School Teacher Designs Specialized Diets for Dogs

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

In cities such as San Francisco and Denver, there are now more dogs than children. In 2020, $75 billion will be spent on pets in the United States alone. And because of the pandemic, a lot of shelters have seen much higher adoption rates. That's one of those weird, crazy counter effects, or positive effects even, of this whole situation. So where does that money go?

$75 billion, and that's just in the US. People have to spend it somehow. And it doesn't all need to be with the big pet food and pet care companies. Throughout the Side Hustle School archives, more than 1300 episodes now, we have featured frozen yogurt treats for dogs, specialized and personalized collars and accessories, and even a dating service for dog owners, just to name a few. Now in today's story, after a teacher in Singapore learns to develop a special diet for her beloved dog, Oreo, she learns to offer this possum service to other pet owners.

School teacher designs specialized diets for dogs. That's what our story is all about. It's coming up after this message from our sponsor. [Music]

Like many dog owners, Singaporean school teacher Victoria Kawe is in love with her pet. That would be Oreo, the dog.

When Oreo fell sick, she took him to the vet right away. There she learned that he was ill because he didn't react well to the kinds of mainstream dog foods sold in supermarkets. Furthermore, the combination of ingredients he was reacting to was so common in pet foods that she couldn't simply switch to another brand, leading her vet to suggest that she feed Oreo a custom diet. This suggestion led Victoria down a rabbit hole. Although she'd had Oreo for some time, she didn't know enough about canine nutrition to customize his diet.

She had to start learning and quickly. She left in by taking an online course on nutritional needs for dogs. And yes, those exist, by the way. She also picked up several books to round out her knowledge. Before long, she developed a solid foundation she could use to successfully care for him, giving him the dog life of his dreams.

But Victoria wasn't content with just customizing the diet for Oreo. Reaching out to a friend who worked at an animal shelter, she shared that she had picked up this new skill set and was happy to work with the shelter dogs if they ever needed a custom diet. Victoria provided this type of occasional assistance for a while as she continued to hone her skills and gain valuable experience. Her side hustle breakthrough came in July, 2017, when she got her first paying client, referred from a friend. A few months later, she received another referral, this time through her vet, who is now a friend as well.

Eventually, the growing referrals led Victoria to set up her own website, Bowles and Blends. This way, she had somewhere to share answers to her client's commonly asked questions. She was careful to make sure everything she shared was accurate and lab tested. Although she had put in a lot of work to learn about the subject, she wasn't a vet herself, and she knew that her lack of qualifications might dissuade potential clients from working with her. This meant she made sure to pay extra attention to every detail.

She spent time learning exactly what each client's dog was like, everything from their temperament to daily habits to their fussiness level when it came to food. She also made sure to understand each client's personal needs, since not all of them could afford the time to cook daily or had a large budget to work with. Along with what she calls her Singaporean-esque attitude to work, which involves responding to clients as quickly as possible, she developed a reputation among a small community as the go-to person for canine nutrition. Although referrals kept coming, Victoria wanted to see the business grow. So for that, she needed to acquire more customers.

She started participating in Facebook groups for various dog breeds. It turned out that while nutrition for animals wasn't a particularly new field, it was a niche that was underserved because vet nutritionists typically worked with research labs and big companies to come up with new varieties of pet food as opposed to working directly with pet owners. As Victoria contributed to discussions and shared her knowledge, members of the group gradually took note and started directing their questions to her. Looking back, she says that this resembled a freemium model because she would often answer general questions, which then led members to engage her services as their questions became more specific. Today, she continues to increase her knowledge and qualifications while gaining more practical experience.

One of the things she learned along the way was that working relationships don't always work out, and that's okay. Because dog owners love their companions, sometimes obsessively, frustration and worry could make communication difficult. In this respect, Victoria now spends more time on the front end evaluating each client, talking with them and making sure it's a good fit. She isn't afraid to refer them elsewhere if she thinks they wouldn't have a suitable working relationship. As she says, be clear about your goals and don't let jealousy and competition prevent you from doing the best for yourself and your clients.

After all, it's not a dog-eat-dog world. [Music]

Canine nutrition. Who knew that this was a field that a side hustler could make some money in and gain experience, serve clients, et cetera? Well, I guess Victoria knew, or she figured it out, and maybe somebody else out there as well. As I mentioned in the introduction of the episode, so much money is spent on pet care just because people love their dogs.

They love their dogs, their cats, other animals, and a lot of households. The pet is a family member, in essence. So it's interesting that someone could come along and kind of fill this gap between a vet nutritionist who's mostly working for a big company on developing new kinds of food and someone who doesn't have a lot of specialized knowledge but who is a dog owner and loves their dog. So that's the gap that Victoria is filling, essentially. All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Every dog has its day. Try not to be too dogmatic, by the way. I just want to present different perspectives, give you some ideas, inspiration stories, et cetera. Oh, and I see that Oreo has an Instagram account, as one does, as one's dog does, let's say. So we will link that up as well on the show notes page.

I have to say, it's looking quite fetching. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. That show notes page is sidehustleschool.com/1345. One, three, four, five. Thank you so much for listening today.

Be sure you come back for 1346 and beyond. If you've got a comment or question for the show, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

from The Onward Project.