Episode 98 "The One With XDOG" with special guest Stan Smith

Speaker 1: 0:00

Everybody who's been a part of your journey since you started this thing, just like everybody who's been a part of mine good, bad, indifferent they added value. And every single employee, every single partner, every single, whatever, whether it ended good or not, there was value there and, really excited for the show today got a friend of mine, stan smith, in the studio well, his studio today, I should say. Stan is the founder and ceo of x-dog and unless you've been under a rock for the last several years and you're anywhere in the dog space, you have for sure heard about xDog and the phenomenal work that they're doing, you know, focused on the health and well-being of dogs around the world, and so I had the pleasure of being on Stan's podcast a couple of years ago on one of my trips out to Texas, where he's based out of got the tourist facility and hang out for a bit, and we've been connected over the years through some different things and you know we finally got him here on the Big Dog Podcast. So, stan, welcome.

Speaker 2: 1:26

What's up, man, glad to be on. First of all, I want to say thank you for inviting me, man. I've been watching and a big fan of your podcast for a long time.

Speaker 1: 1:33

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'll put you to the list. With my grandmother, my mom and I think my wife tunes in every once in we're doing okay, yeah, that's awesome. How's Texas, baby, how's Texas?

Speaker 2: 1:44

Man, it's raining a lot here. Other than that, man, it's typical Texas. You know, hot one week, freezing cold the next week, but I love it.

Speaker 1: 1:51

That's awesome. That's awesome. So look, let's dive in. First talking about kind of your story, how you ended up on this path that led you to X-Dog.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Take us back a little bit. Tell them about you. Well, it all initially started like my love for dogs when I was a kid. I grew up around four years old I had lost my eye and then I'm biracial. I grew up in a small town of like 2,500 and it's called Mason City, illinois, so it's a timely white town, father. I stayed with my father. My father and my mother got divorced and she ended up moving down to Louisiana and at the end of the day, you know like I was just a kid with a bunch of insecurities and my grandma had dogs and a few of my friends had dogs and one day I ended up getting a dog and you know, dealing with a lot of insecurities. Dogs don't care about that stuff. What type, how rich you are, what type of clothing you wear, you know they don't care if you're disabled or anything else. That it was just one of those things where I found and fell in love and trusted dogs. So when I knew I was able, when I was older enough to actually get dogs, I was like, man, I'm going to get my first. You know, pit bull, you know, and it was just one of those things.

Speaker 2: 2:53

I was in the music industry. I wanted a pit bull. I ended up getting a pit bull and then it was just, like you know, one of those $200 dogs out of Craigslist and met somebody in the parking lot, got it out of the back of the truck, his little red-nosed dog named Deja, and then I started taking a little bit deeper dive. They had back in the day the message boards and that's when the American Bully started to actually become present and I ended up at the time I thought it was a lot of money. I spent like $1,800 on a dog named Caution who came out of a very popular dog of the guy who created Razor's Edge American Bull. He's actually out of Virginia.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Yeah, and then we got on the message boards and I went down this rabbit hole of all these American bullies and the next thing I know I started investing into American bullies, throwing them in videos and stuff like that, and gain popularity and notoriety through the music and having the dogs. But just like with any dog community you're going to run into, they want you to take certain steps. They don't want you to fast track.

Speaker 2: 3:45

So you have individuals who've been in the game for a long time, and then there's this punk kid you know comes in three years. He knew how to buy dogs. I had a vision for phenotype right. Like my dad raised king pigeons, and king pigeons is like a 40 ounce man-made bird right Big, short beaks, big chest, short backs everything that you ideally would want in a bully dog.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Right right.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Culture-wise. So I knew what to look for. You know you want big head. I know how to look for a big head. You wanted short backs. I knew, you know, like just extremities on basically an American Pitbull Terrier with a little bit different demeanor, and it was just one of those things, man, I was able to fast track through the music industry and then, you know, I started getting hated on and they didn't like that and I was like, well, I don't want to stay like doing this where you know like people are just upset because you know I was like there has to be a better way to find a different community. And at the end of the day I noticed when I started going to shows there's people feeding certain supplements and there are supplement vendors and stuff like that, and I didn't really understand how the supplement works, both on the human side or on the dog side. Back then I just know, if you put it on dog's food, you know you're supposed to supposedly get a result. I didn't know what result, you know.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Yeah, something was probably going to happen, though.

Speaker 2: 4:56

Yeah, and then the number one question was like, how do you bulk up your dog? You know, how do you gain mass and muscle on your dog? And I happened to, you know, contact a manufacturer I still work with today and they let me white label a multivitamin. And, you know, just having the marketing experience in the music industry and branding experience, I just took a popular dog and threw it on the label that was in our community. They were able to. You know, we were able to get like 30 bottles and then you could get like every 10 bottles you get two frees.

Speaker 2: 5:18

I took like 36 units with this label, popped my trunk like I was selling CDs, and 30 sold out. I was like, oh, I got something here. So we started out with supplements and then to fast track it, you know about 2012, my business partner I was telling him I was like man, if we could come out with like a weight vest, you know, I think we could really change the game. And I was looking for like seven years to find a manufacturer. I didn't have. No, I had no clue how to look for a manufacturer.

