Puppy Cake of Pittsburgh, Pa., launched in 2007, makes innovative and natural pet products, beginning with Puppy Cake brand cake mix for dogs.

‘Ah ha’ moment that led you to launching this business: I used to work at a sales and marketing firm and one of my clients made cake mixes. Looking at their past cake mix advertisements, I thought wouldn’t that be great if they made that for dogs? People love their dogs, myself included, and I imagined that many dog owners would want to provide their dog with a cake. That was my light bulb moment. I did a search for cake mix for dogs and found two disappointing options that lacked any appeal because of they used crude packaging, had strange flavors like pizza or pot roast and were expensive. Knowing that people are the ones who buy products — not dogs — I wanted to create a cake mix that was close to cake mix for people. People are accustomed to sweet flavors like chocolate or vanilla with professional packaging and easy to use instructions that require things that would already be in their kitchen. I spent the next several weeks researching canine nutrition and eventually came up with two recipes that were healthy, easy and tantalizing to dogs.

Ideal customer: Puppy Cake’s ideal customer is a woman who owns at least one dog and treats her dog like family.

First Customer: I began with just the website and advertised on Google adwords as well as a few dog websites.

Measuring Success: Every time I get affirmation that I have a good product, whether it’s a successful advertising campaign or a compliment from a customer, I feel like I am a success. I have goals that I post up on my cork board above my computer (so I can’t ignore them). They range from simple things like revamping the website to snagging the largest distributor of pet products.

Biggest Struggle: My biggest challenge has been getting capital. At first it was so easy because I have great credit and banks were freely lending. But by the spring of 2008, everything dried up. Most of my spending limits were dramatically reduced with little to no notice and by no fault of my own. It really stunted to growth of my company. I got creative in advertising my business. I require all of my advertising campaigns to have a 100% return on investment and I have sophisticated ways of calculating that before I make the ad buy. I also relied heavily on free publicity. To save money I purchased the book, How to Be Your Own Publicist — so that I wouldn’t have to pay a publicist.

Surprise!: I had no idea how difficult it was to make a dollar. Perhaps it was my youthful naiveté fueled by the American dream, but I really thought I would have $1million in sales in the first year. It takes time to build a brand and reputation.

Promoting Business: I have found that publicity is by far the most effective way to gain new customers, but I am limited in my control in that regard so I rely heavily on social media, especially Facebook. Posting pictures of happy customers is an especially effective way to encourage sales.

Two things I wish I would’ve known: I wish that I had had an understanding of the pet industry when I began. I thought that I could just grow my business with online sales on my website when, in fact, most of my business comes from selling to distributors and large chains. Getting a distributor to carry a new product has been a huge challenge and I didn’t know that having only one product is a major barrier for entry.

What keeps you up at night (business-wise!)?: I worry about capital more than anything. I am lucky to have a very small amount of debt, but it is just enough to take a major chunk of cash flow away from growing the business and paying myself. I worry about paying it back, accruing interest and how I will continue to finance growth.

Ever tempted to throw in the towel and just get a job?: I have thought that many times. Every time I come to a road block, I have prayed and asked God to tell me if I should stop doing this, but every time, a solution or affirmation to continue comes my way.

Moving Forward: To gain national distribution. To achieve this, I am working diligently to garner new distributors, chain stores and independent retailers across the country.

Pricing, Getting It Right?: Puppy Cake is a tangible product, which makes pricing a little easier. When I set the price for Puppy Cake, I considered the alternative to consumers and then other gourmet dog treats — plus the consumer mindset of cake mix. Gourmet treats run between $5 – $10 and a store bought cake for dogs cost between $15-30. I settled in at $7 which seems to be the sweet spot.

A Few Good Tips: Manufacturing is heavily dependent on cash flow because you can’t just order 200 branded boxes to fill your 200 box order this month; you have to order 5,000 boxes at a time which can tie up a lot of cash. It may take you a year to use all those boxes, so you have to be able to float an entire year’s worth of boxes right away. This makes adding new products challenging, because every new product comes with a hefty price tag, but it is critical to growing the business. You can’t be scared to create new products, but also wise with your money. Profit margins are usually between 40%-60%, so you have to remember a $10,000 sale isn’t really $10,000, its $4,000 – $6,000 that you can actually use for operations.

The absolute best part of owning my business is: taking ownership of all the successes of my company.

If I had to start over again, I would: have a business coach help me from day one.

I never imagined: getting distribution would be so difficult.

If standing on a rooftop facing crowds of aspiring or struggling small business owners, I would shout: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

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