It's not set it and forget

it. We continue to work at it.

We continue to try different things

and really push the envelope.

I think that's one of the reasons why

we've been successful on the performance

marketing side.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce,

and today we are talking to a

really remarkable founder of an

amazing brand with an amazing story.

Talking to Russell Breuer from

Spot and Tango. Listen to this,

a hundred million in revenue, profitable,

almost exclusively DTC subscription only.

Amazing value prop in the marketplace

are doing some amazing things.

They're vertically integrated,

which in a world of tariffs and no

tariffs or uncertainty and all that

craziness, that is a brilliant

play. And so lots to unpack,

lots to discuss, lots to learn from. So

excited that you're here. And with that,

welcome to the show,

Russell. How's it going man?

And thanks for taking the time.

Awesome, thanks Brett. You

hit some key highlights.

We're excited to be here

seven years into the journey.

Still a lot of wood to chop,

but it's been very rewarding and happy

to share some of my experiences today.

Love that. A lot of wood to chop,

man, that is the game, right?

The game is always,

I'm going to do this thing and then I'm

going to go build this mode and then

competitors catch up. I got to

keep going. Things like that.

It's a never ending game, but hey,

that's what we signed up

for as entrepreneurs and

so we just got to enjoy it.

What I'd love to do, Russell first,

because as with any great product,

any profitable company,

it starts with meeting and

need and being different.

And so how did you kind of come to the

value prop and explain it to people,

what you sell and why it's

so special in the market?

Sure. So Spot and Tango is a pet

health and wellness brand. In short,

we make incredible food for dogs.

It's a mission-driven brand.

All of our products use fresh

human grade, whole ingredients.

We exclude anything artificial,

no synthetics, no food colognes,

no fillers. Really.

The founding story hearkens back to

a studio apartment in New York City,

which is cliche but true.

My wife was cooking fresh meals

for our Golden doodle jack.

In fact, her mother was cooking fresh

human grade meals for her dog, George.

So there's a family history here

and of course aspirations to be an

operator and entrepreneur.

I was head scratching why and

explored the space and looked into the

category and our belief is that

health and wellness as a right,

not a luxury. And what started

as really a bootstrapped,

incubated concept,

we found vets and nutritionists to

develop recipes that meet the nutritional

needs of dogs for all life stages.

And it's really

studio to incubate our kitchen to a

hundred million dollars plus business

in seven. It's amazing. It's

amazing. It's been a big wave,

but the mission remains true.

Again, everything that we produce,

all products, all ancillaries, treats,

supplements, our fresh line Unkibble,

which we can talk about,

it's all whole fresh human grade

ingredients and that's what we do.

It's all delivered online. So

we are a subscription model.

It's all personalized. We learn a

lot about your dogs age, weight,

and activity level to really inform the

portion, the caloric portion per meal,

per day per dog. So personalization's

a big point, but we're digital junkies.

It's what we do. It's all online.

The value prop, it's convenience.

Skip the trip to the pet

store and Pon Tango shows up.

That's the high level.

That, dude, you're speaking my

language. And as we were prepping,

you were talking about performance

driven, conversion focused marketing,

which that's been my world since

the beginning of my career,

and so love hearing that as well.

But let's talk about Unkibble just a

little bit because you and I we're also

talking before we hit record.

There's some other food products

on the market that are fresh food,

but they come cold and you got to put

'em in your refrigerator next to your

food, which I love Our dogs, my

family, especially my wife and my kids,

huge animal lovers. So

we take care of our pets.

I don't really want my food next to my

dog's food, just my personal opinion.

But what is Unkibble and how are

you differentiated in that regard?

Yeah, so Unkibble offers the benefits of

fresh and the convenience of Unkibble.

Back in 2019, again, the original

recipes were fresh, fresh,

frozen. And to your point, it's

expensive and it's inconvenient.

For an example, urban City Center,

the freezer, Aviva German Shepherd,

you're choosing either dog's, food

and freezer or your own, okay,

park the Bengal Bites on the counter.

So really is in response to customer

feedback. And the question was,

is there another way of the mountain?

Is there a version mission-driven that's

shelf stable that delivers pound for

pound the same ingredient integrity?

And the answer is un Unkibble.

We call it fresh dry again.

So we use all the same fresh

she in grade ingredients,

but we take out the water through

a very novel, fresh, dry process.