Speaker 2: 5:41

There was one in the US and I didn't know how to contact anybody overseas and he just made one email and got a response. And it's with the manufacturer that we work with today and it was just a human weight vest manufacturer that you know. We customized and modified the vest and man in 2017, we made our first sale on August 8th and it just kind of took off from there.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Yeah, that's incredible. And there, yeah, that's incredible. And so it starts with this passion for dogs as a kid and you know the dogs being able to help offset, you know, maybe, some insecurities and you know kind of finding your way and write such a common, a common story that you hear from people within our community and how they, the route they end up going with the dogs and the different type of dogs that that bring that comfort, that that find that family bond, you know, with the individual in it, and so you're able, like so many people I talk to, to take and spin kind of that passion into life and a business model. And what can we do? You know you were music industry. You were doing that. You learned promotion. You learned marketing. The dogs are still a big part of your life at that time. What you're doing, that's like the supplement piece.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Now you know 2017, the vests come out. What was kind of talk about that? That the early days when cause you're, you know, when I started out, it was hard and I'm service-based right, no product, it's service. I just need to find someone who wants to pay me to deliver my service. There's no manufacturing involved there. Manufacturing involved. There's no white labeling. There's no coming up creating inventing of my own. It's a service that I'm going to provide. So now that I have gotten over into that side a little bit, which I'm still not an expert in, it is such a different ballgame than a service-based business. So, starting out, I think this can be really valuable for others who have that product that they believe in and they think is going to be special, whether it's pet industry or not. Talk about some of those struggles when you were getting started and those lessons that you were learning. You know, coming up on both the supplement and the vest side, because those are two different things as well.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yeah, so on the supplement side, the biggest struggle was understanding how to sell it outside of just going to shows, right, like I had no education on e-commerce and how to build websites and stuff like that, how to set up websites or getting a merchant account to run credit cards. I had no understanding on that and so that was the biggest challenge is that. I mean to be completely honest with you. This whole journey through this business side has been in a very expensive, hands-on journey because I'm not educated. I didn't go to school for business and, quite frankly, after going through all this, I don't know if you know, business school would even have helped us because of how fast you know business is transitioning now and how people do business. And so the first initial was it's like you know one, you got to find a manufacturer. But second you got to educate yourself on you know, on the product. You know I initially white labeled, but I noticed I recognized real early and this is, I think, where I was. I got really lucky is I. I understood how you know. Um, you know when people white label, it's one thing, but to custom formulate a product and not cut corners, that's what gave us a competitive advantage because our products actually work, you know.

Speaker 2: 8:39

So, when you're talking about the pet product, especially the food industry and people don't quite understand this dog food alone when you're talking about the big boys like the you know the pedigrees, the Nestle's, the Mars, you know the Hill science and stuff like that, they're literally competing for 20, 30 cents a bag, right, literally competing for 30, 20,. You know 20, 30 cents a bag. So they're going to cut corners any way possible, right, you know. So they're going to put the cheapest ingredients throughout, you know, throughout the dog food.

Speaker 2: 9:04

And what was interesting is that, I guess, to go back to the challenging part was, at the beginning, a lot of it the supplements was people thought it was snake oil. So it's a snake oil, snake oil, snake oil I feed all natural. I mean it's like well, turn, turn your bag of dog food around. You're going to see that not only are you feeding snake oil, you're feeding the cheapest form of snake oil, because enrich every bag of dog food, probably with the pre-vitamins coming out of China, you know. And so the education part was the toughest. And then, you know, I learned, I was like well, we started at the very beginning there was a few ingredients that were actually recognized as muscle builders. One of them was creatine. At the time there was a big misconception that it's hard on livers and you know it was like super hard on your body.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Now it's considered a superfood, so we were able to create products based on ingredients that I took from the human side that I knew it works Because, when you think about it, a lot of the human grade products are tested on animals, right, and so they're either tested on mice or they're tested on, basically, mice in general and rats, and so I knew that it yielded a result. So when people actually used our products, we would cut the corner on putting all the taking, removing all the junk out, base our products with superfood Like, for example, I could have put my microlose, which is a sugar right, as a base. Instead, I'm like I'm using bone broth protein. I'll use, you know, a super healthy fat source, like coconut oil, as my base, and then I'll put an active ingredient in it to bulk it up, like creatine. And dogs are getting a result because they're getting a high quality protein, a healthy fat, and then something that supports muscle.

