BusterBox - From Zero to Thousands of Happy Dogs

Ramon Vela (00:03.16)
Welcome back everyone. This is going to be a great show. I have with me Gary Redmond, who is co-founder of Buster Box. Welcome to the show.

Gary (00:28.705)
Thank you, thank you for having me.

Ramon Vela (00:30.638)
Well, I appreciate you making time. know you're busy and by the way, you're actually also overseas in, is it Ireland? If I'm not mistaken. Yeah, Dublin. So I appreciate you making time. It's a little, a little bit of a time difference. So you're up a little late and I appreciate that. I can't wait to dive in to this, to your brand. I love the product space. Actually, we were just chatting a second ago and I was telling you how I just interviewed someone else, not a competitor of yours, but in the

Gary (00:38.688)
Yeah, Dublin.

Ramon Vela (01:00.59)
kind of same space as you, and I think it's fascinating. So I love to talk about this stuff. And we'll get into what that space is and what your brand is in a second. But I always like to start off these interviews with a question of gratitude. And the reason why I do this is very simple. I think, well, two things I should say. One is gratitude is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. I...

One of the biggest reasons why I started this podcast was that I had to close the business down back in 2008. It took almost four years to untangle myself financially from that. it really hit me very hard mentally, physically, emotionally, mentally. mean, it was just a really, really difficult experience, know, letting people go, having all that debt, you know, feeling like a failure. was just really, really, really bad.

And gratitude is one of those things that helped me kind of get out of that dark space in my life. And I love to promote it. I think it's a great tool and it's free. And so anyone can use it at any time to relieve that stress. But the other reason is that I really feel like it is so easy for consumers to walk through an aisle or see online products and just think, you know, some faceless corporation, you know, they don't really

understand that there's real people behind this. And so what I like to do in these interviews is bring it down to a very human level and really showcase not only just the brand, but the people behind these brands and let people know that there's real people who care deeply about the products, their ingredients, their communities, and bleed, sweat, and tear over their product. And we're gonna get into some of the bleeding and sweating and tearing over this because entrepreneurship is difficult. And so.

We're going to talk all about that, but one way of getting to know you and getting kind of humanizing this experience is understanding what you're grateful for. So Gary, if you don't mind, can you share a moment or memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential?

Gary (03:14.369)
Yeah, I think it's a personal one, but also related to business. The one that comes to mind to me is like right when we were launching the business, like I think we were maybe two or three months in and we were putting in our initial funding and kind of bootstrapping and getting it going. I was working in Canada and moved over there and I was working in a bar and I had an accident and they broke my leg. So I was actually out of work at the time and we were like, you know, there was...

pressure on me because we were literally just launching Busterbox. This is nine years ago now. And actually I was living in Canada and I was like only relatively new there so I couldn't access credit. actually my mother had to give me a lend of like, you know, not crazy amount of money, like a little bit of money to help actually fund the business in the very, very beginning. Which has took me actually as things didn't take off as quickly as we might've thought.

It took me actually quite a while to pay her back, but that was just something that I feel grateful for because it was an unfortunate accident and a very unfortunate time because we were using our salaries to fund the initial business and the first started three to six months. So yeah, that's the one thing I can think of. So I'm grateful to my mother.

Ramon Vela (04:24.854)
Yeah, well, you know, and that goes to the heart of the question. And I mean, I've heard all sorts of different stories on this show, and that's not that's that's like a common, a common one where, you know, something happens, where they can, you know, they have to like maybe move into their parents house or, you know, move their entire family into their parents house. And all this stuff is just is challenging. It's just all part of the struggle because, you know, it is difficult to start a business and

You know, you have choices like you could give up, you could just keep going or whatever, but it's great to have people in your life that are willing to support you and they do that because they see you. You know, I always tell people that when you get investment in money, it's not so much your idea. I mean, it is of course the idea. What it is though is that person that investors, in this case, your mother, their belief

that you will be able to do what you say you're gonna do. It's the execution. They believe in you being able to do it. And so to me, that's the best. If you can believe that and acknowledge it, it's validating to you, but it's just a shot in the arm. And I know that it could be emotional a little bit, but it's just, I don't know, it's a good feeling. And it's great to have people like that in our lives.

Gary (05:48.567)
Yeah, I mean, I'm glad things like still going nine years later. Obviously it was a good investment, know, and yeah, it was a loan, I suppose, but I suppose it meant a lot to me and it really wouldn't have been in big trouble without it, to be honest, and this business may not be where it is. it's all a dog had at that because she's take the credit for the whole thing. I'm kidding. yeah, it's a real moment I feel grateful for.

Ramon Vela (06:05.774)
Thank

Well.

Ramon Vela (06:13.782)
Yeah. Well, do you ever go back and let your mom know that? Well, I always say that. I always say that to people because I really feel like it's important. Sometimes you're not able to, because if things happen when you're young and that person's transitioned to the next the next world, it's too late to tell them anything. But hopefully I always feel like a great gratitude.

Gary (06:20.555)
I'm I'm on the render again after this.

Ramon Vela (06:40.654)
a great method to really enhance your gratitude is by, what is it called? Closing the loop, right? Letting people know that, know what, you did really, really help me. So I think that's important. So that's fantastic, man. Thank you so much for sharing that. So let's talk a little bit about this thing that, you know, where it almost didn't happen because of this thing that happened to you and you had to get some money to keep it going.

from, from just from the story that you mentioned, I would have to assume that whatever it was you felt very strongly about because you don't, you know, you, I'm sure you didn't, you wouldn't want to take an investment from anyone, much less your mother, unless you really felt like this was, this was something that it was doable, that it was a good idea in that you felt was going to work. so why don't you tell me a little bit about

Gary (07:27.543)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (07:39.906)
what you were thinking, what you described to your mother, to other people that made you so confident. What was that vision that you saw in your head that made you so confident that this was going to work?

