Hi there and welcome to the Everyday Entrepreneur podcast where I, Caitlin Fritz help you reach your entrepreneurial potential. Together we can build your dream social impact business so that you can leave a legacy beyond your nine-to-five. Hello, hello. Welcome to this week's episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. If you are a regular listener, go grab that cup of coffee because we are in for a treat with this week's episode. And if you are new, I want to give you my warmest welcomes. My name is Caitlin. I am an award winning entrepreneur, enterprise educator, and business coach, and since 2020, I've supported over 750 founders worldwide, from South America to South Carolina. To South London, really all over the world to build, grow and scale their impact led businesses. And here on this show, we are celebrating everyday entrepreneurs who are going out into their community, solving problems and building incredible impact led businesses. So today, we're discussing a cause that is really close to my heart, which, if you know me, you know I love. Dogs. I grew up with dogs. Since moving to London, I have not had a dog, but I frequently love on my friends pups or any four legged, uh, critter in my local dog park. And when I saw this business. Um, on the list of incredible social enterprises in the UK, I knew I had to reach out and find, find out more, find out their story. So I am thrilled to have Grace Beards. on the show today, and she's going to be sharing her experience with her social enterprise paws and paws. So when I say that, just for context, the first paws is as in puppy paws. And the second paws as in. Stop. So, Grace and her co founder, Jody, founded this incredible business back in 2019. Their backgrounds stem from working together at a homeless charity in London, and really seeing what individuals in recovery were going through and their frustrations when it came to getting on the employment ladder. And they really noticed that animal based employment opportunities, especially in London, were really limited. So as two dog lovers themselves they blended this benefit of animal therapy to support, you know, well being and recovery with the need for kind of puppy and doggy daycares. in London. So just for a little background, Paws and Paws is a doggie daycare with an incredible social mission. Grace has two sites in London and they're not only providing The most fun your pup can have, but also by joining and sending your pup to Paws and Paws, you're actively supporting individuals in recovery through trainee placements. in the doggie daycare. It's impact upon impact. I mean, you can't get better than a business like this. So I'm really lucky to have Grace on the show where she's going to be sharing her insights on where this all started, how they have grown and some of the lessons she's learned when she's been building her impact led business. So have a listen. So welcome, Grace, to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. Before we jump in, do you want to share a little bit about yourself and the Paws and Paws, that you are running? Hi, Caitlin. Thank you for having me. Um, yeah, so I am one of the founders of Paws and Paws, which is a doggy daycare. So very much like a nursery, but for dogs. Um, that also is the home of a social impact program where we support people in long term unemployment due to mental health and substance use, uh, to get back to work. So let's go back to the beginning because Paws Paws has been around now for a couple of years. What sparked this idea of creating, I UK's first and maybe only social impact doggie daycare? What Yeah, I think we are. I think we still are the only one, which is great. Um, so Jody and I, so my business partner and I, we used to work for a homeless charity called St Mungo's, um, in London, and we were running a recovery project, um, that particularly for people that were in recovery from substances, um, that are thinking about like, how do they rebuild their lives? Um, so we were there supporting them kind of. looking at different goals and where they want to move to, and we were also kind of looking after dogs through Borrow My Doggy. So we were bringing in dogs to, to the groups and to the kind of support work that we were doing there, and we realized the kind of impact that having a dog in the room kind of had on people, especially people that might have found it really difficult just to communicate with someone else, having like a little dog on their lap really helped to kind of break that ice. We Also found that a lot of people wanted to work with animals or kind of one of the stepping stones was to at least volunteer with animals., And we just realized there was a real lack of opportunities available for people, um, particularly set up for this. group of people, so we kind of thought like, why don't we do it ourselves? And we came up with loads of different types of ideas, and then kind of narrowed it down to yeah, to a doggy daycare, and so the dogs kind of helped fund the program. We didn't really want to rely on grants, um, as such. We wanted kind of something that was self funding, so yeah, and here we are. Obviously you've worked at St. Mungo's before Paws and Paws. What, what kind of got you into working with kind of individuals who are dealing with, um, either homelessness, mental health, unemployment, where did that start out of curiosity? Yeah, that's it. That is a good question. It, um. I kind of found myself at St. Mongo's doing various different roles. Um, and then I found, then I got a job working specifically with people in recovery and I just loved it. Um, I think even though I'm not in recovery myself, I think a lot of us can relate to the same challenges through