Speaker 2: 10:29

And now we look at creatine and it's not only is it great for muscle building, it's also great for neurological support and health. So you know like the dogs are able to remember things for a longer period of time, focus for a longer period of time. It also supports bone density support. So, like when your dog ages, your dog's bones are going to eventually get brittle, you know. So there's just so many health benefits, but that was like the main challenge is just educating people. Now I'm seeing a transition where now people are understanding you got to put whole food sources in your kibble. Kibble isn't the greatest, you know. It's enough to keep your dog alive, but it's your dog's not going to thrive. And then add some supplements can really help.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Yeah, that's incredible. And there's so many, right, Like the pet food industry. There's so many options and they're all pretty good marketers. And so you know, you can have 10 different products, not just different in name but legitimately different in compound, everything of what it consists of, and you could buy each one if you went for face value of what the descriptions are and the marketing campaigns say a great food, a great product for your dog. And if you don't know, you really just don't know. And you've seen horror stories. I've seen them all the time and read them, and so that is a part where the education piece really comes into play. And I agree with you. I'm glad to see more people starting to recognize hey, there's better options out here for you know your pet than what you could grab from the gas station on the way home because you forgot to you know plan ahead for your, for your animal.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Let's talk vests a little bit. You know, cause this is something that's always been fascinating to me and you know, gosh, you've had so many different designs and styles and stuff, from the weighted vest to stress relief, to cooling, to heating. Talk about the vest a little bit. What brought that to your mind as being like hey, this is a viable piece that's missing Because there's a million harnesses out there, right, and 95% of them are dog shit. I mean, they're just terrible. They're just terrible. Your product, just from experience, using hands-on. You know, see, this is not a crap product if you've never heard of it before and we're gonna have links to the site on the show and stuff like that, but you know, so people can click on and and follow it and look into it. But man, this is an incredible product and it's scalable to so many different sizes of dogs and needs. What got you there to that Like this is a legitimate need that we can help with.

Speaker 2: 12:52

Well, that's a great question. So, first of all, you know, when you talk about, you know my, my whole mission was I want to eliminate dog obesity. So it was like, okay, can we educate the consumer on what to feed? That's going to be pretty difficult because everybody's kind of set in their ways on what they're currently feeding, right. And then we go, okay, let's look at their lifestyle. Now there's a lot of dogs who have, let's just say, one over one out of five, one out of two dogs, over 50% are either overweight or obese. And so I'm like, okay, well, it's going to be hard to educate them. It's going to be hard to get people out there to exercise your dog. What is there?

Speaker 2: 13:23

What's one thing that we can offer all dogs, no matter what diet they're eating, what lifestyle they're living, that can generally give them a competitive advantage in life when it comes to improving their overall health and well-being, and that's exercise, and an elevated form of exercise would be fitness and resistance training. So how do we do that? Well, that's where the weighted vest comes in. And then you know so, for example, as soon as you put the vest on the dog, which takes about 15 to 20 seconds a day right and less than that, to take it off. As soon as you put it on the dog, it immediately is receiving the health benefits of exercise.

Speaker 2: 13:57

So it doesn't matter what, you don't have to change his lifestyle and you do not have to change his diet. At the bare minimum, put it on your dog for an hour or two a day and it's going to transform your dog's life and it's going to slow down the aging process of living cells, keep them at a healthy weight, improve joint health, and then I mean we can take even a deeper dive when it comes to lowering the risk of health-related diseases. And then going into the dog psychology side of things, because you know it's now we're now being sought after for its anxiety, ability to address anxiety and behavior issues, which is like a major thing, and so I really believe it's the most impactful tool that's ever hit the pet industry when it comes to your dog's overall health and well-being, both physically and mentally. And once we get that message out, man, I think we're off to the races.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Yeah, that's awesome. And the thing too, you know, it's not just the benefits of the dog wearing it. I mean this is a functional harness. I mean there's other accessories that you use. We've actually I had a dog that worked great on. We would track with it. It was very comfortable for the dog you know to wear. You know for that it was actually a perfect setup for that particular dog. But I mean you guys have, you know, weighted bags. You know that can be pulled. You know attached to the harness. Or you know what are the bands, resistance bands, the parachutes. You know it is a very functional. I mean it's got pockets, it can get. You can care, the dog can carry stuff. You have it set up where the small weight bags, because when you purchase the vest it comes with the weight bags and your recommendation is usually what? Like pellet, like BBs?

Speaker 2: 15:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:20

So, for example, the new V4 we modify, which is going to be our newest version that we're actually going to launch next month, we have two forms of it. Right, we have the X-Dog V4 and then we have the V4 Max. Now the V4 Max is what you're talking about, which is going to have the additional D-rings for, kind of like, those extreme dog owners, like those who compete at the highest level and really want to talk to the next level. That way you can use the resistant accessories like the weighted drag bag, the speed shoe or the resistance band, and it's got to have front shoulder weights. And then we're going to launch the V4 Max, which is going to be a more affordable version that we're going to go into major retails with. So we're going out to pet global on the 19th through the 22nd of this month and we're sitting down with major buyers right now. Major retail, which is like a dream come true, but we got to make sure that we have it at a great price point to where it's going to move. So you know, the everyday dog owner who's not an extremist can utilize the X-Dog V4. And then you have your extremists that can use the X-Dog. You know V4 Max.

