as well . So our veridical focal point is on bump the right distributor and the right sales reps to get the marque out there , because we know when store owner see it , touch it , sense it and look at the price point that they ’re start to want to dribble our line .
Samantha : Do you think that being a old stager gives you any advantages in the business earth . Do you consider some of the matter that you learned in the military you carry over with you into your commercial enterprise scheme ?
Barton : Well I cerebrate everything . I mean , for me personally my experience , I spend eight year as a marine , but then I went to fine-tune school , then I work on Wall Street and in the business world a little bit . So I call up bringing all of those experiences together kind of guided my thought process when I guess through BAYDOG . But , here ’s the thing about our business , you know , I make the prank it ’s not Airbnb . We ’re not disrupt anything . This is never go to be a skyrocket in terms of growth , just because these are me too intersection . I intend we launch a dog harness that I think is a really first-class andiron harness , but there ’s a lot of dog harness out there . Our leashes are really well made and they ’ve arrest a couple small twists that differentiate them , but they ’re still bounder leashes .
So if we ’re going to contend in this manufacture , we have to do something that other people do n’t . So it ’s not just going to be provided quality product at a in effect cost , in a timely manner . It ’s aim to be being dedicated specifically to retailers and having the good client divine service and agreement that the customer ’s always correct and doing the piddling thing right . And then being creative about our Cartesian product personal line of credit . You get it on , it ’s gon na be a lot of work .
Samantha : Yeah , absolutely . And I know BAYDOGS so you have begin place out the harnesses and things like that . But it sounds like you have some plan already for the future as well , toexpand your mathematical product line ?
Barton : Yeah , so I just spend a week overseas , working with our producer and our designers , to expand the line . And they get the products absolutely correct . We ’re very particular , as to who we partner with for yield . So we ’re coming out with a dog backpack that I remember will … So it ’ll be a two piece haversack , it will have a harness , which will be standardised to our current Chesapeake harness , only it will be a bigger and padded on both side to adapt a clip on rucksack , which has a lot of little extras in it as well . We ’re look to launch that in at least two people of colour to start and we may expand that in likely four size . Then along with that we ’ll have adog life jacket , we ’re just finalizing the intent this calendar week and we ’ll go our production run . So hopefully by the end of the summer we can have dog life jackets out on the securities industry . Then we ’re work really hard with a couple intriguer on our own line of like dip bounder apparel . Holy Scripture I never thought I ’d say . [ laugh ]
But , you make out , we live in the Chesapeake Bay and it become really dusty this past year and my dog who ’s a laboratory who make out the snow , there were some days where we ’d be take the air down the street and the ice and the salinity really bothered his paw and you just enjoin he was freeze down . And he halt and start to lick his paw . So we ’re looking at possibly some dog boots for them just to keep this ice and the common salt out of their paw and keep the dogs lovesome . So we ’re looking at launching that this fall piece of work . And if you look at our line and you look at our blade , The Chesapeake Bay Dog Company , we ’re very aware to keep everything consistent in the same kind of style . I mean you’re able to get in trouble if you render to do too much and endeavor to get all over the plaza .
Samantha : Yeah , dead . I agree with that .
Barton : Yeah those are the things we ’re focused on . We forever have multitude come up to us saying — hey , you could make collars with this figure on them and that design on them . The other matter is you make to be deliberate how many SKUs you have . We have a 109 SKUs at the moment and I think when it ’s all sound out and done , we could be closer to probably 300 . But if you start up getting a collection that ’s much bigger than that , then really it becomes overpowering for storage owner .
Samantha : I mean it becomes overwhelming for preferent owners as well . You know , that ’s one of the thing that I often find out from masses is that , they hear bigger company , they listen good affair about the company , but then when you look and they offer fifteen different harnesses or 15 different colors it ’s , like you ’ve narrowed it down to a dependable high quality company , but how do you pick out between the 15 dissimilar options that they propose that are all fairly exchangeable , but have just a few differences . So I think that ’s important to centre on as well .
Barton : Yeah you know you bring up earlier that we want a 2nd harness and the conception is still the same . So all of our product are basically designed for my frank Walter . But my dog you know he ’s kind of a dumpy 100 dog pound laboratory . I ’ll give you an instance . Our treat pocket , which was really our first product , I was take the air home from the click parking lot just after I gotten him , he was probably 12 weeks old and we ’d been playing fetch with a tennis ball and it was all slobbery and I did n’t want to put it in my pocket because it ’s disgusting . I had one of the petty charge card poop bag dispenser on my III and it broke and the shite bags unraveled and went all over the pavement . And I had a pocketful of dog treats because I was training him at the time and I would inevitably forget the dog treat were in there and I would put them through the washables and that was just a mess . I guess , well I can solve all three of these products in one .
So that ’s when I make what is now our Frisco Bay Treat Pouch and there ’s a lot of treat pouches out there . This is the only one I have sex of that attaches straight to your leash handle and so it ’s kind of always quick at your fingertips when you ’re walking your dog and it ’s got a little meshwork air pocket that you may put a slobbery lawn tennis ball in and it ’s got a little tail base dispenser on the side , so it kind of work all three of those problems . But it ’s also buzz off a large alloy belt cartridge holder on the back . So if you do n’t want to use it when you ’re walking your dog , if you want to use it for off - leash these preparation sessions , you ’ve got that optionality . And it ’s contract a velcro pocket on the outside so you may put like a credit card or ID or some money in there . So essentially it ’s got everything you need while you ’re walking your dog .
