Interviews

How Gallant's CEO rebuilt after the founder's death and engineered a 30-million-dose breakthrough that could make them the first company to win FDA approval for off-the-shelf stem cell therapy in veterinary medicine — with $40 million raised and a proprietary manufacturing process that turns discarded tissue into treatments accessible to every clinic.

How Pupsentials went from a garage experiment to a $9M run rate by going fully in-house, turning down demand, and obsessing over product quality and customer experience.

Vet clinics, groomers, boarding facilities, apartments—all require vaccine records, yet none of them actually talk to each other. VetVerifi is building the infrastructure layer that fixes that broken system—and it’s turning a daily pet-parent headache into a venture-backed category.

How DOGTV went from a single experiment with YouTube videos for a lonely cat into a global media company built on science, pet behavior, and a completely new category of television.

How Napo rebuilt pet insurance from the ground up—by keeping claims in-house, designing tech around empathy, and rejecting the race-to-the-bottom playbook that defines most of the category.

How DogSauce went from a bootstrapped idea to landing a Walmart deal, what it takes to win a Golden Ticket at Open Call, and why founder-led retail strategy can outperform paid ads for early-stage pet brands.

How a frustrating pooper scooper experience turned into a fast-growing recurring-revenue service, why Swoop Scoop can be launched for under $200, and how automation, flat-rate pricing, and Facebook ads helped drive $200K+ in monthly revenue.

Why cat health has been left behind, how chronic dehydration is quietly harming millions of cats, and how BistroCat is building a connected feeding system designed specifically for wet food, feline nutrition, and proactive health monitoring.

Joe Spector immigrated to the U.S. as a child refugee from Uzbekistan, went on to build Hims into a multi-billion-dollar public company, and is now applying the telehealth playbook to pets with Dutch. In this combined interview, he unpacks the realities of building at massive scale, spending $10M/month on marketing, navigating regulation, raising hundreds of millions in capital, and why pet telemedicine is still in its earliest innings.

Terri Rockovich, co-founder and CEO of Jinx, explains how personal frustration with dog food led to one of the fastest-growing pet food brands in retail—scaling to 7,500+ doors, landing Walmart and Target, partnering with Chris Evans, and pacing toward $70M+ in annual revenue by rethinking kibble for modern dogs.

Mark and Erik Johnson, the father-son founders of BarkDine, share how decades of hands-on pet industry experience evolved into a premium private-label manufacturing business—covering sourcing realities, scaling from 7,000 to 40,000 sq ft, functional natural chews, sustainability tradeoffs, and where private label is headed in pet over the next five years.

Ava Dorsey, founder of Ava’s Pet Palace, shares how a business plan drawn at age six turned into a real pet brand—selling homemade treats, landing in big-box retail, winning Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and balancing school with building a fast-growing pet business alongside her mom.

Dewar Gaines, CEO and CMO of Gaines Family Farmstead, breaks down the scrappy marketing plays behind the brand’s growth—from a low-budget 4th of July Meta ad that crushed, to influencer campaigns that unlocked retention insights, live selling as a zero-CAC growth lever, and the email machine powering 15 sends a month.

Sebastian Gabor, founder and CEO of Digitail, breaks down how a Romania-born PIMS scaled to 10,000+ veterinary professionals and 3M+ pet parents—raising $37M to build an AI-native operating system that’s redefining clinic workflows, care delivery, and the future of veterinary software.

John T. Hewitt, founder and CEO of Loyalty Brands, explains how he’s applying decades of franchise-building experience to create an “Everything Pets” ecosystem—spanning grooming, daycare, hiking, and cleanup—while using shared services and systems to help franchisees scale faster across multiple pet brands.

Joe Aeppli, COO and co-founder of Sparkle, shares how the brand sold 340 franchise licenses in just 18 months by rethinking pet grooming—combining a membership-driven model, salaried groomers, and disciplined systems to build what he calls a new category in Quick Service Pet Care.

Amy Zalneraitis, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of We Feed Raw, discusses how she translated fashion-world branding and storytelling into a fast-growing raw pet food brand—educating kibble-fed pet parents, expanding into freeze-dried raw, and using trust and transparency as the company’s core growth lever

Michael Hurnaus, founder and CEO of Tractive, shares how a personal moment led to building the world’s leading pet GPS platform—scaling past $100M in recurring revenue, tracking 1.5M+ pets globally, bootstrapping for eight years, and expanding from GPS tracking into predictive pet health.