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Data-Driven Decision Making: Eliminating Costly Marketing Waste with Lanette Fidrych · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, and welcome back to the growth class.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Phil Massiello, your host, and today's guest, someone who didn't just find a gap in the market.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: She saw a pile of waste to turn it into a powerhouse brand.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lynette Fidrick is the founder of Cycledog, an Oregon-based company that has reclaimed over two million pounds of rubber to create some of the most durable, eco-friendly pet products in the world.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Lynette left a high-level career at Nike to chase an idea that started with a single sewing machine and a heap of discarded bike tubes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we talk a lot on the show about the why behind the buy and creating products that actually solve problems.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lynette scaled a US-based manufacturing facility, patented the pup top bottle opener collar, and built a brand that prioritizes sustainability over fast growth, fluff.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lynette, welcome to the show.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for taking the time to come in.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take us back and explain a little bit more in depth of what I started?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I'm sure I butchered your your uh background and uh I did my best.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, so if you could take us back and sort of go uh tell us about the whole thing and how it got started and what you've been doing and how long you've been doing it for.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So back in 2009, I left my career at Nike to start a pet products company.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: At the time I had two Labradors, and I started making collars and leashes for them out of my flat inner tubes.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And people love the product, and so I thought, well, I'll start a small brand.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And within about three months, I was too busy to maintain my corporate job and do, you know, sew and sale and sells and stuff like that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, so now it's been 16 years and we have grown from a small collar and leash brand, and now we're full line um hard goods for pets.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we do uh waterproof dog beds, waterproof dog collars and leashes with the inner tube rubber and the pup top bottle opener.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: We also do a full line of plush toys that are made here in the US, which is pretty unique because we're the only manufacturer of domestically made plush toys for dogs.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we do bowls, we do picket bag holders, so you name it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: We do it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't do food.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good because food is like uh a little bit more difficult, you know, and plus everybody's always worried about the ingredients.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so it must be nice to play with dogs all day.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, really.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have four myself, but we also have an on-site uh dog park where we actually test in all of our prototypes and things like that.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we get to see lots and lots of customer dogs as well.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: We uh since since I started well, actually before when I had um uh the shaving company, we had uh a bring your dog to work policy.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You could bring your dogs to work and uh you know, and I thought it was great because I always brought my dogs with me everywhere, still do.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um I just love that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think everybody else did too, because it sort of makes you feel, I don't know, it's kind of fun.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we had the the place that we had our office in, we had a little fenced in back, and so the dogs would be outside playing with each other all day, which is kind of cool.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't get to sit in the house all day, you know.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it it definitely brings a nice sense of calm and and stress resistance to the workplace.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we used to joke when we first started, uh, we had Hannah and Reagan, which were my two Labradors at the time, and they were the HR department.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if you had a if you had a qualm or you were having problems you went and talked to Hannah and Reagan about it, and you'd go pat the dog, and then you felt bad.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: My kids always uh my kids always joked around that my dogs did security for the company, you know.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So but you know, my dogs couldn't secure anything.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: They don't what my one dog, if if somebody comes to the house, he just gets on his back expecting you to pet his stomach.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not really a security dog.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, tell us about you know, t the the the show is all about how you built a business, how you scaled a business.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us about sort of you know that pathway, because it must not have been easy.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you, you know, you started, you were doing one thing, and then you kept growing and expanding.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So can you kind of take us through that real quick about how you did it and how you're manufacturing in the US efficiently and all the other pieces to what you built around the brand?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when we started, I I was I worked at Nike as a product manager.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was very much part of the go-to-market team.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I started Cycle Dog, it was all about that same thing.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: You go to market.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you build a product, you build a brand, you have brand cohesion, you have a marketing strategy, and then we immediately went to retail.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we immediately started a wholesale business.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sold direct to consumer through our website, but really the foundation of our business was wholesale.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so we found the best trade shows to go to.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I found the very, you know, the biggest account I could find in the Pacific Northwest that sold pet, called them up.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did a lot and lots and lots and lots of cold calling, and I still do.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that sales part was challenging, but also I felt like I came at it with a really strong retail background.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a good idea of merchandising and how to sell things in and how to make that happen.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it was helpful and challenging to build a product here in the US because back in 2009, people didn't really care about American made product.