No water removes the need to

freeze, it removes the dry ice,

it removes the installation in the box.

Those savings get passed

along to the consumer.

So what we're offering is

affordable health and wellness.

And from a pricing perspective,

on average we're 30 to 40% less.

It's amazing.

And other fresh brands

you may have heard about.

And so we're occupying a unique white

space from a pricing perspective where

we're attracting a lot of

aspirational consumers,

Unkibble consumers who want to

feed their health and wellness,

but they want the convenience, it's scoop

and serve in the pantry personalized.

And they don't want to deal

with the headache of, oops,

I forgot to defrost my

frozen food overnight. Right?

Right now my dog's eating ice cubes.

So we're in a very different business

and we've been doing that since we

launched Unkibble in April of 2020.

It's brilliant. I think it

strikes the perfect cord,

kind of threads the needle

of exactly what people want.

We don't want to feed our dogs

junk, and that's become very,

very clear that most of what

we'd be feeding our dogs is junk,

but we also don't want the inconvenience

sharing freezer or fridge space or

whatever. And so love what

you guys have done there.

I know a big part of that is your vertical

integration and your manufacturing

facility in Allentown, pa. And

as we talked about in the intro,

in a world of tariffs on and

off and all kinds of craziness,

you guys look like absolute geniuses

having your own facilities here.

So talk about that decision.

Why did you do that and what does that

unlock for you and for your customers?

Great question.

It's been an incredible journey for

the vertical integration build your own

factory piece. Yes. In hindsight, it looks

like we had the perfect crystal ball.

I can assure you at the time we

were focused on the supply side,

we launched Unkibble in April, 2020.

We tell this story that our first purchase

order we thought would last six plus

months. We sold out in four days

in very short order,

one co manufacturer turned into six

co-manufacturers and they couldn't keep up

with demand.

There's questions on

costs of goods margin.

You're shipping freight all over the

country between comans to logistics

centers, product consistency,

there's a number of.

Questions. Quality control. Yeah,

consistency. When you got six different.

All over the co, if you asked six

people to make a chocolate chip cookie,

the cookie is going to look

a little bit different.

We took that to heart and we

decided shortly after launch,

having Unkibble that building our own

factory and owning our own supply chain

was very important.

We have now constructed a 70,000

square foot facility in Allentown,

Pennsylvania. It's about

two hours west of New York.

We have a hundred people on site. It's

been a huge win for us. It's amazing.

We push all the volume through

that facility. It's unlocked,

tremendous margin wins,

it's boosted inventory,

it's hedged against stockouts.

We we're rapid innovators.

And I think the most

important point for us,

when you think about the food

landscape within the pet category,

most brands don't manufacture

their own products.

They.

Don't know where the ingredients come

from. They're not involved procurements,

they don't understand food safety plans.

They don't understand quality control.

They don't understand packaging,

shipping or logistics.

They are marketeers selling somebody

else's product as their own,

which is a reality that's existed

since the beginning of time.

Sure.

Which is fine for us.

We take ingredient integrity very

seriously and delivering an exceptional

customer experience. And our

Allentown facility has been the tool,

the enabler of that since we

own every facet of supply chain,

that for us has been an incredible

differentiator in this space as we are the

leaders in fresh dry,

in a fantastic moat and something frankly

that most people just aren't doing.

And then to your point, yes,

the phone rings now and gosh,

you guys tariff proof, resilient. You

know what the answer to that question is?

Yes. Did we know? So at the time, no.

It was a bit of a false send and here

we are and we're reaping the rewards.

I love it, man. I love it.

I know this isn't the path for

everybody for a variety of reasons,

but what did you learn in that

process of going vertically integrated

and what advice would you give?

When do you think other

DTC brands might consider

taking the path that you took?

Sure.

I think the business case

needs to be very strong

product market fit firstly,

and depending on growth rate.

And look,

ultimately there are thousands and tens

of thousands of brands that outsource

production A okay, my point

was more within the pet space,

and so that's fine, but for us, demand,

outstripped supply significantly.

So there was a need. So rapid

product market fits is one two,

unity economics is the

second consideration.

Are you better outsourcing or

insourcing? And in many cases,

depending on the category, it's

better to have someone else.

If it's a commoditized trade, it's

better to have someone else do it.

And you focused on what you do

best, whether that's marketing or.