Gary (07:52.087)
Yeah, mean, between myself and my co-founders, we just had the vision. We saw the industry was starting to really accelerate around 2015, 2016. Obviously, some of the bigger DTC companies had launched two or three years earlier. And what we noticed was a lot of them are actually serving Ireland, first of all, or the UK. So we saw companies like Barkbox, obviously, Daughter Shave Club, those kind of companies.

We just saw how quickly they were growing and the potential of bringing something like that over the side of the water. I suppose we didn't come up with a massively original idea, but a lot of people had the same idea as us and are no longer executing what we're doing. So in that way, I guess we were proved right and we thought it was a big opportunity. And we thought that people love dogs in every country. And if we can get our heads together and...

execute as well as we can then we can certainly make it a big success.

Ramon Vela (08:54.092)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I would imagine that that was a logical idea, right? Because by and large, I think people love their pets, regardless of what, what geography they're in, right? They love their pets. They become part of the family. Maybe not to the point where, you know, some people here see them as children and whatnot, like pet children, pet children. And maybe they do, but I, but regardless, you look at your, at your dog, there's a reason why they refer to it as man's best friend.

It's like, you know, they, they love their pets. And so it's a solid idea that you had. and I, mean, I, I pretty much, I, I think I would have agreed with you in that if these other companies, these other companies doing it provided some sort of validation that the, that the idea was good. Now your idea was that you could bring that same idea into Ireland or into your immediate geography.

Gary (09:24.171)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (09:53.518)
and the same dynamics would work, what were some of the bigger challenges though? mean, did it, obviously you said it didn't work as well as you thought it would be in the beginning. What were the reasons for that, do you think?

Gary (10:06.667)
Yeah, so I mean, first of all, obviously, were three early in early 20s, you know what we were doing. So that was the first problem. In fact, that we didn't have any real business, no successful business experience anyway. We were just kind of feeling it out. I guess after those kind of things were worked out, what we realized about a year and a half in was Ireland is a very small market and a lot of companies that serve the UK and the US.

Ramon Vela (10:14.764)
Thank

Gary (10:32.001)
come to Ireland and not all of them can make it a success. I can think of other even larger businesses like with a wider demographic of dog food and other subscription services like that. They also kind of tested Ireland out but then left. Like it's just, it's a country of four million, four and a half million people. know, ad costs here when you compare it to the UK, well, it's like, you know, it's less competitive, I suppose in a way, but it's also just not got enough population. So then when we launched in the UK, we had some different challenges. So...

we found that UK people are generally, like, the price that they're willing to pay is lower than Irish people. So we had a lot of challenges around pricing in the beginning, figuring out, kind of testing out and figuring out what price point eventually worked. But when we did actually land on that, it made a big difference. It opened up another challenge in terms of margin, but when we figured out what people were willing to pay, it helped us to actually acquire customers in the UK.

ad costs were a lot lower in the UK versus Ireland just simply because of volume and the amount of people that we could target. So those are just sort of the main things that we noticed even though everyone loved their dogs. The population in Ireland was a challenge and just the UK sort of price sensitivity was another challenge.

Ramon Vela (11:50.702)
You know, and I know that the EU is a little bit different than the states here, for instance, and they have different rules and regulations and so forth. Were you able to sell? And I think the UK was, I think Brexit only happened what, like a year or two ago or something like that. So you were probably operating in the EU and we started and I'm wondering, did they have any rules around pricing differences? Like, could you price things differently in Ireland than you can in the UK or?

Is it all kind of like under one platform because of the EU?

Gary (12:25.239)
No, you can charge different pricing in the UK versus Ireland. Even back then, the main challenge that we had was we were based in Ireland, okay, and we were trying to ship to the UK. And it's one kind of hack that we figured out that might be interesting for listeners is we figured out that if we wanted to ship like a box from Ireland through say, like a courier UPS or any of those couriers, if you go by a per box basis, they're gonna charge you, know, 50 % to...

to 100 % more than say Ireland, what we could have kind of afford at the time. But we figured out that if we actually got enough volume in the UK quickly, we could pallet up our boxes, we could pack them in Dublin and then we could put them on pallets and then direct inject them into the UK. And like the shipping cost for a UK to UK box is actually a lot cheaper than even in Ireland. we figured out that even though they're in a different country, it was actually cheaper for us to ship our boxes in bulk.

to a courier in the UK, pre-labeled, and they would distribute them to the UK. So was cheaper for us to send the box to the UK than it was down the road to Dublin. So that's something we figured out. It was pretty interesting.

Ramon Vela (13:31.342)
well, you know, and those are the things that it's funny. There's a little bit of a tangent, but we talked about earlier about you not knowing what you're doing in the early days. But, but, but this is really interesting evolution of an entrepreneur because I've covered so many people on the show that didn't know what they were doing when they started, whether it was like making t-shirts, like the true classics people or, and others.

didn't understand anything about textiles and so forth. But the successful people, even though they don't know anything, they adapt and they learn and they adapt and they make mistakes and they adapt again and so forth. And if you don't do that, and if you don't have that kind of mindset, then you're not gonna make it.