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the instant assumption was, well, that's going to be really expensive.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other, the other challenge that we faced was, oh, that's so cute.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: You make that in your basement.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and for 10 years, I would still get family friends being like, Oh, you're still doing that cute little dog collar company.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, oh my gosh.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So having people actually take you seriously as a manufacturer was really hard.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even still, sometimes people are shocked that we make our product here in the US and that we run a full-scale sewing factory and we have 30 people that come in and produce the product every day.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think because there's a lack of knowledge about what USA manufacturing is and what that looks like, and there's this huge assumption that everything is made overseas, and if you're going to build a product, you go find a factory and you have it made.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that those misconceptions were challenging because we had to overcome this kind of home hobby um assumption of our business.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, and also just longevity, you know, it was uh building a lot of trust with retailers to figure out, you know, how long is this brand going to be around?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are they gonna make it?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna invest shelf space and and that kind of stuff?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um those challenges still exist.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, after 16 years, we are definitely um seeing a change in the demand for American-made goods and seeing the value in that and what that means for a consumer.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's pretty unique.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I I say it all the time when I go to a trade show.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I said, How many products do you own that you can literally call the person who made it and ask them about it?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Oh, I didn't even think about that.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you call us on the phone and you're gonna talk to somebody who made it, designed it, packaged it, shipped it for you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, that's what American manufacturing is, is you you have this, then you know that the people behind it really care about the product that they're making and the and the you know, success and safety of the product that you're producing as well.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So um those are definitely foundational things that people care about now that they didn't before.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So well, I think it depends on the category, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we we um we were in the skincare business in the beauty business, and we we manufactured domestically, and uh we always put that on the label.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is going back twenty-five years, and it was important because with beauty I think uh there was so much uh in the press about bad ingredients that were coming from overseas that found their way into you know, bad uh um makeup and skincare.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then we were in the shaving business and you know, but we we didn't do it because um we did it strategically for business because I prefer to find products or manufacture in the US because the turnaround is so much faster.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're dealing with uh, you know, product coming from overseas, I don't care where it's coming from, you know, you wind up with problems at the port, you wind up with problems clearing customs, you wind up with time on the water to get it here, you wind up with all these logistics issues.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're selling and you're starting to scale and you're building, it's really difficult to react when you've got like a three or four month lead time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: We tried our hand at the fashion business, which we shouldn't have done, but we did it anyway.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um And that's a that's uh you have to basically be a soothsayer in to be in that business successfully because you've got to be thinking 18 months out, you know, in order to figure out what people are gonna wear, what the colors are gonna be.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't have that DNA, so it was not a good business for us to be in.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we gave it a shot and it it didn't work so well.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, you know, if you could f do anything domestically today, or even, you know, 20 years ago, it was so much better to be and so much uh more effective to build a business, I think, because you could react and you could get things done and you can change things.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, you can find out from the customer.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: A customer calls you up and gets you on the phone and says, I don't like this, I don't like this.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you if you get 10 or 15 and you see the pattern, you can react and fix it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you're dealing with somebody overseas, you know, it's a process to fix or make a change.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I 100% agree.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what so when I was at Nike, we operated on those 18-month lead times.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I would be building a product and trying to estimate what what people would be into in 18 months.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there was lots of tools to try to, you know, trend resources and things like that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was challenging.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, you know, your product went straight to, you know, Nike liquidation because we were wrong.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me starting a brand, making it here and having full control over that process was really important.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it gave us and still does a huge opportunity to test things in the market.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it gives us so much flexibility that if we want to try something out, we try it out.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't sell or we need to change something about it, or something about it wasn't quite right, we're not stuck with this huge amount of inventory.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my favorite thing to do when I get phone calls from these inventory buyers that are like, oh, you know, what do you have that's sitting on your shelf that you want to get rid of?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, nothing.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what do you mean?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we don't make anything that we're not already planning to sell to somebody.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're able to try a lot of things before we commit to this huge amount of resources against it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we're buying materials and we keep materials on hand, but I think my favorite thing to do is we can try out anything we want.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have a a new print design that we want to try and like, oh, this is really interesting.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: We can literally design it and put it out in the market within about four weeks.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if it totally flops out, we're really not out that much.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't make it again.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine, you know?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there's, you know, we can do seasonal things and not worry about, oh man, what if I bought too many Christmas trees?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't make that many.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not like we're making it right before it ships out the door.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: We do forecasts, but we don't have to have a six-month forecast or an 18-month forecast, or, you know, hope that we bought enough.