Marketing, sales, whatever. Yeah.

Exactly. And then ultimately when it

comes to actually building a facility,

give yourself a long lead time.

Like two years. Okay. This.

Is not overnight notes. We're not

spinning this up in six months.

This is not our tariff for leaf plan.

This is like I'd say thoughtful,

intentional, strategic. Yeah.

Exactly right. Brett, I think at a

sprint it's 18 months if not two years.

Identifying a site, obviously

there's a bill design firm involved,

there's CapEx, there's equipment,

there's staging capital, there's equity,

there's debt,

there's a lot of pieces involved

and team to bring that to

life. And of course operating a facility

brings a number of other challenges

that we've managed and

managed well. But nonetheless,

there's an early consideration set.

But I would say that having your own

assets, having your own manufacturing

unlocks significant intrinsic

value for any company in any more.

I think a lot of brands that are winning

do own those types of assets and the

strategic landscape looks at

and says, these are different.

Haven't seen that playbook.

Yeah, love that. Totally

agree with that for sure.

So you guys are subscription only.

Was that the plan from the beginning

or was that a pivot over time?

Why did you guys land on that and what

have been the pros and cons of going that

route?

Great question. So day one, yes. At the

person personalized product firstly.

So we have kind of an

onboarding questionnaire.

We learn about your dog's weight activity

level to really inform portion or

calories consumed per

day subscription is fit

for the pet category. Why is that dogs

need, it's not a want, it's a need.

Subscription is a convenience,

it's a value prop.

You don't need to go to the pet food

store. It shows up on a regular cadence.

On average, for us it's every

four weeks. Customers love it.

We're building out broader product

platform with treats and supplements and

other food products as well. Dental

care, which we're launching soon,

which we can talk about. But

because that need exists,

people need the box every

four weeks. And so for us,

it's always been that way from a

reoccurring revenue perspective,

commercially speaking, that's certainly

a way to scale business. Brilliant.

And I think the other point here

is within the pet landscape,

dogs do need consistency of diet.

We don't advocate the dogs

to change proteins every day.

This is not Turkey on a Monday, beef

on a Tuesday, lamb on a Wednesday.

That can be a disaster for the

Persian rug digestion important.

So consistency of diet is also very

important and that also leans towards a

subscription model. So it's very

fit for purpose for the category.

Totally makes sense.

It fits the value prop for

the consumer in terms of the

pet owner, but also for the

pet and also for you guys.

So perfect alignment there

across the board. Curious,

what have you guys learned? What

have you done to make that Yes,

easier for shoppers?

Because I know a lot of people will

probably hear the story and hear the value

prop and think, I want that for

my dog, but what if they hate it?

What if I hate it? What

if something like that.

So how do you get someone

to take that initial leap?

They've never seen the food,

they've never held the bag,

they haven't seen it in store. To

immediately go yes to a subscription.

How have you made that an easier yes.

Right. So firstly, it's

a considered purchase.

So we're not selling tennis

shoes or to your point,

what is this thing?

I've been feeding my dog Unkibble

since the beginning of time.

Why are you using fresh human grid

ingredients? There's a lot of education.

Firstly,

I'd say we use a lot of email marketing

and funnels on SMS to continue

that education. The pros,

the benefits of these types of recipes.

We use a trial also, so there's a 14 day

trial, there's a happy pup guarantee.

These are our tools to give

consumers comfort, that.

Risk reversal guarantees type of thing.

All of the above. And I

think it gives people, look,

I think the landscape's changed.

I think obviously e-commerce is playing

a greater role in purchase decisions and

people have greater comfort online

disclosing their credit card details,

receiving a box in the mail when they

haven't maybe heard of these brands

previously. Our job is to educate,

give people comfort that

we're here to support them.

And then we have an incredible customer

service team. We're available on SMS,

email chat, voice messages,

don't go unnoticed for

days. They are responding.

It's amazing lesson.

So it's those multiple touch points

that I think builds a relationship and

that's unique to direct to consumer.

We have a direct relationship

with our customers.

They tell us what's working well,

they tell us things that

we can fix or improve upon.

They inform new product innovation

and it's an amazing first party.

Data is an amazing dynamic and

again, our job to serve the customer,

but those are some of the tools that we

use initially to help give people the

idea that we're here for them, give 'em

comfort to make that purchase decision.