And it sounds like you guys do this with just as the shipping experience. It's like you guys were able to identify your mistake and then figure out what, what, what, does work, even if it's sort of like a little bit of a workaround. And I think that's cool. I think that's, that's a great example of entrepreneurial spirit.

Gary (14:37.719)
Yeah, I I think I always say this as well as that, like, a lot of it is just about staying in the game too, you know, like you don't, these, you know, sometimes it takes a long time to figure your problems out. Like sometimes, you know, opportunities come up that if you gave up six months ago, and you know, then you wouldn't, you wouldn't have access to that opportunity now. Like, so a lot of it is, you know, I think just staying in the game has been a big step.

big factor for us for like a lot of the time in the early years, like just not giving up and then figuring these things out as you kind of go because, know, in the first three or six months to so many challenges and so much things you don't know, it's very easy to give up in the first 18 months, two years. So yeah, it was interesting that we kind of figured these things out, but we have plenty of chances to quit before then.

Ramon Vela (15:25.742)
Well, know, I 100 % agree with you because when the pandemic happened, I would always just tell people, like, listen, you you might have to scale down growth, may need to scale down stores, you know, if you're selling on retail, but you do what you can to fight, to live to fight another day. Or you close down completely. But if you want to keep going somehow, it's okay to kind of like, you know,

scale down a little bit in order to survive and that way you keep going and you can fight for another fight another day. So let me make sure that people know where what we're talking about. So everyone out there you can go to Buster Box. Let me just bring it up BusterBox.com is the website and we're going to be talking about Buster Box and and all and

all the different products in a second and we'll talk a little bit more about that. But I always like to kind of get a good, greater understanding of your little, of your entrepreneurial journey first. And then we'll start talking a little bit about the products. And in reality, we'll be talking about BusterBox all the time throughout this time. So, all right. So you, you had to figure out ways to make this work and so forth.

and it wasn't going as fast as you would lie to, or it wasn't as successful as you thought in the very beginning. So you kept on adapting and changing and doing things. When was the first time that you felt like, Whoa, okay. Like we just had a moment. Like we, like there's some, the, like, you know, this is, we think this is going to really actually work. You know, is, was there any point in time where you kind of felt like that was the case where you had that kind of milestone? I don't know, a sales number or retail outlets or whatnot.

Gary (17:14.647)
Yeah, it's very funny. It goes back to what we mentioned there before. It's actually the pandemic. I mean, in 2016, we launched, I would say the first two years was complete, like just, you know, try anything, whatever. And 2019 was when we started to kind of slowly figure out Facebook ads and like started to to kind of actually get ads that worked for once and kind of weren't ridiculously expensive or just not working to get customers whatsoever. And then in

2019, towards the end of 2019, we were slowly kind of getting a little bit of growth. you know, the start of 2020 actually was a difficult enough start because of the fear, obviously, when the pandemic came initially. And we thought we were done. were like, oh, just like, you know, people are going to people are not going to be buying anything. There's going to be a mad recession. And then all of a sudden, like March 2020 and then April, May, June, July, like it just it just went up like a rocket because people were obviously at home.

ad costs completely dropped. It was just a perfect storm in many ways for businesses like ours who could thankfully ship and continue to operate while the pandemic was going on. But realistically, the business more than trebled in size in the space of four months. And again, if that happened a year before, we wouldn't have even had the logistics set up to do it. It was just almost lucky again that we stayed in long enough and we were still edging forward slowly.

Ramon Vela (18:35.864)
Thank

Gary (18:41.525)
We just got in the new warehouse in 2019 as well, again, luckily, like if the pandemic happened a year and half before, we would have probably not been able to take advantage of it. yeah, that was kind of the time where it was like, again, like it's lucky, obviously, you know, no one can predict a one in a hundred year pandemic, but we were still there four years, four years later after struggling for four years. And then it was kind of a reward. You know, we thought we saw at the time anyway.

Ramon Vela (19:05.077)
Wow. Well, I can imagine. mean, a lot of companies, I mean, it was just unreal. was surreal as well, because we all thought one, you know, there was going to be some massive recession. And I mean, literally everybody stopped, you know, I remember being home and I remember having to go pick up. I live east of, Los Angeles, about 45 minutes outside of Los Angeles. And I was working in, in, Santa Monica, which is.

clear on the other side of town. And I remember during the pandemic, there was no one on the roads. I mean, and you've heard of like Los Angeles traffic and everything else. mean, there's like, you you mentioned there's 4 million people in Dublin or in Ireland or yeah. Well, there's like 4 million people on the freeways that, you know, during rush hour. It's like, at least it feels that way. I mean, but it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty accurate because it's, like everything's flows.

Gary (19:47.947)
I already did.

Ramon Vela (20:00.558)
And, and when I went on the freeway to go, to go to the office and pick up a few things, there was no one on the road. was just like, was the strangest, weirdest thing I've ever experienced. You know, it was just, and it was during the week and what, what normally takes me an hour and a half to drive, took me like 40 minutes to drive. Maybe, maybe, maybe not even that. So yeah, it is, it is pretty weird what was going on. walk us through though, in terms of.

the product. So we talked about the business and having that vision. What was the product vision that you saw out there? Was there a particular segment of the market? And maybe now is a really a good time to kind of describe what you're offering now. And if it was different than what you were starting to offer, feel free to mention that. But I'm curious now that we talked, we're talking about the business, but I want to understand now about the product. So the product vision was

to provide paths with X, right?