• 12:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to be in control of your whole manufacturing process and your whole go-to-market strategy is a huge asset.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not possible for every type of domestic product, but for me as a sewer and running a sewing company, I mean, made sense for me.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought that, you know, for us, the the only holdup in beauty uh that like because we could react very, very quickly.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: The only holdup was really packaging, but there was so much flexibility for us, the way we built our brand, that we had multi-use packaging.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was really the only thing because packaging generally comes from overseas.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's really diff it's really hard to get around that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when we were in the shaving business, though, we were fortunate in that we partnered with the the second largest razor company and they were manufacturing in Tennessee.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if we needed a product, it was in Tennessee.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could get it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was perfect.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we could run down there if we had to and and and pick it up.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, it was it was good.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I again I do that because not because I'm all, you know, let's make an America and all that stuff.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of business.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's better to to be able to react and to be able to change, to be able to control.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, we tried our hand in the beauty business.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We were asked to, because we were doing we built the beauty brand on the shopping channels, and then someone came to us and asked us if we could build their their um fashion brand.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was a fish out of water.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a brand.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I can barely dress myself, let alone like and we brought in other people that didn't underst that did understand that business, but God, I I just couldn't understand how you can try and be that far out.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there are tools, but still you have to you really have to know that business to be able to say, well, women are gonna wear this.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like guys are easy, I think, right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, they're gonna wear a certain type of clothes and now you're just changing colors, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's and if you're wrong, you know, blue is blue and black is black, and you're gonna be able to sell it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But women, oh, it's totally different, man.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole different world.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not can't do it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't do it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and anticipating trends in this market is so difficult.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, 20 years ago, you had all these, it was a lot easier, but now I mean any any trend can go viral at any point because some influencers said it was great.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And to anticipate that is is so hard.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at Stanley Cups, for example.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't do anything special except for somebody decided that it was really cool for young girls to have Stanley Cups and ten times growth.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then that that that went and then it sort of died off.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I was talking to a guy uh who's in the men uh who's in the men's fashion business, but his whole focus is because he agrees he can't forecast trends, so what he does is his his whole focus is on, you know, styles and product that it that are gonna be around forever.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And because he manufactures in California, and his whole thing is look, you know, a leather jacket's a leather jacket.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: People that that style is not gonna go out.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Guys are gonna be wearing them 20 years from now, and you want it to be so good that you want it to last, and they hand it down to their kid and their kid, and you know, and I agree with that side of it, but um you know, but they do, like I said, they do it domestically, but it's a limited product, you know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: They they probably have maybe a hundred SKUs.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like most fashion products.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you do other things inside you're not just uh you don't just have a manufacturing uh uh place where you do um you know, collars and all the things that you talked about.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: You actually have some other pieces to the business.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're one thing that I I like is I feel like we've had a really good channel strategy and also, you know, it's it's really helped us go through all those different months.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have high season, say the holiday season is a high direct-to-consumer time, and it tends to be actually a low wholesale time because everybody bought in September, October.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then when direct to consumer completely crashes in January and February, that's when all of our big buyers are buying.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when you're buying, you're selling in, you know, for spring, spring grocery, for example, or um, like we have a big line we just launched with Bass Pro Shop.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all of those POs come in January and February.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to have a really multi-dimensional set of channels where we have our own direct-to-consumer, we have our own wholesale channel, then we have kind of those smaller, you know, not smaller, but the mass channels.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing we do that's really fun and probably one of my favorite parts is we do a lot of custom product for people or brands really.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we do um like brewery collars.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we do brewery, brewery merchandise.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So since we have the patent for a bottle opener on a dog collar, if the breweries want dog merch, we're their one-stop shop for dog merch, and we can do bowls, collars, leashes, toys, what have you.