It's amazing. As with most things,

when you're building a great business

and running great marketing or building

great offers,

it's not just one thing that you

do that kind of creates the unlock.

It's lots of little things,

stacking lots of little things to

create a delightful experience.

But what would you say

are the biggest levers,

the biggest levers or the biggest

lessons in increasing conversion

rate? Increasing the number of people

that take you up on subscriptions.

Yeah, I think when you think

about the marketing funnel,

and we're very much focused on

direct response, lower funnel,

I'd say consistency of call to action.

What you're advertising in

terms of product image and copy,

is that experience replicated on site,

on homepage or landing page is

the consistent checkout Is pricing

consistent? It's the no surprise rule.

What we promise we deliver through

the funnel through checkouts following

through post conversion

as far as onboarding with

email or otherwise. So I think that's

really important. Supply chains.

Also, one thing I'll kind of interject

there because it's such a great point,

Russell,

is we talk about you don't want to create

whiplash where it's like I see an ad,

I see an offer that looks great, I click

on it and then I'm like, wait a minute,

where am I now? And what is this.

Exactly?

And if it creates a disconnect

or whiplash almost, man,

it's hard to overstate how

impactful that is negatively. So.

That's right.

Really let call that up.

I completely agree.

I think rapid AB testing informs that

consumer feedback informs that. And look,

everyone's busy. There's

many distractions online.

People always ask who are your

competitors? And look, e-commerce,

we're all competing for clicks, right?

We're all competing for

your attention online.

And so totally in terms of the

marketing funnel, that's one point.

And then look on the supply chain

side, maybe Amazon ruined the party,

but people expect product to

be delivered soon thereafter.

Once you check out, they want

that box within one, two days max.

And so we've spent a great deal of

time ensuring that we can do that.

We work with four distribution centrals

across the country for business.

And so monitoring that

one to two day shipping,

radius delivery accuracy, all of

the above, that's really important.

That's important for retention. And again,

to my point about food

being a need versus a want,

food can't be late, right? And

it's late three or four days.

Again, maybe you can.

Wait, looks like you're fasting for the

next couple of days. Fido doesn't work,

doesn't work, yeah.

It doesn't work. Maybe your tennis

shoes can be delayed but not your food.

And so that's another

really important point here.

And then expectation management with

our customer service folks have a lot of

questions about, again,

back to the benefits.

How do I transition to this new

diet? How often should I expect this?

I want to try a new recipe. I have

multiple dogs, all of the above.

There's a lot of education handholding.

And so we've invested

significant resources in our

customer service team and our

kind of customer data tech to ensure

that we are in rapid response mode in

education mode at all times.

That's amazing. Let's talk a little

bit about the education piece.

So you've kind of broken it down.

It sounds like there's definitely

an education piece upfront.

So you're competing for that click,

getting someone to the website,

maybe they're signing for your email list,

you're educating them on why

Unkibble, why this process?

How is this going to work? So

there's some upfront education,

there's then education after

someone becomes a customer.

Can you talk through that?

What have been some of the big lessons

you've learned there and some unique

things you do in terms of education?

The most important consideration

upon purchase is ingredients.

And we've learned that through

Hotjar. Heat maps on websites,

iterate surveys, talking

to our customers directly,

voice of customer people have

always said the first consideration

when considering a new diet or

new food is what's in it, right?

And I think ultimately the consumer is

much more educated than maybe they used

to be. We have very simple

ingredients. It's very straightforward.

There's no confusion. If you look at

a pet food label, if you have a dog,

it's confusing. We're that.

That's one point. And so that education

piece is like, here's what it is.

I think two reinforcing vertical supply

chain story about this is where it's

made, this is how it's made. Again,

that builds confidence in our brand.

And then Ultimately there's a lot of touch

points after purchase in terms of the

inbox experience with

feeding guides or brochures,

continual education,

whether it's in regards to new product

launches or breed specific data.

We have content marketing, a blog

if you will, called what the Pup,

which is really talking about love

that parenting and pet issues.

Is it okay for your dog

to sleep in the bed?

I'd rather spend more time with my

dog than my spouse talking about

breed specific information or what

diets would work or what to do with your

dog's paws in the winter

or in the summer. So again,

it's this kind of ongoing

relationship. And honestly,

it's not all about selling product,

it's about building a relationship.

Pet parents too.

