An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Be resilient. Everything I’ve done to date on my entrepreneurial journey ultimately worked out simply because I did not give up. I almost gave up when I had been denied a loan by 12 different banks, and I almost gave up after being told “no” by dozens of Landlords, but I kept at it. My mantra was ‘Failure is not an option.’ My belief then, and now, is that it is not failure until you give up. It might be a whole bunch of painful learning experiences, but ultimately I am a better business person for it.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Nichols.
Amy Nichols has built her career creating new and unique business models, marketing and brand campaigns, and non-profit growth strategies in the pet industry. In 2002, She founded Dogtopia, a dog daycare and boarding business which was successfully franchised throughout North America. After a brief stint with technology start-ups, and several incredible years in animal welfare, Nichols has found herself returning to her pet care roots with Kinship, the technology arm of Mars Petcare. She now serves as the General Manager of GoodFriend, a new platform that allows pet parents to find and book pet professionals in their area.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
As a child I always knew that I would work with animals in some capacity. I had aspirations of becoming a veterinarian which were somewhat derailed in college. I was the kid that would find the injured animal and bring it home, and beg my parents to let me keep and take care of it. I once took care of a baby blue jay and kept it out in a tree, raising it to adulthood and then it would come and visit us periodically. Rabbits, birds, even little baby mice — every animal was precious to me. I spent a lot of time convincing my parents to let me get different pets. At one point I had a dog, two hamsters, and a cockatiel. I was business-minded about it too. I would create presentations on the pet, and how I was going to take care of it. I remember putting a whole presentation together for the cockatiel. I think that story encompasses both sides of me — both my business drive and my deep love for animals.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart
We spend so much time thinking about, and worrying about, whether or not to jump, to ask for what we want, to do the thing we have always wanted to do. When you’ve done your research, and thought through the possible outcomes, take the leap. The rest is about perseverance; it is not failure until you give up.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
When my first child was a toddler, I had a mindset-changing moment while reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It’s a fantastic book about being on a journey to find your true calling and that’s what it helped me do. I always had a vision for what I wanted to do, but this book really helped justify my desire to pursue that path. As a mother and a spouse, I was always conflicted with guilt around focusing on myself and my goals when there’s so much to do to care for my family. I read this book after I had my first child and it was all about pursuing your ultimate gift, and how you can contribute to the world. That message really made me internalize the idea that ‘Yes, I am these things to other people in life, but I have my own role to play, and I owe it to myself to pursue it.’
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
It’s a terrible adage, but what comes to mind is ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”’ Ideas can be big and overwhelming, but they become actionable when they’re broken down into bite size pieces with clear next steps towards accomplishing the larger goal.
When I I had my vision for what I wanted to do with Dogtopia and starting that business, I really had to take a step back and say, ‘Yes, this is going to be amazing, but what do I need to do first?’ That usually is the hardest part for people — taking that first step and committing yourself. Ideas without goals and planning will just stay ideas. There’s no lack of good ideas in the world. What we lack is good execution. To me, execution starts with acknowledging what you need to figure out and know before you can even take those first steps.
While working on Dogtopia, I had a full time job and was planning my wedding so I really had to set aside time to start working through those first steps. I was twenty-eight, without a ton of business experience, so I sought out what I knew I was going to need to be successful and just started there. I met with a local SBA business advisor and signed-up for their free “business bootcamp” class. Each week we worked on a different aspect of our business, and at the end of 8 weeks I had a full business plan to start speaking with lenders.
I had very little money of my own when I started, but I was really committed to learning and “testing” my idea by going through a business planning process and soliciting feedback from lenders and business mentors. People tend to skip past that part — you have to put in the work; the research, the interviews, the reading. I feel like there’s this (false) idea that an entrepreneur has an idea and then just goes with it. That will rarely yield a positive outcome. The planning and documentation is so important because you need something to review and look back at to determine how far you have come, or possibly where you went wrong. Plus, if you’re going to get a business loan, you have to have a business plan. Just take it one step at a time — break it down into smaller chunks that are reasonable, and see it through to completion.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
When I first started my dog daycare business, there were a handful of people that had done it so it wasn’t as if I was the first person to ever think of putting dogs in a room to play together or in the case of GoodFriend, to think we should be able to find and book pet services online.
It’s not as much about being the first to have an idea as it is about putting your own twist on it in a unique and compelling way. You can look up any super successful business and see three or four different versions of it, but what made that one stand out? There’s a classic book by Jim Collins on this topic called Good to Great which I highly recommend. It looks at the also-rans or businesses that were similar to successful ones, but didn’t find the same successes and really digs into why. Some of it is market timing, but a lot of it is persistence and strong strategy and decision-making.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
It depends on the situation you are in. If you are at a full-time job, and the product is not related to your work, it’s a very different path than if you’re in a full-time job and it is related to your work. I’m going to answer under the assumption that this project is outside of their normal work, and therefore not intellectual property of the company they work for.