Speaker 2: 16:18

And yes, so each vest will come with a set of warming and cooling gel packs, which is great. You can use that as far as a recovery If you have a dog, that's if it's hot outside and you want to work them out, you can, you can freeze the gel packs, or if it's cold outside you can warm them up and they also that which also makes great for like warming and cooling, compression, depending on the symptoms that you know a dog dealing with anxiety issues may be dealing with. And then we have weighted bags that you can gradually increase the weight With these. On the V4, we initially went with BBs with the zipper pockets, but now we ran into a problem. That's another issue. When you develop a product, you're going to have to test the market and figure out how you can modify and make things better. We took the weight bags and we went back to the Velcro bags, and that way you can either use sand or BBs and each one can reach the ideal weight of 5% for high velocity training, which includes, like anything that's, sprinting, running, jumping or low impact movement, up to 10%, which is, you know, control, leash walks, obedience training and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 17:16

And so, with that method of gradually conditioning your dog, either using the weighted gel packs or gradually filling you know the weight bags up. You're going to be able to condition the muscles correctly and since 2017, we've had zero injury reports. We've sold almost 100,000 vests and we've had zero injury reports Now on average, just on the FlexiLead alone. It's on average, yearly about 20,000, both 20,000 people and dogs get injured just on the FlexiLead youLead. It's crazy. Not to have an injury using a fitness tool like a weighted vest is remarkable. That's something I'm really proud of, right there.

Speaker 1: 17:54

No, and you should be. The thing that I've always been crazy impressed with is you didn't come out with the vest and just say, hey, this is the best vest on the market. These are the benefits. Nothing's going to equate to this, you know, and just push it and push it, and push it. I mean, I've been connected and communicating with you and following you for years and years and years and you are always innovating. You are always looking for a way to improve the product, right, and which plays into the mission of, you know, eliminating dog obesity.

Speaker 1: 18:25

It's like, what else can we do to help these dogs? And it's a constant cycle. Right, like you could. You could have the same vest and change the color and you'd be able to sell some more vests. There's people out there that are going to buy every color, every size, like every rendition, and that's cool and that's a scalable opportunity. But the fact that not only are you doing that, but you're also looking to improve the product, whether it through accessories, whether it's through materials, quality, impact, that's awesome, man, so many manufacturers all they're looking for is cutting costs, right, they figured out how to make something, all right. Now how do we make this as cheap as possible. Now, obviously, from a business standpoint, you have to do that. It's like, hey, how do I make this to my expectations for as cheap as possible? That's important, but the focus isn't let's sacrifice 40% of my expectation for this product so that we can sell it for cheaper.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Well, that's the beauty about the V4. I'm sorry to interrupt you. The V4 is that we were able to cut costs on our manufacturing side, at the same time increase the quality of the vest. But we didn't how we did it was okay. We're like okay, I want to, I want to, I want to impact a million dogs on a calendar year. And I'm like, how are we going to do that? Well, we had to bring in a partner, right? Well, that partner who has come in, guess what? They've been in the industry for 20 years and guess what? They're good friends with some other manufacturers who actually own it and there's no middleman. And so we're actually going out there and a lot of people have their products made in China. But we're actually going to sit down with a manufacturer out of Vietnam this coming up week.

Speaker 1: 20:02

And that's.

Speaker 2: 20:24

That's kind of sits at home because my mother's from there, right, okay, and, ironically, ideal goal by probably about 20%. And another 25% because, if people don't know, this is that there's a 25% tariff tax on anything dog related to come out of China. So if you get it done in Vietnam and then have it imported from Vietnam, that's 25% that you're saving. So if you're spending $100 out of China, you're going to. So if you're spending a hundred dollars out of China, you're going to spend about $127 and 40 cents out for that product, right, and then, and so that's a big margin when you're talking about tens of thousands of units, and so relationships are important, you know, and so being able to take that because the main thing is is like we need to get this on the shelves with these retailers to where they get their 60 points Right and we make our margins as well.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:12

We need to be able to sell it for around 49 99. Like that's our ideal goal, and then get it to our trainers at an extremely premium wholesale price so that they're getting their 60 points as well. And that we're all able to impact and win. You know, at the end of the day that's that's the the more dogs we can impact. It's just a perfect ecosystem for all of us.

Speaker 1: 21:30

Yeah, I agree and talk a little bit about kind of manufacturing headaches over the last couple of years, cause I know you said you got a new manufacturer now and that's helping a lot on costs, increased margins for both yourself, any vendors you're working with, et cetera. But what were some challenges over the last couple of years that were hemming you guys up, if any, or were you not impacted over the last couple of years with materials and stuff?

Speaker 2: 21:54

The tariff on China was the big thing. When you're importing a container and you're usually expecting like $8,000 to $10,000 for the container and you get a bill for $40,000, you're like whoa, it's big, big spike on that. But on the manufacturing side we got really lucky. If I was to say if you are going to get products manufactured, make sure you get the prototypes in and then you test the shit out of them. Just test them and test them and test them, because our first mistake when we initially got the vest on our first batch is when they came in first. They were about 120 days late because we didn't know the importing time Right and then we didn't double check any of the stitching. So our consumers were upset. They get the vest and next thing I know we're getting hundreds of emails of their vest falling apart, and so you know that was. That was a big, costly learning experience, but it was a valuable learning experience because you know we increased the durability and understood where the weak areas were and we were lucky to have very understanding customers right.

Speaker 1: 22:52

And that was early on.

Speaker 2: 22:53

That was early on. So now it was just basically the sizing thing. So with the V4, we moved the fitness bands from the back shoulders to the front shoulders, which now addresses the issue. On the neck size. We went from having 12 sizes to now we're going to have five sizes that will cover the lion's share of dogs that weigh between 15 pounds to 180 pounds.