And I still have a ton of questions and

I've been doing this for a long while.

I've 80 pound English golden retriever

named Sully who takes up half

house's, my fourth child, and I ask

her that questions often. So again,

we want to be a resource. So

it's not only providing food,

it's being a resource and

supporting the pet parent too.

It's so important and that

education piece upfront,

but also understanding the

education doesn't really stop.

I had a great experience recently with

these amino acids that I purchased for

myself, trying to follow a pretty strict

workout program and have for years,

but I'm 45 now. It's like building

and keeping muscle masses hard.

So I bought these amino acids based

on an influencer's recommendation,

but then I got this great guide to

amino acids in email after the purchase.

It was talking about, Hey, how you should

use this 30 minutes before workout,

take it immediately after workout.

Here's how you can take it,

how it differs from protein and

creatine and all these other things.

And I'm like super helpful.

I feel like I understand

fitness decently well.

But.

I felt more empowered. I'm

taking more of the product,

I feel better as well.

I started ordering more.

And so it's just one of those things where

I think we underestimate the value of

education post-purchase because that's

going to create sticky relationships,

more referrals, more

all the things we want,

plus happier pets and happier pet owners.

That's it. And that speaks to

channel as well, right? Yeah,

so any direct to consumer brand,

whether you're in pet wallet,

razors meal kit or otherwise,

there's an opportunity to

educate versus on shelf.

So on shelf it's unpacked, but once

that purchase decisions takes place,

a person leaves store, that

relationship doesn't exist.

And so that's part of the power we

have from this channel of acquisition.

It's amazing. Yep, totally,

totally agree. Okay,

so you'd said something when

we were prepping very unique.

I've been in this m and a space and I

have some friends in private equity and

we're looking at acquiring a couple

agencies and things like that.

So you mentioned return

on invested capital.

That is not a term that I hear

marketers use a whole lot.

Not a term that's really come

up on this podcast a whole lot.

So how do you guys look at

return on invested capital to

measure and manage your growth

and related to marketing?

And I will say just

another bit of context,

I think I'm really delighted that

there's this trend towards marketing

and finance becoming friends and how,

and I know you're a direct

response guy, I've been doing,

I started doing DRT V in the early two

thousands and so direct response tv.

And so I've always lived in this world,

but it's really a trend

in e-commerce of hey,

let's get finance and

marketing communicating and

let's make sure we're getting

good return on our marketing

dollars. But even then,

I don't hear people talk about

return on invested capital.

So why is that a metric for you? What

kind of insights does that unlock?

Unpack that a bit for us.

It's our north star, our ops,

our finance, our marketing,

the entire organization speaks this

language. A lot of direct to consumer.

Brands have learned hard lessons.

Growing top line and hypergrowth

with product market fit is possible

for many businesses. If you understand

performance marketing, meta search,

TikTok, direct mail,

you can generate outsized

returns on the growth side.

But oftentimes brands forget

about the unique economics.

They forget about things like

net income, cashflow, ebitda,

and they've learned hard lessons years

later when they look to exit or go public

and third parties deeply

discount valuation or otherwise.

Totally, totally.

So I think that's a starting point

for a mind shift in terms of how we've

operated this business. We

are very prudent operators.

And what I mean by that is prudent growth.

So return on invested capital really

is a measure of our marketing spend

and it combines three key

metrics, lifetime value,

contribution, margin, and customer

acquisition cost. Okay, it's beautiful.

It's beautiful. When we spend our dollars

on any channel, let's say we spend,

I'll give you a very rough example.

Let's say we spend a million

dollars on marketing today.

I'm now minus a million dollars.

The question is how soon do I repay

that a million dollars and get to zero?

That's one x return on invested capital.

And then how long does it take to

generate a million dollars of profit?

And so we look at the lifetime value

of our customers. In other words,

how much do our customers spend on

average per year? That's my numerator.

Multiply that by the fully loaded

contribution margin in the business.

So what is my average profit

per customer per year?

And then I divide that by the customer

acquisition cost and that informs the

timeline to repay my

investment in marketing.

We use that paradigm to

inform everything that we do,

such that there are caps in terms of

how much we are willing to invest in

marketing in terms of

customer acquisition cost.

Of course if our LTV or our average

revenue per customer increases over

time and our margin increases,

we can spend more dollars at

a higher acquisition cost.