Gary (21:03.511)
Yeah, I mean, again, in the beginning, we're three young guys with no business experience. The product in the beginning was find some stuff to put in a box and send it out. Obviously, looking at other competitors, particularly BarkBox, we're just obviously four years or five years ahead of us in terms of their launch. But initially, was obviously just we didn't have scale, we didn't have buying power, we didn't have too much control over what kind of products we got. So we were just choosing other brands.

and we would buy them in bulk and obviously pack them up. But then really in the last few years now, we've had a lot more control over the supply chain of the products, particularly the toys. So in terms of quality, designs, like the themes and stuff, all of our boxes are themed. we can have, it's designed to basically keep it more exciting for the human after they've maybe been getting the box for six or 12 months already. And it may be something that they might be thinking of.

Cancelling if we try and keep it interesting for the for the owner as well and in terms of the treats we try and Like we will always use high meat quality high quality trees rather than you know cheap cheap products or like products that would harm your dog that we generally want to and higher quality products that at the dog is and the owner knows that they're giving their dog things that's not going to make them ill in the future and obviously we choose things that are grain free or and High protein things like that

But yeah, mean, it's the product that we have much more control over the supply chain now in terms of the quality. One big issue that is kind of universal is the toys can be destroyed quite quickly, which sometimes it's weird. Like sometimes people think that's great and they go, like I'm getting more toys and the dogs have having a good time, he's destroyed that toy. But then other people think it's a waste of money and that the toys are poor quality. you know, it's...

It's just perception really on turn. And obviously some dogs are more destructive than others. But yeah, it's definitely something that we always try and in our product quality now checks, we try and get like double-stitch canvas and more strong toys to help keep the customers happy and keep the churn down.

Ramon Vela (23:00.355)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (23:12.332)
Yeah, yeah, I get that part. You you just reminded me right now, yesterday I took my my kids to go see Superman and you know, the new movie and I don't want to do any spoilers there, but Crypto the dog, he steals a lot of scenes and the whole point of the scenes, the scenes he steals is that he's just like really over rengbukshas like and we've all seen dogs like that, like

They just, they can't sit down. They're jumping all over the place and everything else. And he destroys, like he thinks things are not toys. He thinks they're toys and he ends up destroying them, you know, like inviting them and things like that. So it just reminded me of what you're saying. Like you might, there might be a good social media clip that you guys could do regarding this. But nowadays,

Gary (23:53.687)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (24:05.784)
Do you have the ability now that you, and by the way, I've covered other like subscription boxes and boxes like yours, but not in your industry. And I know that it's logistically very difficult. It can become very a logistical nightmare to do this. But also some of these people, and I'm wondering if it's the same case with you. Some of these folks have also now started creating, because they're getting all this data of what people are buying and what they like and what they don't like.

They're beginning to build their own products around this. Have you guys done that as well?

Gary (24:39.169)
Yeah, all the products that we have now are our own brand and they're like, we have the specifications for the types of products that we want to create. And as I said, like a lot of the feedback we've been getting particularly around the strength of the toys has influenced the type of toys that we create. And we come up with all the ideas for the themes going out in six months into the future and order ahead and things. So yeah, we have all of our own products now and we also have a shop like a sort of a, it's not a massive focus for us, but we have a shop at busterpets.com where we can.

turn over some excess stock to our customers and they can repurchase things that they liked in previous boxes. So, yeah, it's another sales channel for us as well.

Ramon Vela (25:15.818)
And so you don't, so at this point you don't carry other people's products at all?

Gary (25:20.719)
And not usually now, unless there's an issue or there's a special request from someone, we have our own branded treats and we have our own branded toys. So in general now.

Ramon Vela (25:23.79)
Thanks.

Ramon Vela (25:31.15)
You know, because I cover someone in completely different categories than you guys, but you've heard that subscription box called FabFitFun. And so they do more and more of their own stuff and their own branded products, but they also carry some others. so, you know, for me, it's like, that's cool, but it also offers like a whole other logistical issue because you can control the products that you create and

And it's much easier that way versus bringing in other people's products. And now you're having to deal with inventory. You're having to deal with all sorts of other stuff. You're having to deal with logistics. And it's just, it can be quite a bit of a nightmare. But the cool thing about subscription boxes as well, if you guys are capturing this, is having that data. Like, you guys being able to take that data and start understanding more about what the, what your customers are looking at, what they want, what, you know, what, what, you know, what works, what doesn't.

Gary (26:30.955)
Yeah, exactly. We have a survey on sign up. So we capture information about their dog and the dog's name, size, breed, and things like that. So we kind of have that information that allows us to give them toys and treats more suited to their dog. And then post purchase, we also have a survey. And particularly after boxes go out, we survey customers on what kind of things that they liked or didn't like. And that gives us that feedback then going forward to kind of refine the boxes and obviously, you know, easily avoid things that people didn't like and try to do more of what they did.

Ramon Vela (27:01.422)
And what's been the best channel for you guys? Is it been, you mentioned about, like right before the pandemic happened, you finally were starting to hit your stride on Facebook and paid ads. Has that continued to still be the best channel for you in terms of acquiring customers, getting the awareness, or has it now become?

TikTok or social media, because many of these social channels are now offering the ability for people to buy and so forth. So I'm wondering how that mix has changed, if it has changed at all, and if there's one that has come around that maybe I didn't mention.