While running Dogtopia, I was always thinking about how I could make the business more efficient, and it kept coming back to maximizing space in the playrooms. A lot of space was taken up by dog crates in our playrooms; about 8–10 square feet each, and in the larger playrooms we had as many as 30 crates. So I came with an idea to easily collapse the crates and fold them up and away from the playroom floor. I called it the Murphy Crate, for the similarities to the once very popular “murphy beds.” I started by sketching it out and then once I felt pretty good about the sketch I had made, I found an engineer online that was relatively inexpensive to create the technical drawings. After some tweaking and thinking, we landed on a unique design that would accomplish my goal of easily and safely store dog crates in our playrooms.
Finding manufacturers is not easy; it’s very challenging, and it takes a lot of time. Depending on your product, it can also be incredibly expensive. Manufacturers are not inclined to do custom designs, and will typically require a minimum number to be manufactured. If you find one willing to create a prototype, be prepared to pay a substantial amount, depending on the complexity of the product. The Murphy Crate was relatively complex and large, making it expensive to manufacture. I had to figure out how I could do a lot with a little and do a small run that would give me samples that I could then pitch to retailers.
If at all possible, try to visit local manufacturers and get a tour, learn as much as you can about the process — you are a future customer after all. There are many differences in manufacturing, so depending on the needs of your design, it could be in a different part of the country or even another country altogether. I would recommend you find out where similar products are manufactured, and then do research on that manufacturer.
Sometimes, to help with the costs,you can get someone to partner with you. They might be a manufacturer of similar goods, or a retailer that is very interested in your design. That’s another path that can sometimes make a lot more sense than trying to do it on your own, and absorbing all those costs. You can also approach a company that already makes similar products. In my case, I could have gone to a company that already makes dog crates and potentially forged a partnership if they saw enough potential for the Murphy Crate.
Meeting with local retailers is also a good place to start. There’s an advantage to working with someone locally; the ability to observe customer behavior, you can stop in to check on how your product is performing, and feedback from the retailer. Before investing significant funds, you need to find a willing buyer. If a local retailer is interested in carrying your product, that is a great first step. Many now very successful businesses started this way; Chobani and Hint being two examples.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?
- Don’t represent yourself in commercial real estate transactions. If you are looking to open a brick and mortar business, commercial real estate, whether a lease or a purchase, is a super important decision. I was very fortunate after about six months of looking, and feeling like I was never going to find a space, I met a real estate broker who took me under his wing. He explained to me why I was not getting return phone calls from landlords, and how we needed to be strategic about it going forward. Whatever funds you need to cover for their fee will be worth ten times that to get you into a well negotiated and fair lease or purchase.
- Be resilient. Everything I’ve done to date on my entrepreneurial journey ultimately worked out simply because I did not give up. I almost gave up when I had been denied a loan by 12 different banks, and I almost gave up after being told “no” by dozens of Landlords, but I kept at it. My mantra was ‘Failure is not an option.’ My belief then, and now, is that it is not failure until you give up. It might be a whole bunch of painful learning experiences, but ultimately I am a better business person for it.
- Don’t DIY where it counts. I learned a lot when I attempted to be my own general contractor when we built the first Dogtopia location. Managing all of the subcontractors (and being confident they are not fleecing you on price) was a big and expensive lesson. A good GC is well worth the ten or fifteen percent they’re going to put on top of what the subcontractors charge. What I ended up having to do was manage a whole bunch of separate projects in our building, which likely cost me more in time than it would have to hire a GC.
- It’s ok to tweak your business model. There’s so many different ways you can go about any business, and I find that one important strategy for a successful business is to be flexible with your business model. I get asked all the time if I would still franchise if I could do it all over again. I franchised because I was really interested in coaching and guiding other people getting into business. If I had been looking at it from a financial perspective, I would have been better off opening more of my own locations. Refine and focus on your personal wealth and creation, prior to immediately looking at expansion options. And if you decide to make the leap, be sure to have studied different business models and speak to professionals in that space if at all possible. I found fellow Franchisors (in different industries) to be very supportive and helpful.