But we use that framework

and route everything we do

in that framework and that

ensures that our operations team, our

customer service team, product innovation,

they're thinking about we need to boost

retention, we need to find margin wins,

we need to figure out higher LTV,

we need to figure out channels of

acquisition that are more efficient.

We need to rapidly AB test. Is

our creative strategy working?

How do we actually get CAC

lower on that or search?

And so when you combine those elements,

that has enabled us to be a nine

figure business and be profitable.

And we've had that mentality

really since inception.

And I think ultimately that

the other reality is data.

You've got to understand

From day one,

if you're spending a dollar on market

and you've got to know attribution,

how do you allocate your money

and does that dollar go far?

Are you acquiring a customer

in a subscription business?

If you acquire a customer

and they churn 10 days later,

that's not good for business.

What percent of your customers are

churning in second order or third order?

So the sooner you are aware and

understand the data that will inform and

can lead to this type of ROYC equation

and that really drives decision

making.

Yeah, it's so good man. And it's

one of those things where, yeah,

looking at lifetime value,

looking at contribution margin,

looking at customer acquisition cost,

creating these KPIs where your

entire team is seeing it and

managing against it, it's what

matters. It's what matters most.

And so you've got alignment

across the team on it.

And I'm going through the

book right now, Moneyball,

I dunno if you've seen the movie

or the book, but it's so good.

And it's one of those things where

they're kind unpacking this guy,

bill James who kind of

revolutionized baseball metrics.

He created Saber Metrics is the title

that he gave it. But he's like, Hey,

looking at rbis and

looking at batting average,

that just tells a really

weird part of the story.

But what matters is on base percentage

and slugging percentage without

getting inside baseball, he

unpacks why that matters.

It's like that's how you manufacture

runs and that's how you manufacture wins.

Those are the numbers that matter and

there's some other things they measure

too, but getting that kind of clarity

and getting that clarity across the team,

man, it's valuable. So kudos to

you guys for getting that clear.

It's part of our onboarding.

We talk about it incessantly

throughout the organization and again,

I would advocate any brand really

uses those types of metrics.

Yeah, yeah, it's really, really

great. So that's awesome.

Let's talk growth levers for a little bit.

So I mean you guys have experienced some

great growth and it's all within the

constraints or with the guardrails

of your return on invested capital,

but what have been your best

growth levers over the years?

What's really allowed you to scale?

So we have a balanced playbook

between meta search or Google

TikTok affiliates, influencer direct mail.

We've been experimenting with OTT over

the top and also linear television.

You could argue some of these are

very lower direct response channels,

other are more mid funnel.

We haven't spent and invest as

much in top of funnel things like

billboards or subway cars or

wild pasting or otherwise.

I think that's intentional

because ultimately our

belief is that in impressions

and an impression,

and you may be spending dollars on

meta and getting a million impressions

and fewer conversions, but nonetheless

you're still getting brand awareness.

So you could argue that lower funnel

is both lower and top and mid, correct.

There are different both

at the same time. Exactly.

And I think that's oftentimes it falls

on deaf ears because more traditional

brand marketers think they

need a billboard in Times

Square to justify proper

funnel investment.

We see lower funnels as kind of

serving both purposes. But look,

we've got a performance marketing

playbook. I think for us,

two big differentiators.

One we focused on building

on incredible team internally

that focus,

we have channel specific buyers focused

that are pulling lever in-house,

that's really important.

And then two creative.

We are in the entertainment

Business at the end of the day.

Totally.

Busy on the go parents, they're

getting solicited for clothing,

food, SaaS services. There's

a lot of distractions.

And so

Creative is key and it's all about feeding

all of these channels, whether it's

meta or otherwise with a lot of options.

AB test created and maybe iteration,

a slight iteration on creative.

It may be woman with dog with then

Unkibble in park and then it's

copy test A and you can run the same

image, but copy test B, copy test C.

In fact, some of our

best performing creative,

we took a grainy photo of Unkibble

on shelf in our office with a

post-it note sale that we ran

and we tested that versus studio

produced assets, gifs, you name it,

and the grainy photo because

it looked realistic. It is.

Looked authentic. It was authentic. Yeah.

People identify with that.

That's why GC user generated

content plays quite well,

but ultimately it's not set it and

forget it. We continue to work at it.

We continue to try different things

and really push the envelope.