Gary (27:44.503)
It's still mostly meta to be honest, it's probably the case for most ecommerce businesses, like they just have the mature platform, they know what they're doing, they still have the eyeballs. We've tested TikTok in the past, it was a couple of years ago now when we were putting some proper budget behind it, and it was okay, but we having trouble with attribution at the time as well. The other thing we do a lot of is email, so when people actually interact with the website,

we capture their email address as like first party data along with what I mentioned with their dog's name and size and breed. So we have that kind of information in our email sender and we can send emails to them based on their dog's size and use their dog's name in the email and things like that. So that really helps for us to convert as well. But the majority of the paid traffic comes from from Meta. Not a lot from Organic to be honest. like again, probably similar for most most Econ businesses. We have a presence on all social media, but

when the ads go off to sales, don't continue coming, unfortunately.

Ramon Vela (28:46.904)
Well, and I'm curious how retention and community play in all of this, because, you know, once you acquire somebody and you get them into a funnel and or the subscription, then, know, you hopefully, obviously there's churn and that's something you always, you know, will work to, to, to fix. But what are you doing to keep them like staying as long as possible? Is it,

I know the emails help, but is that part of your retention strategy? And have you also looked into and or are doing a community?

Gary (29:26.111)
Yeah, I mean, we use email for customer acquisition as well. Like, you know, when they come from Facebook and they don't complete their purchase, we retarget them through email. And through when they become a customer, we have a lot of things set up. And we have rewards for customers if they stay longer. We have... What else do we have? Like we have a cancellation saver as well. And we have offers for people if they fill out a certain reason why they want to cancel. We have a lot of feedback surveys that go out to people.

after 30 days, 60 days, and then six months, all these types of things we're trying to do to make sure that we're delivering what people want. But the other thing we do mainly a lot of is reactivation campaigns, particularly through email. So one thing that works quite well is we send a reactivation email to our previous customers and we do this fairly regularly and we basically have it very simple for them to reactivate. We just have like have a keyword if they reply.

And if they reply, we can reactivate their subscription automatically, assuming their payment details are still the same. So because we have their name, their email, and their payment info stored, we can simply go in and reactivate the subscription. But instead of having them go back to the website, we have to say, like, reply keyword, reply yes, reply, reactivate, and we'll do it for you. So the way we incentivize people then is we'll give them maybe a secret offer or something that they wouldn't, something a little bit better than what would be on the website.

and yeah, it's like a simple keyword to reply. So that works quite well.

Ramon Vela (30:54.442)
Yeah, well, it also feels to me like pets, there's certain areas that are very, they're very, like, what's word I'm looking for? Like, they're almost organically designed to build communities. And I kind of feel like pets are one of those where,

People who have pets like to talk to other people who have pets who like to talk to, know, and things like that. It feels like that would be actually be a great thing. But although for you guys, although building the community is really, really difficult. I know that I covered a subscription box. It was, don't remember the name of it right now, but basically it was, they didn't sell alcohol, but they sold like the

like it was a box on how to make different cocktails. And it became very popular during the pandemic. But they were telling me like their community was just like people were talking to each other all the time. They were actually having parties together, know, like having their own events, you know, even without them planning it. And so I'd be curious if that's continued now that the pandemic is over. But

They had this really big community, know, and drinks and people who love drinks and, know, foodies. And I don't know what the drink version of that is, but, people love that stuff. Same thing with pets. I kind of feel like people really love their pets and they want to talk about it. anyhow, that's, that's something I think would almost come natural in some sense. Like maybe the people are congregating on your Facebook account or something like that.

Gary (32:36.735)
Yeah, we have a group as well. have a group. Sometimes with pets though, people are so attached to them. There's kind of scare tactics and stuff that can come out and stuff. We did have a community, it was quite big. But honestly, we were having some difficulties kind of, I wouldn't say policing it, but sometimes people can get almost too passionate about their pets. And sometimes it's not always pleasant the things that they discuss.

Ramon Vela (32:59.854)
Yeah.

Gary (33:05.387)
to each other sometimes. Like certain people would mention rawhide and then someone would jump in and that's terrible and then this person would have an opinion that it's fine and yeah so sometimes people are too passionate about their pets.

Ramon Vela (33:06.095)
yeah.

Ramon Vela (33:17.63)
yeah, very dogmatic on their opinions. So I want to talk about the products and talk a little bit more about what the website offers and so forth. Before I do that, I have an entrepreneurial question for you. And that is, I love these examples of pivoting and changing and adapting that we've talked about.

But as you look across what you guys have done in the last seven years or so, what are some of the big lessons? Like if you were talking to someone who was in early 20s, who was looking to start an e-commerce business, who was looking to, you know, in a particular area, maybe not your area, you know, had the same vision, wanted to do something like you were doing, what would you say to them? Are there any lessons that you've learned that if you had known back then, they would have saved you some money?

or time.

Gary (34:16.213)
Yeah, definitely. I obviously I mentioned one already in terms of just being ready to stick it out. And, you know, in when times are difficult, don't get too down when things are bad and don't get too up when things are good because it's usually temporary. another major one, think that probably would have stood us in good stead a few years ago was probably just around margin because you can be so focused on, I suppose, getting sales and showing numbers, particularly in the beginning when it's, you know, probably a lot of validation seeking and like, you know, probably not a lot of

you real business going through your head, particularly if you're young and you're just getting started and you don't have previous experience. But like, you know, we were kind of always focused on sales and sort of revenue, but I suppose a little bit we might have overlooked actual margin and understanding the metrics of the business and understanding all those things. And I know it's difficult to understand for someone who's new, but I would just say the sooner you can learn and the sooner you can try to understand your business metrics, your margin, your lifetime value.

