Joe Aeppli | COO & Co-Founder of Sparkle
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.
We sat down with Joe Aeppli, COO and co-founder at Sparkle, to talk about how he’s helping reinvent pet grooming through better systems, people, and purpose.
We covered how Sparkle spotted a gap in grooming and built a membership-driven model to fix it, how they reached the milestone of 340 licenses sold in just 18 months, how they pick franchise partners who lead with values, accountability, and scale experience, and how smart capital deployment is fueling tech, training, and long-term system strength.
You started in franchising as a teenager (Supercuts). What early lessons from that time still shape how you build and scale Sparkle?
Starting in franchising at Supercuts as a teenager gave me an early lesson I have never forgotten: the success of a location hinges on the alignment of culture, process, and support. If even one of those three is off, sales will eventually suffer.
I saw it firsthand in a salon where one bad hire disrupted culture, processes slipped, and performance declined. The systems in place were not strong enough to catch the issues early, which meant the team was left digging out of a much deeper hole than necessary.
That experience taught me the importance of measuring what you expect and creating accountability at every level of the organization.
That principle is at the core of Sparkle. We built the brand around a balance between three primary pillars: The Pets, The People, and The Business. Our leadership team was intentionally designed to reflect that balance.
My co-founder and CEO, Ben Crawford, is a lifelong entrepreneur and one of the top multi-unit franchise operators with The Joint Chiropractic. He understands exactly what franchisees need to feel supported and successful. My background has been on the franchisor side, where I focus on the strategy, membership model, and systems that drive scalability.
Other Interviews
More conversations with founders, operators, and investors building the future of pet care.
Alexandru Bacita | Co-Founder & COO, The Cat Health Company
Cats are living longer, but the drugs for age-related disease have not kept pace. The Cat Health Company, a clinical-stage biotech, has three drugs in trials and 11 more preclinical candidates, and has out-licensed its first therapeutic. Co-founder and COO Alexandru Bacita explains why cats compress the drug-development loop, how the company targets muscle loss and kidney disease first, and why the route to longevity runs through veterinarians and pharma partners.
Elias Weiss Friedman | Founder, The Dogist Company
Elias Weiss Friedman spent a decade turning street photography into The Dogist, one of the largest dog-focused audiences online. Now he's testing whether that trust extends to physical products, starting with Vitality, a vet-formulated antioxidant chew built with Dr. Angela Rollins. He talks about the discipline of brand extension, the operational learning curve of a first physical product, and what a decade of stopping strangers on the street taught him about people, not just dogs.
Sarah McLean | Co-Founder & CEO, Big Damn Dog Co.
A joint supplement label that stopped at 60 pounds sent Sarah McLean looking for a product that did not exist. Big Damn Dog Co. is the bootstrapped answer: giant-breed formulations, dosing built for 120-pound dogs, and a customer list the founders still call by phone. Six months after launch, its Gravy Blend already accounts for roughly 40% of joint supplement sales.