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Latest / The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

7 Years to Profit: The Hamster Ball Reinvented

"There were three or four years straight where we were like, if it doesn't go the way we need it to go, we'll close it down at the end of the year -- and then year end comes and we're just like, close enough to keep going."

Ethan Haber was a college sophomore with a studio art degree, a hamster named Mooksy, and a problem: the hamster ball hadn't been improved since the 1970s. So he invented a better one. Then came COVID, molds stuck at the Port of Long Beach, a packaging supplier who switched materials without telling him, four years of unprofitability, and social media backlash from people…

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