Speaker 2: 23:14

And, yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, like when you're trying to maintain 12 colors and 12 sizes, you're going to run into sizing issues as far as, like man, we're not. You know, we've got a boat load of these colors and these sizes and we're not sitting and we need these sizes. We don't have them in stock. So that was a manufacturing issue that we got fixed. But it took someone like Brian, who came in and partnered up with us who does the partner, manufacturer of distribution to go? What are your two top selling products and what are the way of the dogs and can we create a product? And I don't know why it didn't, it didn't dawn onto me, but he planted that seed and I was like I think we can do that and we ended up doing it and I'm excited about it because it's less of a headache because, you know, even selling on e-commerce and just creating all those listings on e-commerce is just a nightmare.

Speaker 1: 24:00

you know no dude, when I came by and saw your guys' place and you were walking me through the warehouse and you know fulfillment and shipping and showing me all the different you know areas set up, and I'm sitting there my mind was going bonkers and you had like a I think a container had just showed up, like right before I was getting ready to leave, so they started offloading and doing different things. I'm like holy crap, like there's so much stuff here and I'm thinking about all the different SKws and getting everything in and like if you get behind on maintaining inventory, your numbers are jacked. And I just think about, from a business management standpoint, how difficult and challenging that is. So you're like man, it took someone like you said Brian, is that your partner, is you know Brian? To come in and say, hey, why don't we do blah, blah, blah, have you thought about it?

Speaker 1: 24:47

And you're like what the hell? Why didn't I think about that? Well, sometimes, man, we're so deep in it, right, all we see is what's like five feet in front of us and it's impossible to see those moves that literally can equate to one big margins, less stress most of the time, and you know a better, but you're just rolling. And when you're rolling or if you're dealing with other outside pressures or things like that. Man, I I do that all.

Speaker 1: 25:14

I hate to admit that, but I mean that happens to me all the time that there's things and I I want to believe I'm getting, but I do believe I'm getting better but, you know, it's like if you can't get that partner who can have eyes from a different vantage point, or a consultant or a coach or somebody who can just see it from a little different perspective, or someone who's been where you're trying to go before, to come in and say, hey, you can get where you want to be, but not with how you're doing it right now, because we don't know what we don't know. And then it's the part to understand, and I think this is important for all the entrepreneurs out there. It's like you don't know what we don't know, yeah, and then it's the part to understand I think this is important for you know all the entrepreneurs out there. It's like you don't know what you don't know. When you know it, be humble, yeah, the ego and switch.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Yes. That means your whole business model is about to change. It doesn't mean your vision and your idea and your concept is shit. It just means you're doing pretty good job getting to where you are. But if you really want to do it right, yep, you probably got to take some considerations in that you don't know exist and don't let your ego keep you from from winning yeah, and that was a blessing.

Speaker 2: 26:19

Like I said, when brian had came on, he initially came on just to sublease and I think he was just kind of watching to see how well the vests were selling. Because I kept selling I was like was like, dude, you need to jump on board on this. And it was one of those things where you know he's a numbers guy, so I deal with maybe 40 pallets at a time. He deals with about 1200 to 1500 pallets at a time, right, wow, yeah, about 40 skews. Um, he'll probably knock that down a little bit. However, margins matter to him and so for him to come on board to be a part of this, it was like I got an expert in-house who's consulting me and he brings a strength to the group that I didn't have, or my other business partner, steven, didn't have. So now we have a person who is in-house that is an expert on wholesale distribution to major retails. He's not big on e-commerce, he's part of Vendor Central.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Amazon, which is almost you have to be invited to be on Vendor Central and so, for example, amazon gives him a purchase order list of containers at a time and they sell his product. Where we post our listings on Amazon and sell on their platform, there's a big difference. He's getting a check every 90 days or every 60 days. Platform there's a big difference. He's getting a check every 90 days, you know, or every six. It's a big check and I try to get on there. They're like, yeah, we'll hit you off when you're ready?

Speaker 1: 27:34

yeah, we'll, we'll let you know.

Speaker 1: 27:37

It's like calling american express trying to get the black card they're like well, mr wilson, no, we'll have our people, call your people and that won't be happening. So the v4 and the v4 max is the new model, yep, that's coming out that we're so excited about. What is what's next for x dog, like? What's next for stan, like what? Where are y'all headed? You know what are you dreaming for, what's the vision, like I know, a million dogs you want to impact in a year, which I love, man and I can get behind for sure. But what else is going on? What? Because I know, I know you, brother, and your mind is always racing with with ideas and thoughts, and you know what are you up to.

Speaker 2: 28:24

So the new thing is I've always done this on e-commerce right and I was like in order to impact a million dogs. It's going to be challenging to do it that way. However, if we can get into retail, that's going to be our big play right, and obviously Brian has these relationships with Petco, petsmart, Hollywood Feed, pet Supplies, plus I mean, we got meetings with buyers after buyers after buyers, and retail is our next thing, like I want to like.