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we can do it with all of their brand information.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we do full custom logoing, we do a full custom design design for them, have it printed here in the US, and then um produce the product.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been really fun, and that's been a fun place to expand.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we do a pretty big program with Tillamuk Cheese Factory, and so we make thousands of cheese loaves a month for them, these cheese loaf dog toys.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we just we're working on expanding some new products with them that are more like ice cream based and cows and different toys and things like that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just fun to think about geez, what would they buy?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't even know what they're looking for, but then we come back to them with, hey, what do you think about ice cream cones or what do you think about this?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And just seeing those sparks come on is really fun.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've also done things with um a movie production company where we did movie merch for them.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Leica Studios is here in Portland and we did a big um, we did a big movie merch program for them for several of their movies, which was really cool.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just allows us to be really creative.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And because we make a product here, we don't have to buy thousands and thousands of units.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: The the client can literally buy, you know, 24 units and see how it goes, or we can do a small thing.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: We did one for a customer um here in Oregon that they had a brewery dog.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was a customer's dog, and the dog had been coming to the brewery for a decade, and it was kind of reaching the end of his life.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did a really cool custom can design in a can-shaped dog toy with a dog's face on it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the customer was over the moon about it, and it would like all the sales went to a shelter, and it was just so cool.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: But we could literally do 24 cans, they didn't have to buy hundreds of them, and we were able to give them this really unique experience.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as a brand, I think that's pretty special because you can't really do that in most industries and in most, you know, manufacturing, you know, opportunities.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's just not there.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we can we can make one or we can make thousands of them.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's just really, really cool opportunity.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, that is uh that is great.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That personalization of it all is really fantastic, especially for pet lovers, because you know, um it's something that you want to keep with your with your pet for, you know, memories.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you also have a retail, not uh is it a retail store?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we also have, well, it's also very unique.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a dog park and a bar.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we have our factory showroom, which is everything that we make is in our showroom, and then uh with that adjacent to it is uh a full bottle and can bar.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a dog-friendly bar, and then we have a big indoor dog park and outdoor dog park.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's membership based.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: People come and they check in their dogs, they're on our membership file, and they can come in and they play, they have a drink.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a taco cart outside.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people will come for dinner, they'll order tacos outside, they'll bring the tacos and their dog in with them, sit at tables and order, you know, a beer, wine, cider.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's really fun.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we utilize those dog park areas to really test what consumers want.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we know that when we go to retail, that the product is gonna hold up really well because it's been through hundreds and hundreds of dogs playing with it.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: We know it's weak points before we even go to market with it.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then we also understand what the dogs like and what the people like.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just this really cool, you know, experiment that we get to try every single day.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just been so much fun.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And just, you know, having the that interaction with your end consumer on a regular basis is pretty cool.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do you uh do you survey the dogs after they play with the toys to find out how they liked them?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we you know, a lot of times we'll take a a new toy out and be like, well, let's see how Mo likes this toy, or let's see how Bento thinks about this toy.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, your dog's really into tugging.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about this?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we want to see how durable this toy is.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: How about it?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's really fun.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: We get to see.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how long it takes to break.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be a blast.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, it would be fantastic to do.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite times is actually tiny dog time.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we have four, four hours a week that are tiny dogs only, so dogs under 20 pounds.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that group is really fun because we'll get 20 to 25 uh, you know, little tiny dogs in the dog run on a regular basis.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll see the staff start wandering out and they're like, who's in tiny dog today?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's all yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: On um Tuesdays and Thursdays it's at four o'clock.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of our staff are still there.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then um Saturday and Sunday mornings.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny dog time.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fun.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: How what are the hours of the of the showroom where you have the people coming?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So our showrooms regularly open 10 to 8.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's open all day long.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then the kind of the evening hours are really the bar and tavern time um time.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So 10 to 8 every single day.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So are the uh is the staff allowed to take breaks and go out and hang out with the dogs?