The COVID-19 pandemic stirred in an amalgam of emotions in people all across – some steady, but most of them being centred around feeling unstable and confused. During the far-stretching isolation period, most of us took to the comfort of our digital resources. Some of us took to picking up old or nearly forgotten-about hobbies, while others took this time to simply catch a break. All in all, the pandemic-induced slump held different meanings for different people. Amongst all these different groups was also the ever-growing fleet of pet owners.
The number of pet owners in the U.S. has been at an all-time high at present – standing at 70%. With loneliness kicking in subserviently, there hasn’t been a more apt time than now to keep a pet. Having a furry companion during an uncertain time like this has become more of a necessity for many, and not just an alternative. Adding to this, another segment seeing a rise during this time has (unsurprisingly) been the pet industry. With the steady rise in pet ownership, the pet supplies and maintenance industry has also seen it’s fair share of growth this year.
Recently, we caught up with Alex Willen of Cooper’s Treats, who left a decade-long career in Silicon Valley behind to start his own dog treats company. Alex opened up about how prior to his current set-up, he also had plans of starting a dog-boarding business which unfortunately didn’t reach fruition owing to COVID-19.
The slump turned out to do more good than bad though for Alex – and he took the time in hand to build a fresh, thriving dog treats business.
The San Diego resident further divulged upon the early dips of setting up your own business at the time of a pandemic, and what it took him to turn it all around, meet targets, and make thousands of customers and their furry friends happy – all in a year’s time!
Read ahead, to learn more about Alex’s incredible story.
Before Cooper’s Treats, in Alex’s words –
I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, moved up to Northern California to attend Stanford, and then just kind of fell into the tech industry, as folks do when you’re in the Bay Area. I spent about a decade working as a product manager at early-stage enterprise software startups like Box and Talkdesk.
I eventually decided I wanted to leave San Francisco and try something new, so I moved to San Diego to open a dog boarding business. I made a lot of progress on that – leased a space, had plans drawn up, obtained permits, found a contractor – but I was about to start construction in March of 2020 when Covid hit, so ultimately I decided to abandon that plan.
Cooper’s Treats started when I loomed over the dog food options I had at home and on the aisles of most stores. Most of these products included harmful chemicals like – carboxymethylcellulose, thiamin mononitrate and pyridoxine hydrochloride. I couldn’t get my head behind feeding my dogs stuff whose names I couldn’t even pronounce, let alone understand. That’s when I decided to make my own batch of mixes to feed Cooper.
With time, and a few mixes and matches with the flavors and ingredients – I had the trick. Cooper loved his new treats, and I couldn’t be happier being in control of what I was feeding my dogs at the end of the day.
Mix n’ Match : Nailing the formula to create treats that dogs are mutts’ about –
After I wound down the dog boarding business, I decided to take a shot at e-commerce with a homemade dog treat mix that I used to make my dogs frozen treats. Initially it was just getting the basics set up – first, I had a logo and packaging designed.
Once those were ready, I put up a website. After that, my time was mostly spent trying to acquire customers through lots of different kinds of marketing. All in all, the whole process has been a mixed bag of lot’s of trial-error efforts, till we got a good grasp on what’s actually for the business.
All in a day’s time : How this enterprising founder spends his day –
Every day is different. Right now, I’m just finishing up moving my production over to a contract manufacturer and my fulfillment to a 3PL, so it’s a lot of time checking to make sure that things are on track. With the holidays coming up, I’m also putting the final touches on my marketing content for the rest of the year.
Cooper’s Treats : What went into the making of the brand?
When I first moved to San Diego, there was no air conditioning in my house, and the summer was particularly hot. I usually give Cooper freeze-dried meat for treats, but it was so hot he wouldn’t touch the stuff.
My wife and I had just gotten engaged, and we had a food processor sitting on our counter that someone had given us as an engagement gift. I threw the freeze-dried meat in there, blended it into a powder, mixed it with water and froze it. Cooper loved it! The meat/water mixture was pretty disgusting both in terms of look and smell, so after that I spent a fair bit of time adding other ingredients to make sure it’s great for dogs but also palatable to their humans.
All that’s done for dogs is done well –
The quality of ingredients – there are a small number of frozen dog treat mix products, and their ingredient lists are all just a series of unpronounceable molecule names. Thankfully, we live in a day and age where people really care about what they’re feeding their dogs, so the fact that I use only whole ingredients like freeze-dried meat, egg powder and whole wheat flour is really appealing.
I think another aspect of everything that we do – not just the selling but also the making of our products is the holistic well being of dogs. Since dogs bring me a lot of happiness and are an integral part of everything I do at Cooper’s is done keeping the best for them in mind.
Dogs mean the world to me and have brought a tremendous amount of joy to my life, so with every decision that I make for this company, I try to make dog’s lives better. Both of my dogs, Cooper and Maple, are rescues, so helping dogs in need is close to my heart. I walk dogs for the rescue we adopted Maple from, but it has always been part of my vision for Cooper’s Treats to give back some of our profits to dogs in need. That’s why we frequently partner with rescues and other dog-related charities to give a portion of our sales back and help very good dogs!