Speaker 2: 28:55

ideally, my dream is not to be doing the day-to-day operational stuff here and actually getting and and getting in the car and going or traveling to all these locations and educating the stores. Educating it's just that's what's really exciting for me. I've always dreamed of it, right, like I've always wanted to get in there. And then, in addition, is getting with, with these trainers. You know the new program is going to be that we're setting up is going to also be great for our, for the trainers that are in our network, because now they're able to. They don't have to carry 12 products as 12 different sizes. Right, you can carry the case that has two, you know know, two like a two smalls, two mediums, two large, which will be the lion's share of, uh, probably, the client base that you're going to be dealing with, and it's going to be at a super affordable price. So you'll, you'll, you'll find another avenue to, you know, um, to actually, you know, bring in general revenue for your business, and that's that's the beauty, like, that's all. That's the next big play.

Speaker 2: 29:48

I, you know, I'm, I think ambition is great. At the same time, you have to, you have to dial it in. That's what kind of put me in a bad place. You know, I created custom formulated dog food. I did a bunch of toppers, I did treats. You know I had to go and go. What's working, bring it back in. These are the supplements we're going to focus on and now we're going to work out, focus on e-commerce, the vest and going into retail, and that's that's our move.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Good for you. And the thing that's great too is you go in and have these meetings with the retailers is you actually have data to show that, hey, we've pushed a hundred thousand plus of these things through e-commerce and train shows. It's going to move off your shelves right, Like I I've been out here doing this on my own for these last several years like put it in front of people in a store and where they're walking through, like they are gonna move and it. I'm excited for you, man. I mean, I I'm praying that these meetings go tremendously well beyond your wildest dreams and imagination with it and that fulfillment is. Fulfillment is is easy and you can deliver what they're ordering after the first round or two, because I I believe, once you get it that easy in front of somebody not these, not the little boutique shops you're talking about like major players in the pet industry and the boutiques push product for you and that's that's great, that's awesome. It's just at a smaller scale, but the reach that those big names that you mentioned have, oh my gosh man.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Oh yeah, that's a game changer.

Speaker 2: 31:11

I'm even thinking like Walmart Cabela's Bass Pro Shop.

Speaker 1: 31:15

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 31:15

That's where we want to go with this thing and the buyers you know as soon as we send them over the product sheets they're excited because it's something unique. Because when you go to these trade shows dog bed, dog bull, another leash, another collar, freeze, dried, everything now it's just like they're like what. There's a product that can actually I can feel good about selling to our consumers because it solves a lot of problems. It's going to, it's a great investment for any dog owner and I want it to be as common as a leash and collar. But I really believe it's going to be the most impactful tool to ever hit the market. If we can get the message out, we can convey the message properly, which is again simplifying it. You know, warming, cooling vest. We're going to deal with fitness, uh, anxiety and behavior. If your dog has behavior issues, this vest can help get with a certified trainer. If your dog has anxiety issues, utilize this tool, get with a certified trainer. And if you want to improve your dog's health, just invest into it.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Yeah, that's dope. That's great man Talk family a little bit. How's family?

Speaker 2: 32:17

Family's good. You know, I had a new son. He's about 18 months and man, he's man. He's changed my life as far as like really, you know my, my unique perspective on how healthy I need to be to sustain the energy levels to keep up with them you know, run business and to be able to keep up with them is absolutely challenging, but man it.

Speaker 2: 32:38

You know, I have two older kids. I have a son who's 22 and a daughter who's 20. And, um, I was young when I had him and so it's kind of like I don't know. It's almost kind of like I got this grandparent mentality. You know everything. I've messed up where I felt like I messed up with my other children, which I don't, you know, they're great kids, but I'm like man, I would have done that a lot better. You know, as far as just you know, guiding the right direction.

Speaker 1: 32:59

Yeah, it's funny you say that. So Logan graduated um June last year, you know, took the summer to just chill and relax and in August, you know, came to work for us and you know that's what he wanted to do. He decided that, like junior year of high school, he wanted to be a part of the business and I'm like, well, man, look, we can get you learning more in six months and four years of college. So you know, if you want to be in the pet industry, and particularly on the marketing side, and dogs, let's roll. Particularly on the marketing side, and dogs, let's roll. I would love for you to be here, but it's so funny because I think about that, I'm like, all right, he's going to be 20 in December and a couple of our really, really close friends they kind of did the opposite of my wife and I, like my wife and I, graduated college, got married, had kids pretty quickly.

Speaker 1: 33:50

Our dearest friends, most of them waited until they were like late 30s, early 40s to start having kids.

Speaker 1: 33:53

Yeah, and I'm like my kids are graduated, walking out the door uh-huh and now, like my godson's, like five and like six, and you, know, my little nephews and nieces are all teeny, tiny and I'm looking at him and I'm like, god bless y'all, I don't have it in me, right, I couldn't do it right now. I'm gonna be a great, I'll be a great granddaddy one day, like I'll be the awesome, the best grandpa like you could imagine. But Holy cow, if I had to have my own or if I was starting over right now, I'd be in trouble, stan. I mean, we make it work because my wife's an angel. But, brother, I would be in trouble if I was starting over. Trouble if I was starting over. But there's so many things that I'm to your point of like I'm. I learned from the first two, who are older now you're talking about and the things you're doing differently with the baby. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff Poor Logan had to take on the chin and just deal with cause his dad was a dumb ass.

