The Hustle
Years in Tampa Bay
9
Hustle (job)
Owner
What do you do?
What don’t I do is a better question 🙂 I do such a huge variety of tasks each week this is an incredibly hard question to answer.
Every week I work on ordering/buying, marketing, employee management and operations. Beyond that, we are always improving our business and employees with on-going projects. For example, last year we implemented ecommerce for curbside pick up or local delivery and are continually improving that aspect of our business. Booking training for employees, creating fun ways to engage with our customers, etc. Lots of stuff! Dogs are worth it!
Why do you do it?
Because it’s awesome. My favorite part is creating an incredible workplace culture that employees love to work and learn in. Having happy employees makes our customer service shine and keeps our turnover super low. I do this for my staff and for the dogs of this incredible city.
What was your Catalyst? (How did you get started?)
I always wanted to own my own business and I came from the tech world as a software consultant. In 2014 I started making single-ingredient dog treats out of my tiny kitchen in the heart of St Petersburg.
What’s a common misconception or unknown aspect of what you do?
Most people think that we all just pet dogs all day long which could not be further from the truth! We do a lot of volume out of this little building and it takes the whole Pack working together to ensure our customer service is top notch, our shelves are stocked with the best products available, our employees are educated and can speak smartly about said products, and so much more. It’s a lot of work behind the scenes and petting the dogs that come in is only a teeny tiny aspect of our work.
What’s the most challenging part of your Hustle?
Making time for myself and being off on my off days. That’s always been the hardest thing for me to master but every month that goes by it gets easier and I have an incredible team to be able to step away and be off. All the other challenges are either learning experiences or just stuff we gotta take in stride and smartly adapt to!
What’s the most valuable piece of business advice/insight that’s helped you?
Grow slow. Not slow to the detriment of losing out on potential growth but taking our time to grow very smartly. Taking the time to implement scalable processes and employees has been incredibly valuable.
And. Don’t be a perfectionist. Figuring out what can be launched now and what can hold off, then enjoying the process of improving as we go without expecting things to be “perfect” out of the gate.