Ramon Vela (34:49.581)
Hmm.

Gary (35:14.185)
If we knew that a little bit earlier, we may have saved ourselves some hassle, basically.

Ramon Vela (35:19.542)
Yeah. Well, and in your business, think it's even more important than, I mean, it's important everywhere, but your business is so dependent on logistical stuff. I mean, a change in shipping might really change all sorts of stuff for you. So like you guys have to be really, really, really careful on all of that. And go ahead where you can say something.

Gary (35:40.833)
Yeah, no, exactly. I was going to say like it's important in every business, but it's in a subscription, especially one of the product based subscription. It's also more important, but it's also more complex to work out. Like it's very, very complicated. Like you said there, one component can change and it completely changes several different parts of the equation. Like, so, you know, obviously you've a customer acquisition costs and you know, without getting too technical, like they come in.

then you have your margin and the lifetime that they stay for the subscription. And like I said, if there's a change to like your shipping costs, well then it might force you to increase your pricing and you okay, then you fixed your margin again. But now your customer acquisition cost has gone up because people are not willing to pay an extra one to two pounds for the box. So becomes this constant thing of, and like, you know, there's so many different factors. Your churn might go, even though your customer acquisition cost remains the same.

people turn quicker because they're, you you're charging an extra pound or two every month because your shipping costs went up. So there's so many different variables that can get you and they're also interconnected. it's not like all businesses are complicated in a way, but particularly with the subscription, like one thing can knock the other thing out of balance. And oftentimes you don't know that you're out of balance until two or three months where the data has come in. So it is difficult.

Ramon Vela (36:54.574)
Yeah, well, and that actually brings something up. I don't know you want to talk about it, but obviously the pandemic was a once in a lifetime thing, hopefully, right? Like that doesn't happen again. But that was something we couldn't plan. And I remember talking to people shortly afterwards and we're just, you know, talking like we are now.

being grateful that it was over or more or less over and things were getting back to normal again and thinking like, wow, we could have never planned that. And the fact that you went through this is interesting because this is just like something that hopefully other entrepreneurs are not gonna have to face for another, I don't know, 100 years or whatever, like cross our fingers. But then something else rolled around, which are tariffs, right? So no one really knew that these tariffs were gonna...

be across the board and they're still obviously being worked out and they're being put on and then taken off and then put on and take it off and then paused and everything else. I mean, that must bring just an incredible amount of uncertainty to you, especially from a shipping standpoint, And the product standpoint, how are you guys dealing with that as well?

Gary (38:03.031)
Yeah, I mean you touched on something that like it's the situation really from 2016 to 2021 or 2022 was going in the right direction and then accelerating in the right direction and then 2023 and 2024 have yeah have been the wrong direction for many businesses to be honest with you like we're kind of holding on okay just like shielded by the fact that we're not we don't direct trade directly with the US so we're just UK and Ireland based and we have set up in the UK and everything now but

economically, you know, customer sent consumer sentiment, wars happening, multiple wars happening, that's not it's not like, it's not an easy place to really have a business, any business, but particularly a product business nowadays, to be honest. And it's challenges like the reverse of the has happened over the last three years, in my opinion, and you know, the inflation, the cost of living, you know, how many things have happened, how many world history events have happened in the last three years. So,

Yeah, it's quite a difficult landscape out there, to be honest.

Ramon Vela (39:04.652)
Yeah. Well, I mean, and it's hard, right? It's hard because even if you want to expand into other areas and other countries, I'm assuming that other countries, not the U.S., other countries trading amongst each other, probably right now is a better time to have better partnerships with each other versus having partnerships with the U.S. However, you know, people also do want to, you know,

participate in the U S market. So that, that this just makes it more complicated. Remember I was telling you about that, the hemp guy that, you know, that I interviewed, he actually wanted to open up more presence in United States. So he ended up having to create his own, manufacturing facility here. And, but that's an investment, right? Like he's, some people are going to be able to do it. Some people can't do it. His product obviously is a little bit different than yours, but

you know, it's, it's a, there's a lot of difficult decisions in a difficult market to make. And it's, I feel for you because it really is, it really is, challenging right now. but you know, this is, this is the life that we chose. So let's, let's get, do it, let's do the best we can. But, know, this is where those things that we talked about earlier, which is, know, you just keep going because, know, you, you kept going.

and didn't foresee the boom that you were going to have in the pandemic, there could be another boom happening in another year or two. So can you continue? Can you operate on a profitable way and keep growing? not, maybe you want to stay alive and keep growing. But maybe you don't grow as fast, but maybe you continue growing.

fix operations, you keep the margins tight, you work on that. And eventually you might have that other next boom or whatnot. If you're not around, you won't be able to take advantage of that boom. hopefully that happens again. Not the pandemic, but another cycle where things would go better. So let's talk a little bit about the products. So let's say someone's listening to this and they really enjoy this conversation about you.

Ramon Vela (41:30.742)
starting this business and some of the challenges you've gone through and all of that. And someone wants to learn more about the business and wants to start their journey with your brand. What would you recommend where they start? Would you recommend anything in particular? Do you recommend a particular page for them to look at?

Walk us through that. So go into the website, is, you know, the busterbox.com. Where do want them to start?

Gary (42:04.951)
So customers here have a choice basically on what offer they would like. So we generally give a free gift with most subscriptions for people when they start their subscription essentially. here, they just click claim offer, they'll get the dog bed, or we have a splash pad there. So if it's hot in your particular location, we have the splash pad there, or we have a scales, which is an offer that we tried, a health-based offer. And then here, obviously, they choose their country.