Speaker 2: 34:42

It's such an interesting thing because it's like man, like you know, I I invest the time and energy into you know his learning curve. You know the kid speaks, he's bilingual already and he's super advanced at that, and he's signing, like he does a bunch of sign language stuff now.

Speaker 2: 34:57

So I've had to learn spanish, I've had to learn sign language and it's been fun and it's just, it's so interesting just sitting back and watching him grow and I know if I know I can nurture him with the right things to put in his mind, making him earn things. You know, now I feel like you know, the world's getting softer and you can get your kids to. You know, have a little little beast in them, you know, just have a little dog in them. They're going to be able to run things and so that's great. That Logan, at being 20 years old, to want to jump in business. It's such, a, such a competitive advantage, man, for the rest of his life to learn things that you're going to need to learn to to be an entrepreneur, cause business is one of the most challenging, if not the most challenging thing you can do as far as career choice wise, is running a business.

Speaker 1: 35:44

Oh yeah, A lot easier things to do. Logan, jump in here real quick. Jump on on video. I'm going to show off. I'm going to do a flex with Stan. So you're talking about how your 18 month old's bilingual right Like I couldn't take that subtle flex, Just let it fly. My son here is also bilingual. Logan hit us with some Spanish. Oh wow, that's right. That's right.

Speaker 2: 36:04

All right, Get out of here, hey man yeah, he's going to be traveling to Texas. A lot, right, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:13

Yeah, he's got to get it in. He's got to get it in. Man, that's so funny. No, it's one of my, probably one of the things I'm proudest of in my life, you know. Second only to, you know, my wife, you know, still wanting to be with me every day, you know, and loving me after all these years, because we started dating when we were 16. Right, and we met when we were 14. You know, I'm very proud that I'm still someone that she chooses to be with, because I surely don't make that easy. But a very close second to that is that we created something that my son wants to be a part of. Right, because I work like crazy.

Speaker 1: 36:47

This business, you know, has provided everything, but it's also cost me everything, and you know, people who aren't in it can't really understand that statement. Like, and what I mean by like, yes, it's provided everything, but the cost is so great. And whether it's, you know, personal wellness, you know, mental well-being, mental health, family time, financial resources or lack thereof, you know it's so much and it literally costs everything, but it provides everything. And to the fact that it's something that we've built that he chooses to be a part of, you know, it's really haven't lacked motivation like I. Stay fired up. Man, I'm like you, like I'm, I'm driven, I'm ready to roll. But there has been this new sense of like revigoration, with logan coming in yeah where I'm like, oh man, we're just getting started.

Speaker 1: 37:42

Yeah, we're just now. You know we've we've kicked off some different stuff, but we had to be very strategic with it because, I agree, you started talking about like the treats and this and that and it's almost like a distraction, right, a distraction from what really really works. And we've started some stuff over the years but we've had to let it sit because it couldn't get the focus, because the training is the primary thing. Yeah, right, that is who we are at. Our core is the training piece. But as we've grown, you know, we've tried some of the things, but for success or failure I wouldn't say any of them failed. It just wasn't worth it to be a priority, yeah, and it distracted from the, the bigger picture and the. But last year we did kick off our, our media company and you know that's been freaking tremendous and it's it's married right up with the dog training side and and we're servicing a lot of my off leash canine locations but then also helping other businesses as well, and it's been really freaking great and it hasn't been a distraction to the core business. It's really been a great addition. But this was the trick for us and this is why I'm really excited for you and your journey, where you're on, is because you've got the right partners. Finally, yeah, you've got the right team in place, and some of the stuff we've been working on and implementing the last year or two I could have never done in my wildest dreams, no matter how much I wanted to, because I didn't have the right team in place to create that margin that I needed to either come up with the concept, to come up with how to implement it, because I can be an implementer right, I can be the tactical person, do those things. But that's not my gift. My gift is the visionary, the ideas, big ideas, see things from a global perspective, and then I need to be able to communicate it in such a way where the implementers can go and run with it right and they're motivated to run with it Well.

Speaker 1: 39:41

For so long I had to be both no-transcript excited for you because just in our most recent conversation and then hearing you talk about it today, you know you've everybody who's been a part of your journey since you started this thing, just like everybody who's been a part of mine good, bad, indifferent they added value. Yeah, and you know every single employee, every single partner, know, every single employee, every single partner, every single whatever. You know, whether it ended good or not, there was value add there and they were important for a season of the business. Um, and people think you got to do stuff together forever, and that's not necessarily the case. Some people are seasonal and there's nothing wrong with that, and people should be honored for the season that they helped your business get where it was. But it doesn't mean you're going to be the one to get me to that next part, right?