kind of mental health difficulties and, and just kind of people's resilience and like power and, um, ability to like overcome so much is just. Incredibly inspiring and I don't. I can't imagine kind of doing anything else. Um, I get so much from the job as well Um, and hopefully we we kind of make some impression on the people that we work with But yeah, I think that yeah, I think it's just very like addictive once you've started It has to be that kind of impact. So, as a dog lover myself, I grew up with dogs, I love dogs, um, In actuality, you know, how did you start? Cause I think it's, it's, it's that leap of, you know, someone has a really amazing impact idea. What were your first steps? That pause and pause took to really, you know, test that this idea was going to work. Yeah. So I think something that really helped early on is we signed up to loads of like startup events, start up training courses, signed up to everything that we could to like, just get as much information and knowledge about how to start. And it was in this process that someone said, well, initially our idea was kind of like a doggy daycare, cafe, social impact program. And I remember having a conversation with a guy at one of these events that was like, do you have experience running a dog daycare? Do you have experience running a business? Do you have an experience running a cafe? And I was like, no, no, no. So he was like, let's like, just simplify it. And I think that was the best advice he gave because it would, it wouldn't have been workable in our original thinking. format. I think my advice to anyone like starting is just like gather as much information as you can from as many people as possible. And I don't think like being scared that someone's going to take your idea because if it's your idea, you're probably the best person to like run it in the first place. Um, so then I think luckily I had a business partner as well, Jody. So a lot of that kind of initial competence came from kind of doing it together and taking that leap. Um, we, we saved enough money to kind of like live for three months on like the bare minimum in order to kind of give it a, like a fighting chance. Um, the main challenge was like finding a location, but we managed to find one that was, um, low rent for startups for like the first year. So again, that really helped with the kind of like risk element of it. And we also approached an organization called Unlimited who works specifically with social enterprises and they gave us a 5, 000 pound grant to kind of start it. And that's really what then let us kind of open, um, in those first few months and then luckily it kind of just took off from there. That's incredible. No, because I think, um, Your background, once again, being with supporting those individuals, but having that passion for animals, you really up skilled when it came to the business side of things, going as much events as possible. So how did you, I'd love to know both sides of the story. So how did you kind of, did you design this kind of press play program where individuals Who have been long term unemployed can get back to work with the animals, or is this something that you kind of combined forces with, um, an organization? Yeah. So we designed it completely. We had to kind of experience doing that in our previous jobs. That was pretty much entirely what we did. So we took that forward in. to pause and pause. I kind of like redesigned it as our press play program. It's kind of tweaked over the years and we're always adapting it and learning from the kind of feedback of the people that we work with about what works best. Um, but yeah, the program itself essentially redesigned. So it kind of focuses us on All kinds of skills over the six months that people are with us. So it can be initially just kind of like coming in on time, um, having conversations with people all the way to kind of more formal skills and kind of courses, um, interviews, CVs, like really kind of making the next steps about what they want to do. Um, but all of that kind of experience of how to approach that we had, um, absorbed like in our previous, our previous job. Oh, I love that. I love that. Cause I think so many people don't realize their past work experience or past lives pre entrepreneurship have so many little threads that you can tie into your business. And yours is a direct representation of taking all of those skill sets and applying it to the wonderful world of dogs. I hope people know how much I wish I had a dog right now, but I guess. Besides working with the pups, which I feel like would be so much fun. And also just a very happy, energetic atmosphere, you know, behind all of that, it's still very difficult to grow and scale a business. So what has been, you know, maybe the harder sides or the hurdles you've had to face? Because it is a brick and mortar kind of establishment. Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. Um, what have been the challenges in scaling? So, Yes, so we have two sites now, we have one in Brixton and one in Peckham in London, and I think the biggest challenge in like scaling is, is a couple of things, I think when you're running a, a business That also has an impact project. It's quite difficult to find the balance between when you invest in the program and when you also invest in growing. And that's a constant, like kind of chicken and egg problem about which one you put first. And there isn't a lot of support out there for that kind of like structure. You kind of, you're really pushed into being a charity or really pushed into being a just a for profit business. And there's not many people that are kind of doing this kind of thing. about trying to get the kind of perfect seesaw balance of both sides. So that is definitely a challenge. Um, and continues to be a challenge. We were lucky enough to find a social impact investor who invested in us to help us grow to our second site. So social impact investors In case you didn't know, it's like mainly focused on the impact that they get back as well as, as well as like money, monetary revenue back as well. Um, but they kind of understand like the need to look at both sides. Then I guess in the other thing is when you're like just the two of you or one of you running a business. In some ways it's kind of much easier because you know where everything is, you're completely in control of everything. And then as you grow and you're like increase your, the people that. Your team, that's a whole challenge. Like our team are wonderful and incredible and awesome, but it's also managing people is really difficult and kind of where you learn to let go and let other people take over and when you learn to be like, actually, I still need kind of oversight over that. It's really hard, like, and I think it's kind of ongoing, like challenge. So you have the two sides. So can you share a little bit about kind of how you grew from this two person kind of social enterprise, we're going to do this, to the impact you've had now. So how big is your team? How many individuals have you run through your program? I'd love to learn a little bit about that. So our story, I guess it, yeah, it was just the two of us for the first like six months. Um, and it was like very early on that COVID struck. Um, so we shut for a few months and then we managed to, which was a sad time. I remember like sobbing in the bath, um, I guess as we all were. And then luckily. Luckily for us, everyone got a dog in COVID. And I think everyone became a little bit more aware of their communities and like kind of wanting to like, um, ethically purchasing. So we became really full at Brixton pretty quickly. So we. one of our trainees that come through our program, we then employed to run the program. Um, so that they were our first employee. And then, so that was kind of like a huge deal and really exciting. And it allowed us to have a bit more time to work on the business rather than just in it and kind of plan for the next steps and to grow. And then we took on a few more people. Um, and then for about a year, we were really just focusing on finding another site and kind of expanding and took that time to really kind of. make sure all our policies and all the kind of background operational stuff was really like set to go as we then expanded. We secured the funding from our social impact investor. We found the site and then we opened our next site a year ago. Um, and then through that, it's kind of We've now have a team of 11 people that are like employed with us. And then we also over the last few years, we've supported 50 people through our trainee program and a chunk of them now make up our current team as well, which is lovely. Oh, that is so, so cool. I love that because I'm assuming when it was just you guys, you were running training pups. you had multiple hats and now you can kind of step back and have more of, I guess that CEO mindset and zoom out strategically knowing that the trainings and the pups are in some really good hands. Yeah, definitely. I think it's still easy to lean into the kind of like more day to day things and sometimes My business partner and I will just like go round and round on like I don't know what the right mop is to buy But like then we have to remind ourselves to take a step back and really like focus on strategy and the growth um, which is great and like it's It's super, it's a super good position to be in like now where again, we can focus on the next steps and growing the business, which is mainly due to having like an awesome team, um, and kind of letting go of things and trusting people and then getting back to like the overall mission of kind of working with as many dogs and people as we can. No, I think that when it is your baby, that kind of handing it off can be, um, I don't A growing point for any entrepreneur. And it's really cool that you mentioned a lot of your trainees have kind of joined the team without naming any names. Yeah. Um, so Grace, you've worked with now over 50 trainees who have gone through your program. Some of them have joined your team. I don't know if you can share, you know, without giving away, Any personal information, someone's journey or success story of someone who's been through your trainee program? Yeah, it's, it's hard to narrow it down, but, and there's so many people that, like, just insanely proud of that have been through the program. But there's one gentleman that we have with us at the moment, um, he's been with us about five months, he's in his mid thirties, and he is in a hostel. Um, at St. Mungo's, being kind of supported. He had never worked before, never done anything before, felt like it was completely out of reach for him. And now he's with us two days a week, absolutely smashing it. He's, like, responsible for so much stuff in the daycare now, and he keeps all the dogs and all the team, like, in check. And he's just kind of expressed how beforehand he just was like, Uh, can't imagine ever being in a workplace, kind of had these assumptions about what other people in the workplace were like, and now he's like fitted, fitted right in and he has a laugh and he's like, Oh, actually, this isn't that scary. This is actually really fun. I can do this. And the pride that he has in himself is just amazing. Oh, it's just beautiful. And like the way he is with the dogs is amazing. Oh, that's incredible. And I know you probably don't have favorites, but do you have a favorite pup or