Catchy headline huh? 

I hope so since my desire is to get more people reading this blog for my company, Casey Petraceuticals, LLC. Not for any monumental reason mind you but mainly because I have a company I care about (as well as people who work for me---and a product I know is incredible) and I want more people to be aware of what we're doing. The WHAT in what we are doing is manufacturing one of the most high quality and uncompromising pet supplements on the market.





How do I know this? Because it was created for and has been used by honest to goodness pet enthusiasts. In fact, our product is one of the few but not the only supplements on the market that is:

1. Affordable.
2. All-natural.
3. Has 31 ingredients (all Human-Grade and very expensive to make too).
4. Fast-acting (as in 3 to 7 days for signs of positive results in most pets) and...
5. All-in-one (not the buy one for hip and joint and one for anxiety supplements).

  How do I know this? Well, I'm the President of the company. My name is Frederick Jones and I'm a long-time pet owner (currently my parents have our family dog while my beloved pet was lost to an ex in a past relationship) who is now becoming an enthusiast of pets thanks to the wonderful people I work with and the work our company does on behalf of the health of dogs and cats. The fact of the matter is that I represent most of the mainstream pet owners in America who have grown up with a dog but considered that any pet with food in the bowl (no matter the brand) who lived indoors (not outdoors or in a dog house) and goes to the Vet twice a year (not put down when they got sick)--was the BEST PET CARE an owner could give.

Boy, have I learned a LOT. 

Since joining the company, I've learned that most pet owners (i.e. such as myself) are unaware of the best choices they can make in feeding their pet. They are unaware that the hundreds (or thousands they spend on vet bills) are largely the product of the food and exercise that they give to their pet as much as it is a result of the pets' activities. But more than anything I've learned that the pet business is aside from being exciting and fun it is not easy and that as much as we need to educate the average pet owner--we need to educate ourselves as pet businesses to make sure that we are growing the business to include all pet owners (i.e. mainstream and pet activist).

This gap in educating the pet owner and the pet businesses is a problem to say the least but it's a problem that will not only destroy small companies like mine but will hurt the industry as whole if we do not work to correct it. More to the point-destroying the business means we lessen the impact we can have on the pet community.

So I know you're wondering just what is this blog about? Simply put, I want to talk about the amazing work my team is doing and touch on my occasional thoughts in running a company with interests in the pet industry. For example, what I fear most (as do all start-ups) is failure in trying to capture momentum. Coming from another industry (i.e. videogames/ entertainment products) I've discovered that customers tend to fall into two camps: the hardcore and the mainstream.  

Now the hardcore rock! They can sustain a business like no other. They truly keep it alive when it's suffering and they advocate the business when no one else is getting through to the masses. In the pet world they tend to be the most educated (i.e. particularly in nutrition for pets and breed specifics) and involved of pet owners. In my previous life this was most evident in something like comicbooks such as Green Lantern and Iron Man. Neither were as strong as say Superman or Spiderman (respectively to DC and Marvel fans) but they had a LOYAL following and whether it be a recession or an inflation of comics or overall changes in pop culture (just when did "Kick-ass" become a comicbook worthy of being a film)--the Hardcore were the only thing keeping those books (and those characters) alive.

I see a lot of this in the pet business. The Pet advocates and enthusiasts who are passionate about healthy foods and knowledgeable about breeds are the ones who keep the small, innovative companies like mine around and even give us a shot. They help us get into the local stores and in some cases are the reasons we have that initial shot into a big box retailer. Without the hardcore market-- I have to wonder if companies like Zukes and Honest Kitchen would be the companies they are today.

That said, eventually the mainstream must be involved or at best you're struggling each year just to survive. The mainstream is not some strange elitist group either. Most Americans who shop at Wal-Mart fall into this group. They love their dogs as much as the next person but they can only do what they know to do. When supplements, field rage chicken/beef (as opposed to processed meat) are NOT DISCUSSED on everyday program or news shows then the average American does the right thing by their pet but it may not be the BEST THING THEY CAN DO. As the son of two parents who have always had a dog but has at times fed the pup the product sold at their local grocery store with words like "meat by products" let's face facts--they are just trying to keep up with their dogs. This is where things get tricky though because to move into the next level of growth (i.e. being able to donate more to local and national rescue groups, develop better formulations for new healthier products and so on) a company needs to push out into the mainstream.  No matter who the manufacturer is--ultimate success means converting some of it not a large portion of mainstream customers. Sometimes though that push can lead to some alienation of the hardcore. This leads to what I call the "Iron Man problem".

Iron man was a second rate Marvel Comics character for decades before the Robert Downey Jr. film came out in 2008 (the second already having grossed over half a billion worldwide) and was such a massive success that his profile rose significantly causing related merchandise and comicbooks to sell at record levels. The problem is that the comicbook stores themselves did not see a large part of this growth (some would argue ANY).

There are several reasons for this:

• Old and mismanaged fixtures
• Hard to find store locations
• Poor merchandising of new products
• Minor services or customer service of any type
• Ineffective advertising
• High prices

The fact of the matter is that the mainstream and areas that support the mainstream is where Iron Man succeeded and the hardcore fans (while still around) and the places that supported the hardcore fans  did not see the sort of success that their loyalty possibly deserved. The places that did see growth in Iron Man sales were Barnes and Nobles, Target and even grocery stores! 


There are several reasons why they succeeded:

• Convenient locations
• Aggressive pricing
• Strong advertising
• Uniques services (i.e. wi-fi, reading clubs, contests, related discounts to other products like food/ coffee)
• Efficient merchandising 

Pet supplements seem an awful lot like Iron Man to me. To be honest, it might be worse than Iron Man as I don't know if we even could call ourselves "second-tier". Whether it be Nupro or Missing Link--we do not make the pet industry's highest revenues. Dog foods and dog treats are only followed by leashes and bowls in the revenue making portion of the industry. While the supplemental category is growing every year the fact remains that while most Americans know what Centrum is and why it's necessary very few people know that pets need to be supplemented with quality nutrition as well.

Now, I know the analogy is crude (it's my first blog people--;) because the average comicbook store is NOT like the average pet store but as a manufacturer of a pet supplement--we would not exist right now without the help of true pet enthusiasts. However, for our company to truly reach a level of success that will benefit the number of pets we want to help (yes, our ambitions are global--more middle classes worldwide means more pets and more poor pet nutrition), we will need to reach more and more people (i.e. mainstream owners). Our goal is to do this WITH the hardcore pet enthusiasts and avoid the Iron Man problem. Casey Pets (our pet line) is for the pet community and deserves to give back everything we're getting from our fans and retailers.

This will be challenging (it always is) but we will strive to succeed where others have failed. We want to help the hard working men/ women of the pet retailers portion of this industry to not fight over the same customer but to GROW THEIR CUSTOMER BASE. This blog will capture my observances of this process as we turn Casey Pets into THE NAME BRAND FOR QUALITY ALL-NATURAL PET PRODUCTS.

In my next post, I'll touch on retailers and how we can all strive to be better about reaching customers.