- Know and understand business regulations in your area and invest in business advisors. It will be worth every penny to have an attorney and accountant that you can call on for even the most basic questions and concerns related to employment law and taxes. If you work through your local SBA office or chamber of commerce, they often have recommendations at the ready for professionals that specialize in, and want to help, small businesses. You don’t want to make a mistake early on that will come back to haunt you later. Find professionals that have experience with your type of business, whether that’s a hair salon or a small technology startup, it’s worth a thousand or so dollars to get their guidance early, so that you’re set off on the right path.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
I think the first and easiest is to start online research because there are so many free resources available online. Start searching based on a description of your product to see if anyone else has tried to develop something similar. Find groups in that profession and join them. There is tons of content for entrepreneurs on both LinkedIn and Facebook. You can also save yourself time down the road by checking domain name availability before registering your business or getting attached to the name. If you perform thorough research and believe what you have is truly unique, the next step is to begin working with a professional in that space. Depending on what it is, whether it’s mechanical drawings, code, or building an app, your first step should be speaking with someone about the practicality of bringing your idea to life.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
There are a lot of factors that come into play, and it depends on what you’re inventing. If we take tech out of it, and focus on a physical product, you can do a lot of research on your own first — including looking into filing a patent. However, if you have very limited funding, going to a consultant could be the best path to helping bring your product to life. They’ll provide guidance on feasibility, patent filing, and potentially help find companies that might be interested in manufacturing your product and paying you a license fee. (you will most likely need a patent in that case). If you have limited financial ability to develop designs and prototypes, this could be the best path forward. If you have a great idea, you’ll probably have another one, so use this opportunity to learn more about the overall process. When that next idea comes, you’ll be ready.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
This really depends on if we’re talking about hard goods like a consumer product, a services business like Dogtopia, or a tech company. Depending on the idea, a tech company might require several million dollars to develop it into something valuable, in which case venture capital may be the best route to get that funding. If you can bootstrap any one of these three types of companies, I’d recommend that you get as far as you can before you bring in venture funding. Venture capitalists have very specific financial goals that may not align with your own. Their goal isn’t necessarily for you to have the business you’ve been dreaming of, but rather, to make a good investment and exit.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Every business has the ability to contribute to their community starting with local opportunities. You can make a huge impact on someone’s life, whether that’s an animal, person, or a child by giving back. There is always a group or individual in need that might benefit from your business directly or your personal skills and abilities.
It was actually giving back that got me to Kinship. I volunteered to mentor pet business startups through Leap Ventures. Leap Ventures is co-run by Michelson Found Animals and Mars Petcare to invest in pet care startups — most are technology-based, but there are also food and pet care businesses. A friend suggested I volunteer as a mentor to help business owners starting a dog daycare, franchising, or just needing general start up advice.I also have a big heart for entrepreneurs, particularly those in the pet industry. With the journey I’ve been on, if I can help someone avoid pitfalls, and save a little bit of heartache, that to me is super inspiring. I really enjoyed being a mentor for the program and it is ultimately how I met Kinship President Leonid Sudakov. Kinship is the tech and innovation division for Mars Pet Care and I was instantly intrigued. Initially my focus was animal welfare, but I have since become the General Manager for GoodFriend. When I’m asked about my shift from animal welfare to GoodFriend, I don’t feel like they are all that different: very similar types of people with similar goals — improved care for pets and better support for the pet care professionals providing it.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
A couple of years into Dogtopia, I read an article about military K9s on how important they had been to our work in the Middle East keeping troops safe and doing important tasks like bomb detection and servings as sentries. However, they were carrying out their duties without access to the supplies they need like medical e-collars, tug ropes, heavy duty toys and doggles to protect their eyes from the sand.
I’ve always been very passionate about supporting the military. My father and brother both served in the military so it holds a special place in my heart. After reading that article, I kept thinking about all these dogs we care for at Dogtopia and how these military dogs are like their brothers in arms. I felt this cause would resonate with our pet parent customers..
It was difficult, but I was able to track down the sergeant who was quoted in the article and asked what they needed. He sent me the list to which we then sent out a call for donations via email to our customer base. Within three days or so our lobby was filled with donated supplies. It was amazing! Then we had to figure out how to ship it, so we held a dog wash to raise money to cover shipping. The event got picked up by The Washington Post, a few local news stations, the Pentagon (military) Channel and even Barbara Starr from CNN came to the event. Our goal was to raise a thousand dollars, and we ended up raising nearly ten thousand dollars. I was blown away by our customer’s generosity and enthusiasm for the cause. We shipped the supplies and that event became the basis for the nonprofit I had started called K9 Support. We turned it into an annual event, and our franchisees participated as well. The program eventually expanded to also help local police K9s and to cover the training expenses for service dogs to support veterans with PTSD.
Years of amazing work came from one article, a call to action, and an outpouring of support. What’s inspiring to me is how eager everyone was to volunteer, spread the word, donate, and support those in need.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Though there are a couple of marketing gurus and entrepreneurs that I would love to talk to, if it was anyone in the world, I’d have to go with Oprah Winfrey. I love how she always incorporated her own personal moral code and curiosity into everything she did. She never fails to think big and uses her influence in really powerful ways, doing amazing work around the world — all while still having an incredibly successful business. She’s broken so many barriers for women in business, and has been a tremendous example for little girls (and boys) everywhere. I think she’s one of the ultimate examples of doing amazing work that helps people, while simultaneously creating and building a one of a kind business. I’d love to have lunch at her house in California and meet her golden retrievers and cocker spaniels.
