Pet Life Unlimited

0:00Lindsay Joyce:Welcome to the Emerging Brands podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG Food and Beverage Brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. it. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real-life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42Lindsay Joyce:And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Glimpse. Glimpse is an AI powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions, winning brands, thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most. If you're a brand selling and retail, go to tryglimpse.com backslash trial for 30 days free and let them know I sent you. Now let's dive into the new episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today I have Lindsay Joyce.

1:30Lindsay Joyce:She is the president and head of brand innovation at Pet Life Unlimited. What I was sharing with Lindsay before I hit record was that I really love the pet care space. I've been wanting more pet care brands on the podcast. And so, Lindsay, I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today. Thank you. It's so good to be here. I can't wait to talk. I feel like we've got lots to talk about. Perfect. And I love nerding out with people, especially, I mean, head of brand innovation too. That's like totally up my alley. Nothing better than it. I love it. So let's first start with how did Pet Life Unlimited first come to be?

2:13Lindsay Joyce:Give me a little bit of the origin story. Yeah, sure. So our two company founders were business partners of mine. we built a brand together called Babyganics. It was really sort of trailblazing in the baby category. We had a very successful business and transacted in 2016. And really the premise of that business was bringing to parents, baby parents, human parents, what we thought should have been table stakes, like beautiful ingredients, transparency about everything that's going into the product and also wrapped around a brand that looks great in your home. So you actually want to live with it.

3:02Fast forward to a handful of years ago, after we sold that business, we sort of got some of the key band back together, if you will. And what we started to notice was in the pet care space, food had really caught up with the way that pet parents live their lives today, which is that their core values, they then extend to their pets. So food, supplements, treats, totally caught up with the times. There's a million options. But the categories that we really had a lot of expertise in, so grooming, household cleaning, Even so our biggest category are pee pads, dog pads. And there was really nothing happening in those spaces that were actually serving dog parents the way that they live their lives today.

3:57And we really wanted to be able to create a brand around a set of incredibly made products that would give them exactly what they're looking for.

4:08Lindsay Joyce:So cool. And also what we were sharing before recording was that transition of baby products and quality and then how that's been leading into pets. So it's so interesting. I didn't even realize that you were part of building a baby care food brand and now into pets. So what did that look like as far as taking your learnings from the previous brand, but now shifting it to pets and also the lifestyle products that you all found that white space in. What did those early steps look like? And I love how you say like bringing the band back together. What did that look like of finding this niche? Sure.

4:54So Babyganics, which was the baby company that we all worked on, it was actually not food. It was that was one of the only categories we weren't in. Oh, okay. Categories like skincare, diapers even. And it's, this is how, like, when all the stars align and things come together and you start to realize, like, hold on a second, this is a category. So pet care is a category that is highly unregulated, which means that our expertise in things like skincare, home care, home cleaning, translated so well into the pet care category, and were so much more necessary, in our opinion, than even potentially in the baby space, because unregulated means you don't really have to list your ingredients if you don't want to, as a company.

5:50So that means that dog parents are shopping, and they're probably trusting a lot of the products that are on the shelves, but they have no idea what's actually going into them. They don't know if they've been tested for safety, for efficacy, for quality. And so it's not just that there was a white space from a product standpoint, there was nuanced white spaces within this white space. And our expertise just was so perfectly situated to bring not just to pet parents, but also to retail partners who we've had longstanding relationships with in some cases to really bring them something that would answer the wants and the needs of today's dog and pet parents.

6:38Not like what our parents sort of used to be dog owners, right? That's not how we live today. Our pets are part of our family. So that was a really natural progression. And there was such an opportunity for us to look at what was happening in the category and innovate, not for the sake of innovation, but innovate to really answer the specific pain points that pet parents were having. We do a ton of consumer pet parent research. That is where everything starts. We have something called that we call the pet parent lab. We have, yes, I saw that on your

7:24Lindsay Joyce:website. I thought that was so cute. So, so when we, when we started this, I mean, the first thing we always do is you have to talk to people. So I have three dogs. I'm a pet parent, but my, my life with my dogs is very different from every other person. And that's the beauty of the way that we see this category evolving is that we can now start to answer the different wants and needs of various dog parents, because no two of them are the same, just like in hair care for humans or skincare for humans. No two people are the same. And to date, the category has treated dog parents as a singular entity, but that's not the reality.

8:12And so what we're finding through our success so far is that it's because pet parents really appreciate being seen as who they specifically are as a dog parent and the life that they live with their dog.

8:27Lindsay Joyce:That's also interesting. And I didn't even think about the nuance of pet parents and being seen. Honestly, that wasn't necessarily on my radar, but that's something that really stood out to me on your site, too, of that hub that you have and the different conversations going on. I thought that was really intriguing, and I love a community-based brand. And before we dive more into strategy, I would love to hear just from you, because I know that people are probably so curious of what made you want to get back into CPG after having a successful sale of the previous business and then getting back in the ring and building another new brand from scratch.