So if they're based in Ireland or the UK, they choose their country and that will obviously give them the geo-targeted currency and everything like that and the pricing and stuff. So then they just fill their information out about their dog. So it's quite different to a traditional e-commerce store. Like we don't bring you to a product page. We don't really have a massive range of products that you can choose from. Essentially, you choose to sign up for the subscription and then each box that you get is a surprise.

So when you've continued to fill out that form and tell us the information about your dog, we will then personalize the box to your dog size breed. And after the first box, you'll receive a survey. And if there's something in the box that your dog particularly liked or didn't like, or there's toy preferences that you have, or there's something that you would like us to change, then we will endeavor to change that for you. And we have a lot of logistical challenges around that, but it's worth it for us to keep our customers happy and keep the churn down.

Ramon Vela (43:30.03)
And what kind of stuff do you have in the box? Like typically, is there like a certain formula that you have in there? Are they edibles? Are they treats? Are they toys? Are they other things that pet parents like?

Gary (43:43.915)
Yeah, it's a combination of both. we have generally the standard box comes with two toys and three treat items. So it will either be bags of treats or it be a chew. And we have an upsell on the website there. If you want to get an extra toy for an extra price, you can do that as well. And then after your purchase, you have the option then to add things to future boxes. Okay. So while we don't offer full personalization,

and because we just have a standard box and a standard pack that goes on, you can add more products. So you can add things like tennis balls if you want to get those every month or two. You can add more treats. You can add different things on the back end. And you can even get a dog bed. And we don't charge any extra for delivery, which if you're already having a box being delivered to you, even though the bed is bigger, we just combine them together and we save you on shipping. So if you do want to get a larger purchase,

Maybe if Amazon or some other place is charging you shipping, but you're already a customer, you have that perk with us that everything will come either, your added products will either come in your box or even if it's something bigger, we'll just include it in the shipment.

Ramon Vela (44:49.87)
And in terms of logistical things, this comes out every month on a certain date or what's a cycle?

Gary (44:59.915)
Yeah, so the first box is shipped immediately, generally within three to five days. And after that, then you'll enter a cycle where all subsequent boxes are shipped on the 15th of each month.

Ramon Vela (45:11.822)
And is this just for dogs or are there other pets as well?

Gary (45:15.521)
Just for dogs for the moment, yeah. We've had a lot of discussions around cats. The kind of consensus has been cats can be quite fussy in terms of the types of things that they eat and are not as easy to please as dogs, which probably a lot of cat owners will agree with. So we haven't branched out into cats just yet, but it's something that's kind of we've talked about many times and just haven't gotten around to executing on. We're kind of busy enough with dogs at the moment.

Ramon Vela (45:41.504)
And I'm wondering too, in terms of these boxes, you mentioned earlier, you had this other website that you sell excess inventory. And I'm wondering, since you're already starting your, you know, creating these products, these are branded products that you've created and put together. If someone wanted to buy them, are you eventually make these available like on the marketplaces, Amazon or Walmart or whatever?

Gary (46:09.399)
Yeah, well, they're already available on BusterPets.com, which is the sister website. It's just a Shopify store, so anyone can buy them. Most people who do buy them are previous customers who've gone over there and decided they want something. we do have the add-ons feature in the main website, but we also have the BusterPets where people can go on and purchase as well, whether they're a customer or not. We haven't done Amazon or any partners just yet. A lot of the time we...

We're still relatively lean in our operations. We keep a lot of the products. We don't order a massive amount of excess stock, basically. We'll try and order as much as possible, but also as little as possible to fulfill the boxes. Anything left over, generally we can fulfill in new customer boxes because they're obviously new, they haven't received anything in the past. So it's not something that we really done a lot of research into, but...

It's certainly something we could look at in terms of Amazon and other partners to kind of clear that stock. But yeah, mean, it's kind of managing that as well as also a resource that we'd have to obviously put into it as well because now nothing sells itself.

Ramon Vela (47:18.264)
Yeah, well, and I would imagine that by this time you have a good idea in terms of like what that level of customer acquisition will be each month. So like new products. And then of course you already know what subscriptions you're already fulfilling. So from an inventory standpoint, you more or less know how much you need to create. So your goal obviously is to manage your cash flows. So you're only gonna be doing a certain amount.

So I completely understand that. and I think also, mean, you know, that's like the optimal thing to do. I just find, I just think like you've already created the product, you've already gone that this far. so it's like a next step over to just start selling them individually. But, you know, that's, that's different because now you, know, why would someone do a subscription if they could buy an individually, but there might be some hero products like that. People just really love that. You know what I mean? Might be, might be great ways to.

to bring people in. So this is really interesting. So what is something that you are just very proud of about the business that you want people to know who are listening? Because like, again, let's say someone's listening to this and has enjoyed this conversation about this, you know, this pet business and, you know, may or may not be entrepreneurial, but they just like what you've done and created. Is there anything that you want to leave with them in terms of why they should visit, you know,

BusterBox versus any other place.

Gary (48:48.181)
think our business, the massive story behind our business is me and my two co-founders are childhood friends and we live like two minutes from each other and like one of my co-founders, Paul Carrack, he lives two doors down from Liam, Liam Brennan. like we're just three guys who are just having a lot of fun in many ways and like we've had a lot of challenges over the years but we stuck together and mainly because of, you know, the fact that we're in it together and we're friends and we know each other a long time and went to school together. So.