Speaker 2: 40:50

Yes, absolutely, I completely understand that. Yeah, it's like the only person who's actually with me right now is Steven, who has been with me from the very beginning, you know, and it's because he's invested as much as I am, as far as just like it's. It's he wants to see this thing through and win. Yeah. And then the new members of our team they both have successful businesses, you know. Even James I didn't even mention him, you know he's a guy who's came in here and he owns a company called the 411 agency and it is a big. It's a big, uh, it's a media. They, they produce a lot of marketing material. So we have in-house marketing. We can create our marketing inside in-house, so any type of marketing materials that we need. But not just that. He's has so many resources, like he does the pamphlets for the Dallas Cowboys and a lot of huge networks and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 41:39

And there's a big difference because, even if they weren't invested into the business at the current moment, they were invested into seeing me win, like they were helping me when I was going through a very dark time, and it's just because they actually care and I was like, oh, this is what friendship's all about. Right, like it was real friendship, where you can't offer them anything at the moment and they want to still help you out. You know that's right and so that's. And, like you said, like you know, no hard feelings to anybody who was here. You know they were all. They were all probably great. They're all great people, you know, and at the end of the day, one of the biggest challenges was going. You know it's my fault. You know if it didn't work out, it's because I did something wrong and I needed to learn from that and it needed to learn from that, and it was the season.

Speaker 1: 42:28

So I take 100 accountability because I'm 100 accountable, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a hard pill to swallow, but it is. You know, and I say it all the time like, at the end of the day, it's my fault, because even if you screwed it up and I'm the one who put you in that position yeah, you screw it up, I'm the one who thought you'd be able to handle it yeah, I think you know.

Speaker 2: 42:45

We have this feeling that they're going to learn the same way you know, or they? Have the same they're invested just the same and it's just, it's one of those things. It's it's it's kind of it's just a very challenging thing, cause you again, it was a learning lesson and you just learn from it and you move on and you know you don't, you don't make the same mistakes.

Speaker 1: 43:14

One of the most painful lessons I learned very early on and not early on enough was because it used to just frustrate me to no end. I'm like I just don't understand why they don't care as much as me. Yeah, I'm like, well, they don't give a shit, they're paid like an employee.

Speaker 2: 43:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:29

You know they're paid, they're going to look at it as an employee and and, and they should. So I need to get better with vision. Yeah, I need to get better at making that. Even if I do all those things, I need to understand that it's impossible for them to care as much as me because it's mine yeah, it's mine. Like I care about your son because I'm a good human being. That's your son. I want your son to be healthy and grow, and that would be the best guy in the world. Right, I can't care about your son as much as you want to or as much as you do. It's impossible.

Speaker 2: 44:09

Yep.

Speaker 1: 44:10

And it's the same thing with our businesses. But man, I could not understand that. It would piss me off to no end and it and then. But that was just immaturity from a leadership standpoint.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Yeah, leadership is so challenging. Man Like I, I can't even like I hate. I always hate being a leader, you know. Yeah, because you know it's just like you're the tip of the spear. So if somebody messes up, they're not getting called out, you're getting called out publicly. You know, right, customer service, it's all Stan's fault, yeah. You know, and it technically is at the end of the day. You know, like you said, sell them on the vision. They have to understand that there is growth, an opportunity for them to have an invested interest.

Speaker 2: 44:53

You know, and for me, like I was, like you know I was it was one of those things where I just didn't position people right and I wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure they were taken care of. So I just put band-aids over everything and I kind of just let things, you know, slide when I should have held people accountable, cause I thought I couldn't do it myself. I was forced to have to learn to do it myself. And then I'm like man, I got ripped off. I've been getting ripped off this whole time. And now the new partners that are coming in, they've all had, they all have an invested interest. So, like it's, it's just a new energy, getting you know, getting these texts from these guys going, hey, this is what we can do. You know, I think I got. I got a guy who could do this and I got a person who could do that. Or we can make this market material. Here's a new fly. I want to show you that. I think, man, it just helped convert better, or this.

Speaker 1: 45:44

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, look, man, I want to honor your time. I appreciate you so much. I think the world of you and what you're doing. I'm going to hit you up. I might be in the area next week. If you're in town, maybe we can hook up.

Speaker 2: 46:01

I'll be gone the 19th or the 22nd, but other other than that, if you're, if you're here, I'll make time for it for sure, because I I know we can do something big together for sure yeah, I'm excited about that and I want to.

Speaker 1: 46:09

I want to keep talking and pressing that forward. I want to help you get to that million man. So you know, and I think that we can do that in a big way across a couple channels. So there's some stuff I want to talk to you about. But what's the best way for people to connect with you guys? Learn more about X dog, you know what. What's a good way for them to follow you guys?

Speaker 2: 46:26

X dogcom and, you know, add X dog on Facebook, instagram. Um, those are, those are the easiest ways to get in contact with us. Um, just X dogcom, check out X dog university. We're going to launch that pretty soon and that's going to be on the educational side and I think that's you know those. I think that's going to be very impactful. Just other than that, that's how you can reach out to us. Just support us there, man, just message us. We're here to help. You don't have to buy our products. If you have a question about a dog, message us, we're here to help you out.

Speaker 1: 46:57

Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. He means that, guys, this is one of those genuine dudes on the planet when he's saying he cares about these dogs and their health and bettering their lives. I mean, it's a genuine statement. So, stan, it's an honor man. Thank you for coming on and talking to our listeners and our viewers. I'll catch up with you soon. Guys, share the show, leave a review. If you've got questions for Stan, and you can send them to us, we'll get them over to him and connect you'all, but anything we can do to help. But we'll catch you next time on the big dog podcast. Thanks, stan, you.