9:07Lindsay Joyce:I could I could just hear people saying like, OK, what was that motivation or, you know, what what wanted really going back into it? I would just love to hear for you personally. Yeah, definitely. So I'll rewind just a tiny bit. So my career has always followed the trajectory of my life. And I didn't actually plan it that way. But now if I look back, so I started my career in beauty. I, a million years ago now, I went to FIT. So the Fashion Institute in New York. So cool. Right out of college, I went to work at the L 'Oreal Group. And so I was in beauty for about 10 years. And that was when I was, you know, super young and everything that was fun and exciting.

9:52I could not have loved it more than I had babies. And I sort of transitioned into this like, hmm, what do I want to focus on next? And I quite frankly stumbled upon baby Gannix at the perfect time. They needed me. I needed them. It couldn't have been more perfect. So I spent a number of years in the baby category. Now my babies are teenagers, one's in college, one's in high school, and I have three dogs. Got it. So that's part of the reason. Yeah. But really, it's also because this is addicting, to be quite honest. Building a business, you know, I mean, and every one of your listeners knows there's something really addicting when you are this type of person, you get something out of it because you're putting something out into the world that you know is actually gonna make a daily difference to the people who are purchasing your products.

10:54It's not just about selling a product for me. It's about delivering satisfaction, giving people a sense of pride. And yes, you can do that by selling dog pads. If someone would have told me when I was studying fashion 25 years ago that I would be this excited and passionate about dog pads, I would have said they were crazy, but here we are. And so that's really why it's a combination of things that just like sort of matched my life. And also I wanted to feel that feeling that you feel where you're actually creating something that delivers a need for people.

11:38Lindsay Joyce:That resonates with me so much. And it's funny. I started in fashion too, way back in the day and have changed and evolved and grown. And so I, that again, your story really resonates with me. And it makes sense of how you bring a lot of your own personal passion and point of view into the work that you do. Because again, the community feeling that I got from the brand, it now really makes sense to have your personal journey as well. That's so great to hear. Thank you. Yeah, I totally see that connection. So walk me through as far as getting this brand off the ground, were you focused on D2C? Is it more retail focus?

12:24Lindsay Joyce:Like, what's the strategy overall that you've been really honing in on? Yeah, so we focused really solely on retail. And that's for a couple of reasons. The number one reason was because, as I mentioned before, we've got deep relationships with a lot of the largest retailers in the United States because of our collective history of brand building. And it gave us the ability to cast a really wide net relatively quickly. So some brands will choose to go D to C first. And some brands will choose this path. It's just sort of like, what experience do you have? What connections do you have? Having said that, we believe in developing really deep relationships with fewer retail partners so that you can really work with them, understand their needs and deliver what they need so that they can deliver to their shoppers or their customers.

13:31And that has been our focus for the past, you know, five years, basically. We are, the beauty of that too, is that then you leave these sort of untapped areas of distribution and or awareness that you can then dive into to help strengthen the retail partnerships that you already have. So what I mean by that is we don't today yet have presence on TikTok shop, right? We are the type of brands that should be all over that. And that's one of our next fouries, which means for us, that will help fuel. It will become an engine to help fuel the awareness so that when people are walking into some of the largest retailers in the country and we're already there, it just helps to boost us even more.

14:22So again, no path is sort of like right or wrong. It just depends on the brands and the experience and even the products line. We have a pretty vast product range right now. And so when putting together our strategy for social commerce, it will look a little bit different from our retail strategy from an assortment standpoint so that it helps to fuel our retail success versus if you were going to social commerce first, your assortment would probably look very different. And that's why also the building a brand and building your go-to-market strategy is part of the excitement because there is no roadmap.

15:14There is no two equations that are exactly the same. and reflecting back on our success at Babyganics, not only is our go-to-market strategy different from what it was then, but the world is entirely different.

15:34Lindsay Joyce:That's a great point, yes. Yes, we took so much learning from that experience and also the world is totally different. We used to do print magazine ads back then. That's not even a thing anymore. Right. So it's totally fun. It's so fun to see how everything's evolved and then to bring in the right people who have the right expertise so that you can really deliver to ultimately to your customers and your consumers, like be where they are and speak to them the way they expect to be spoken to in those different places. What is something that you're really having fun with in this new brand and, again, leading brand innovation, growing retail in 2026?

16:25Lindsay Joyce:I would love to hear just you personally what you're finding really exciting to dive into. Yeah, so it's probably going to sound pretty expected because my focus is really on brand and innovation. is sort of like the, where those two things merge. And in my opinion, those two things have to go together. Like in some companies, they live a bit separate. There's brands, there's product. For us, they have this beautiful sort of like, they do like a dance together. So for me, right now, the most exciting thing is leading the work that is our continued brand evolution as we answer the needs for consumers at the product level.

17:21So it's like the brand has to continue to evolve as the product assortment evolves. And that's the work that I love more than anything. It's something that's a little bit hard to describe almost. but when you're in it, it's for me, it's the thing that makes the day go like this. Right. And of course it's like, that's when you know, you're doing the best work.