two? Because I know it seems like if you guys haven't checked out their Instagram, if you need any smiles or happiness, you just need to go to the Paws and Paws Instagram. But do you, do you, because I feel like you'd have to build relationships with some of these animals. Yeah, I think we all have. Well, I mean, they're all wonderful, obviously, but yeah, you do like have your natural favorites or your like natural like breeds that you like prefer. Um, but they're all great. I mean, my kind of favorites are like the cheeky rescues, to be honest, that are like a little bit trouble. Then you have to kind of win them over, but they're like, once you do, they're like amazing. Um, And we have got, yeah, we've just got so many, like, wonderful little, little dogs. Bless them. I love that. So I guess, zooming out, I know there is a crowdfunding campaign happening currently. So guys, if you are interested, that link is going to be in the show notes. But, yeah. What's next for Paws and Paws? Like, what, what is in store? So, at the moment we're looking at trying to get a third site, um, to expand like the amount of people that we work with. We've got a super long waiting list at the moment, which is part of the reason we're doing Crowdfunder, so that we can work with more people. But another site, working with more dogs, would allow us to kind of increase even further. So we're hoping to find another site in South London over the next kind of six months. Oh, incredible. And if you were going to give yourself a piece of advice for when you started out, what would you tell Grace of years past with just that idea? What would you tell her? Oh, that's such a good question. It kind of makes me a bit emotional. Um, I think, I think it's just keep going, like, just keep believing in, like, your mission and that you can do it. Um, And absorb like everything around you and all the wisdom that other people share, take that forward. And I always think like, if anyone's thinking about starting their own business, my biggest advice is like, just go down the road for as far as it makes sense, because if you get to the point where it no longer makes sense, you're already down. down the road for the next time the thing, like an idea comes up. So you've not, you've just kind of got to, you've got to go for it. You've got to take the gamble. And I also think like quitting your job is the biggest incentive to make something work. So yeah, I think I'm really, I'm really glad we, we did that. No, it's kind of, it kind of puts that, that fire under everything, to kind of try, iterate, and if you just forces you, you just gotta make it work, then you're like, you've gotta, you're out like, 24 7 flyering, talking to everyone, it like, you can't, you can't relax, you just have to make it work, and I think that is Yeah, incredibly moving. 100%. And if I know we have a lot of individuals who listen, who are interested in setting up like a service based business, or even kind of a brick and mortar based business, what advice would you give them if they were just starting out? I think start small. Um, so Like start realistic about what, what you can achieve just by yourself. And I think it's amazing to have big dreams and like have these end goals, but. I think it's really important to kind of strip that back into the absolute core about what you want to do Initially and start there. I think that would be totally I mean because I think it's we all have the big dreams of the cafe dog doggy daycare everything but The overwhelm I feel like also can stop people in its tracks. So starting small and simple 100 so grace if people want to learn more about you Your story and pause and pause. Where should they find you? Good question. So we're on instagram at pause and pause. So it's the doggie pause first and then and pause stop Um, and we've got loads of super cute content on there as well with all the dogs like hanging about Being mischievous. And then we've got a website as well, which is ww dot pause and pause.com and yeah, I'm also on LinkedIn at Grace Beards so people can find out in any way they want more about us. Is she not incredible? Grace and Jodi and their work with Paws and Paws is nothing short of inspiring. So I'm going to be sharing with you all the links, that crowdfunder campaign, in the show note if you are interested in learning more or supporting and amplifying their cause. What I love about Jodi is her honest take, and how she started small with her business. I know all of us have really big dreams and ambitions, especially when it comes to building an impact led business. But the way she's been able to scaffold her learning, build from one individual, one trainee, one pop at a time, They're absolutely making waves throughout South London and I know that this enterprise can reach far and wide with the amount of impact and support they're going to provide. And guys, I love doing these interviews with founders where they can share their stories. their story and their impact they're having in their local community. So if you have any founders you would like to recommend for the show, be sure to give them my email or send them my form to be a guest on the show, which is in the bio. There's going to be more incredible interviews like this all summer. So be sure you like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. So thank you again for joining us. And until next time, this is everyday entrepreneurship. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. To stay tuned and most up-to-date, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow me Caitlin Fritz on Instagram. And if you have any questions about building your business with Impact, drop me an email with the link in the show notes.