So I created that for my dog , Walter . Then I creative a harness for him . I want a harness with a handle of the back so I could apply it to pull him out of the piddle or get out him off another dog if he ’s feeling kind of amorous or , you sleep together you always have a cause …
Barton : — to be to get control of your detent . So we produce a really nice cushioned harness , but it ’s really not made for little dogs and so we set in motion it with a size of it extra small but we did n’t sell a lot of them . So we realized that it ’s just not a practiced harness for a 10 pound weenie . So what we did is we created a whole Modern line of credit of harnesses , all four size be below our current small and I believe that ’s one of the ones we sent you . It ’s made to be the same concept , it still has a handle on the back , it ’s still lard and it still has all the benefit of the bigger harness , but it ’s made for a 10 Ezra Loomis Pound dog . And we cushion the colouration up a little bit and this get along in a different range of mountains of colour , you know , slightly more womanly soft color like bluish green and pink and violet .
Then we realized that our terzetto are also just big strapping three made for a 100 pound pawl . So what we did then is we create a newfangled three and we equal that to the small harness . So now we have products that are n’t just made for my weenie , but are made for everybody ’s wiener .
Samantha : And come from someone who has tested those production and has two dogs that are very different in size , we have our cocoa lab Sadie who count about 75 Cypriot pound and then we have a little beagle intermixture , Molly and she weighs about 28 Sudanese pound . So when I tested the Your Perfect Puppy products that is one of the thing that I noticed , particularly with the leash it was wider and beefier like you articulate . It worked for her mulct , but it was definitely a little bit too self-aggrandizing for the smaller dog . So I ’m excited to taste the BAYDOG harness with her and check that out and see .
We live in Maine , so we ’re kind of the same climate that you are , seasons change , we get some grievous weather condition in the winter time and we ’re very dynamic with our detent , we do a lot of hiking , a good deal of walking , a heap of things with them . My parents live on the river so they ’re swimming almost every twenty-four hours in the summertime time . And like you tell , thing like receive just aharness to lift your dogup out of the urine , if you ’re very active with your dog you lie with how important a little detail like that can be . Just having that harness to catch if you ’re on a tramp trail and another tramper comes by or somebody come with a dog that might come near your click , just having that control . It ’s simple thing like that I intend that you ’ve put a lot of thought into that will really benefit the favored possessor that are depend at BAYDOG product .
Barton : Yeah and then we had to upgrade the packaging , so they display properly . It did n’t retail and so we project these really courteous hangar tags that have the size chart on the back and all of that . And then the last affair is we we have to guarantee our product . Any time you have a product like a andiron harness that ’s going to get masticate on and that is tailor by human hands , you ’re going to have an government issue finally , you ’re going to have a harness seed sunk or a dog ’s going to masticate his way through a harness .
Samantha : Of course . Yeah , perfectly .
Barton : Yeah , it ’s gon na happen . So we have to stand by our product . So we volunteer 100 % money back guarantee with everything that we make .
Samantha : That ’s fantastic . Again , something that I hear a lot of pet proprietor kick about is and even with the products from the higher cost point , if you ’re expend money on a quality products , but the customer serve after you buy it is not very good that can be very frustrating for pet owners that I spent $ 60 on this harness and now I have a problem with it but they ’re not go to help you . It would have been a draw better to grease one’s palms a twenty or thirty dollar harness , but the company will stand behind it if something does happen . So I think that ’s decidedly something significant that pet parent need to remember as well .
Barton : Yeah and I do n’t know the anecdote but there ’s something along the lines of if you have a bad experience you ’ll tell 10 hoi polloi and if you have a good experience you ’ll state five the great unwashed .
Samantha : Yeah , how true is that .
Barton : Yeah , so you emphatically want to avert those big experience for consumer .
Samantha : Oh certainly .
Barton : But as far as being a veteran and commercial enterprise goes , I think some the great unwashed when they … And we just designed some signage along those lines and put it in the computer storage , when they see that we ’re a ex-serviceman owned company , that oftentimes will impress the bargain decision because hoi polloi like to support veteran own businesses .
Samantha : Yeah , certainly , dead .
Barton : And we support a few veteran Greek valerian that are seasoned dog charities actually , if you will . Like saveavet.org and The Warrior Dog Foundation that help transitioning service of process dogs .
Samantha : Oh , that ’s fantastical .
Barton : Yeah .
Samantha : Again , I have to give thanks Barton for speaking with me , take time out of his sidereal day to do this consultation . Again , I learned a raft while I was talking to Barton about the stigmatisation process and what goes into the rebranding . I also , as I suppose have done an all-inclusive revaluation on the BAYDOG harness and leashes as well as their kickshaw pouch , so if you guys want to see that , that is on our babe site — Topdogtips.com I can share a link to that as well underneath this podcast .
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