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that you know, it's too it's kind of part of the job, honestly.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they come out.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite things to do actually is we have a gentleman that works for us who's completely blind, and he um he stuffs all of our fuzz balls and he stuffs them all by feel, which is a pretty unique thing that, again, like a manufacturing job offers him, is there's not a lot of jobs he can do.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can't see.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And but he loves dogs.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of our favorite things to do is we'll bring him out into the dog run, and one of us will sit with him and be like, okay, this is this is a brown doodle, and his name is, you know, and he pats all the dogs and he gets to hang out with the dogs, and he's just it just makes his day anytime he gets to go in and just see the dogs in the dog run, and these little pugs will jump up on his lap, and it's it's pretty really cute to see.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I'm sure it is.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had uh when I was in the shaving business, we had uh a warehouse and we had autistic people helping to pack the orders and pickpack and ship and put all the sets together and everything.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I used to bring my dogs and the the they loved it because uh they don't really get exposed to dogs much, and then they'd sit there and pet the dogs.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: The dogs loved it because they were just just more hands petting them, and you know, they were like, okay, you want to pet me?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: You want to give me treats?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all in.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of it was kind of fun.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a win-win for everybody.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely, and I think it's quite a good stress relief.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of dogs that are in the office all the time that actually work at the shop, and then between the dogs coming in and out all day, it's definitely a a fun place to work.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, most of our staff have been with us for at least a decade.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, usually people come and then they stay.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And even if they leave, they always come back.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime somebody says, Oh, I'm gonna go get another job, I'm like, okay, I'll see you in three months.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then they're back.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, it was so nice and pleasant to work here, and I love the dogs, and it was just so stress-free.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're almost out of time.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if if you want to put some sort of an ending to it, maybe give some sort of advice to to people, especially women, starting businesses and and what they should be doing, shouldn't be doing.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think uh for me, now that I'm, you know, having run this business now for 16 years, I think one thing that's helped us succeed a lot is that we're always trying to learn and grow.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm always studying and taking classes and reading different books and listening to different pods and trying to figure out how to grow and what's what what is the new strategy for marketing now?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's different this year than it was last year.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: How should videos be produced?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: How do you win a customer?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the most recent things that uh I read in one of the books that I was following was it said, what gets measured gets managed.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that really struck with me because I thought, you know, there are so many pieces of your business that you're not constantly measuring and really paying attention to all of those numbers.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I have spreadsheets and spreadsheets and spreadsheets that are managing all these different pieces of my business.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So even from a direct-to-consumer side, and I'm sure you can speak to this too, is that you have to know your add-to-cart rate.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: You have to know your checkout rate, you have to know, you know, how many people visit your site or actually adding to cart, and of those how many are actually checking out.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know those numbers, you don't know where your hang-up is or where you're being successful.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems simple, but unless you're consistently measuring those things and actually measuring how your ads do and and paying attention to all those little details, then things can slip away and you end up wasting your money on things that you wouldn't think because and you don't even know.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's it's always in the back of my mind now.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: What gets measured gets managed, and and I'm constantly thinking about what am I not measuring right now, and what are my blind spots in my business because I haven't I haven't looked.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's great advice.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's fantastic advice, actually.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I could talk about that for hours on end.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, and I find it fascinating.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love just digging into all the little tiny analytics that seem small until you really look at them and you go, oh my gosh, you know, I didn't realize that, you know, 80% of my customers come into my website through a product page, not through my homepage.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent all this time on my homepage.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And does my product page is it telling my story?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is it performing?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is it giving the customer the experience that they want to have or that I want them to have?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I put all my time and energy on my homepage and they never see it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so just little things like that, that you once you pay attention, you can make so much so many big impacts out of little tiny things, but you have to look at it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to measure it all the time, or you'll never manage it and it'll slip away.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for uh again for being on.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what I love about the story is just the lack of BS, because you didn't spend your way to success.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You built it the way that you wanted it, and uh, you know, just coming up with new ideas and and really staying close to the to the customer, which is the dog, um, I think is pretty cool.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, if anybody's in Portland and you want to see what she's what what what Lynette's built, just go to uh grab a beer at Cycledog Tavern and uh head over to cycledog.com.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Lynette, thanks for keeping it real with us today.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my pleasure.