Ramon Vela (48:59.8)
Heh

Gary (49:14.679)
Yeah, like our brand is, we put a lot of passion into it. A lot of effort has gone into it in a lot of challenging situations, particularly in the last few years. yeah, I mean, just to know that the effort that's gone into delivering these products to make people's pets happy, that we put a lot into it and the help that they appreciate it.

Ramon Vela (49:33.322)
Mm-hmm and what's the future look like for you guys? So, you know, I know that we talked about how you know, there's a lot of forces around you and inflation and all of that So just like putting that stuff aside for a second. Where do you envision the business going either? now or In the the not too distant future when some of this other stuff that gets clear and you have more of a ramp up Where would you like to see this business go?

Gary (50:03.509)
Yeah, mean, we've talked about that a lot. We did actually look quite significantly into the US about a year ago before Donald Trump was elected. So it would be something that we would love to do. again, even back then, just the challenges around resources and funding and having a set up in the US was also just a scale that you can reach in Ireland and the UK versus the scale that you can and need to reach in the US.

just in terms of our logistics and our products and things like that. It was just something that we probably required a little bit more investment than we could probably muster. But we've also looked at the other European countries like France. So yeah, I think another country might be where we'd go with it next, to be honest. Obviously, we've floated the idea of different products and dog food as well in the past, but everything comes with its challenges in terms of customer acquisition for dog food can be more expensive and can take longer to kind of get a return on investment. So yeah, I mean...

without talking about all the challenges, I guess maybe probably a new country would be we'd like to take it next.

Ramon Vela (51:07.938)
Yeah, well, and you have others to choose from, right? I mean, the UK is, think, what is that to be like the biggest economy in the EU right now? In the next one, would that be France or?

Gary (51:20.501)
Yeah, mean, Germany is a good one as well, but you know, there's some, difference between, you know, the U.S., you know, with it being a sort of a very unique market in terms of every, obviously everyone English speaking and quite similar values and stuff like Germany would probably be the biggest, but you know, there's some cultural things there which makes subscriptions and direct to consumer a little bit difficult in terms of, you know, how they take payments and how they, you know, how the subscription kind of works with people. So you kind of see it clear that and yeah, we look at some other big,

Ramon Vela (51:46.284)
Mm-hmm.

Gary (51:49.739)
direct-to-consumer businesses who came to the UK and France seemed to be the next place that they went. So that's probably why.

Ramon Vela (51:56.438)
Yeah. Well, you know, this is I love your spirit. I love this entrepreneurial endeavor that you've taken on. I love your grits, you know, because it's not easy. I always tell people this is a very difficult endeavor. You bleed, you sweat, you tear over these products and over the business. And I love I love to talk a little bit about this because I really feel like if you if the listeners know how much

you care and by showing all the things you go through that it's not easy, but you keep going, you know, I kind of feel like you give them permission to care about what you're doing as well. And this is part of the reason why I like to feature people who are behind the scenes, who are founders, et cetera, because these are real businesses and I'd love for people to support, you know, these businesses. So, which is what our tagline is it's products for buying brand for supporting. And I think you guys are.

a brand we're supporting. thanks so much for being on the show, man. I appreciate your time and I know it's kind of late your time. So I appreciate you sticking with us and making time for us. So Gary, this has been great. Can you again tell us where to go in terms of the website, social media handles and any other place you want them to know?

Gary (53:15.979)
Yeah, mean just Busterbox.com is our website, obviously our username on Instagram, I think it's Busterbox underscore, I someone stole Busterbox before we got there. So yeah, like that's where you'll find us on socials on our website. And my email is gary at Busterbox.com if anyone wants to reach out.

Ramon Vela (53:35.176)
Great. And then any last words for the audience?

Gary (53:38.039)
No, just thank you so much for your time. And yeah, I mean, like I wouldn't change it for the world. My entrepreneurial journey have grown much like as much in business as I have as a person. And yeah, it's really, you know, made me made me a lot more humble, but disciplined and also still as ambitious as ever.

Ramon Vela (53:56.588)
Yeah, no, I love it and I can appreciate the journey and I love your authenticity and what you guys are doing and it looks like you've got a great business there. So thanks for that. And for anyone out there, if you have a pet, a dog and or know another dog parents out there, let them know about this place. Go to Busterbox.com. We're going to have that link and the social media link on our podcast description, which you could find on

Apple and Spotify and pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. If you're in the US and you would love some of their products, I'm sure you can sign up for the newsletter, ask them about bringing products over from the US. That's actually something that we do have people in Europe who listen to the show, but if someone in the US actually wants some of this stuff, is it possible for them to get it?

Gary (54:51.479)
Yeah, they can reach out to me,

Ramon Vela (54:53.324)
Okay. So yeah, if you are in the U S and you take a look, then email them. Who knows? Maybe, maybe you can encourage them to eventually one day, you know, come, start selling in the U S more. So go check them out. The, website is busterbox.com and, and I highly recommend that you go and you sign up for the newsletter. That way you keep up to date on all their promotions and products and all sorts of other things. and then one last thing, well,

Stay safe, stay safe, stay healthy. And one last thing, we've all been going through a lot of stuff, pandemic, geopolitical wars, elections and everything else. Let's just do ourselves a favor and let's remember that everyone is going through something. And if we just be a little kinder to each other, I know we can make this human experience a better one. from the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening to another.

episode of the story of a brand show. And thank you, Gary, for being here on the show. Alrighty. Everyone take care.

Gary (55:54.615)
Thank you for having me.