17:46Lindsay Joyce:Totally. And is that through a lot of the community engagement you've been leading and, and building off of? Yeah, exactly. So it's almost like if you picture it sort of as this, it's this just like circular process that we go through, we reach out to our community. We, We talk to, I mean, sometimes it'll be like this where I'm on a Zoom with a handful and no more than that, a handful of dog parents. And we're just asking them all the, just tell us, tell us about your life. Show us the setup of your room. Where does your dog sleep? How do you clean up after them? And then we're doing really large scale surveys.

18:32So we're gathering all of this information and insight from real dog parents. We are either optimizing our products or we're creating new products from that information, including the way that we talk about those products. Then we launch those products into market and then we test them in real dog parent homes. So once we have a tangible product, we field it out into the world, people test it in their actual home, and then we refine everything from there. And the whole thing just starts all over again. So cool. I'm obsessed.

19:11Lindsay Joyce:Again, as a product nerd, brand nerd, innovation nerd, like you're hitting all the things that I just personally love learning about. And I appreciate you sharing with that. And I think it also gives really good insight to someone who's brand new to CPG to really understand what it takes in the day to day. Right. It's like really fun in the beginning. And then you're like, OK, I got this product. Now what? Right. And what you're describing is really them being in the trenches and keep growing, keep evolving, keep scaling, because that's when you have a business, not just a product. Yeah. Yeah.

19:49And one of the sort of like less exciting, but operational nuances about that is there will be various stages of your business where you're still able to iterate because you're not committing to like the highest MOQs on a product that you have. That's really important to us to be able to do that so that we can make either tiny tweaks, whether it's to the actual product itself, or it's simply the messaging on the package. So like, let's say we get to the point where we are only buying into like the highest MOQs. Well, then I lose the ability to evolve. So that's when this stage of the business to me is like the best because you're not changing everything.

20:38And in most cases, people wouldn't even really notice what you're changing, but it's the feeling that they'll get if you change a word here or a pattern there or a color there. So there is this like point in time that you get to when you're at the stage of a business where you sort of lose the ability to do that to some degree. So yeah, it's like a little bit of a line in the sand where you have to say, okay, like we are now committing to this because we're going to go buy multiple millions of pieces of this product.

21:11Lindsay Joyce:Right. We're going all in at this point. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Any last piece of advice you would share with someone, like I said, that's super early on, maybe they're making a career move, going maybe from beauty or finance, tech, into CPG that you've just found really helpful or just a lesson learned that you've carried with you in your career? So, yeah, I think the two things I would say, one of them is when you switch categories or industries, that can be really scary. I've done it now a couple of times. And you might hear people say, oh, well, you can't, you can't switch industries, or you can't switch categories, but do not listen to that.

21:57You absolutely can. And the advice that I would give on that front is to reach out to people who you have seen do it. They might not get back to you, but they probably will. And just ask people questions about how they did it. It's scary, but you can actually definitely do it. And then the other piece as it relates to building a product or a brand when you're really just starting out is just everything we just talked about, which is talk to the end user more than you think you need to and really understand the details of their pain points so that you can deliver something to them, not just as the product that answers those, but the communication that goes along with the product.

22:49So they hear you and they go, this is what you want them to say. You want them to say, how did they know? That's when you know you've hit gold is when they say, how did you know I thought that? How did you know I needed that? And that only starts from you hearing from everybody. That's such a solid piece of advice.

23:14Lindsay Joyce:that is such a solid piece of advice. And I have a client that we're working out something with her product. And I'm so excited to share this podcast interview with her in particular, because I'm like, oh, this is exactly the piece of advice she needs to hear. I know I have to let you go as you're building this incredible brand, but where can people shop Pet Life Unlimited? Yeah, so we are at Walmart nationwide. nationwide. We are at Petco, Amazon, Chewy. You can visit our website to check out the full products line. But really, if you're at retail and you're shopping for your, you know, your bread, your milk at Walmart, go check us out in the pet aisle.

23:55And then Petco has our full products line and Amazon and Chewy.

23:59Lindsay Joyce:Amazing. Well, congratulations. And thank you again for taking the time to bringing us behind the scenes and hearing the nuance and how you're building and your point of you. It's been so lovely and I just appreciate everything you shared today. Thank you so much, Kelly. This is so great. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. Bye. This episode was brought to you by Glimpse. As we know, building a brand is not as sexy and glamorous as it looks on social media at times. A lot of those unsexy problems come into play when brands start to scale in retail distribution.

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26:22Lindsay Joyce:Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Emerging Brands Podcast. It really means so much to me that you listen to this show, share it with your friends and support it. If you are a CPG food and beverage founder and you're ready to launch a brand, people want to shop, head to withkellybennett.com for the details. And as always, thank you so much for listening, shopping the brands featured on the show and following brands I'm working with. It means so much. See you on the next episode.