I think that's one of the reasons why

we've been successful on the performance

marketing side.

I love it, man.

And one of the best pieces of advice I

ever heard was any business should view

themselves as in the business

they're in plus their media company.

Plus you're in the business

of getting, keeping attention,

driving some sort of action.

And at the core of that

really is creative testing.

I've always been a media guy and

a strategy guy. I love that stuff,

but I love creative too.

And really creative is the biggest lever

that we have now and into the future.

And certainly AI and other things are

going to enable more rapid testing and

more rapid expansion, things like

that. While we're on the topic,

we didn't really plan on this,

but any insights or any

perspectives on how AI is going to

change performance marketing or

e-commerce in general or your

business? Any POVs on ai?

Absolutely. No, we are all exposed to it.

It's topical innovations here.

I think it's a wonderful,

we're looking at AI from both

workflow automation on the ops

side. We're working with it

on the performance marketing

side in terms of either

creative ideas or creative

iterations and helping AI to

inform how rapidly creative gets tested

in platform and helping us make some of

those decisions. We're

using it on the coding side.

I won't mention all the vendors

we're working with. But nonetheless,

even on the coding side,

there's suggestive code to help our

engineers actually iterate faster when

they're in the development cycle.

And so customer service as well,

there are tons of opportunities where

you can start to not automate everything.

We're still a very high touch

business, but nonetheless,

there are some very standardized

questions that are better served through

automation, not FAQs,

but where is my order?

Totally, totally.

Necessarily to give a tracking number

or provide guidance to where boxes.

So we're looking at AI across all

functions of our business really to

improve efficiency and ultimately

compliance in many ways and

push the envelope.

I would argue AI is not going to replace

everybody ultimately in a hightest,

totally.

Totally.

Humanity will rule, right?

People do like having conversations

and asking questions and there's

TLC that customers expect when we're

talking about their dogs in particular.

But look,

AI is here and I think there's a steep

learning curve for a lot of brands,

but there's a lot of folks out

there having the conversation.

I think ultimately it's going

to be beneficial for all of us.

Yeah, I 100% agree. That's what we

view it. And I've got a very run,

very people driven business.

Our greatest expense is people.

We can't scale without people. And

I have the same view where one,

I think at a base level,

AI is allowing us to do the things

we just have not ever had time to do.

So that's part of it's allowing us to

do some of these things we would love to

have done but just haven't been

able to. So that's one layer,

but then it just supercharges your

best people and becomes personal

assistant, personal strategist,

executioner to make people more

productive and better. And so yeah,

we're very bullish on ai. We're testing

it in lots of different ways. So yeah,

I think that's a great

perspective. As we wrap up,

we'd love to hear what's

next for Spot and tangle.

It sounds like you got a big

product release coming up,

or actually at the time of this

release, we'll just come out,

but talk about that product release,

talk about what's next for the brand.

Great. We are very excited. We

are building product platform.

So we have our food, we have UNC

Unkibble, we have our fresh recipes.

We sell treats and supplements. Again,

addressing all the needs

states of the consumer.

We know a lot of our consumers

feed supplements or treats,

even a third feed supplements.

So there's ways and we've used

that input to launch new products.

The human grid version

of that product for pets,

the dental care solution is the

game change. It comes out next week,

you'll hear more about it nonetheless.

It is a scientifically

proven two years in r and d.

The big game change here is a lot of

the existing dental care products in the

marketplace are really physical in nature.

There's a physical mechanic that scrubs

the dog's teeth, periodontal disease,

it's a problem for dog penetration with

dental care products within the pet food

landscape or pet category is very low.

I think there's a lot of education

required.

The worst case scenario is your dog gets

periodontal disease and ends up at the

vet and spends $2,000 for a cleaning

or teeth removal or otherwise.

This product does two things.

There's a very novel ingredient,

a novel fermentate that

reduces oral biofilms.

What does a biofilm is bacteria that

leads to plaque on a dog's teeth,

plaque leads to bad odor. This product

actually removes those biofilms.

So there is a scientifically

proven mechanism to do that in

addition to the brushing.

So it's health and wellness,

it reduces plaque, it reduces bad

odor, it fights periodontal disease.

It's a big game change. We're excited.

We think it's another tiger by the toe,

if you will.

And Unkibble has been a hero product

and we think this product will be one as

well. Yeah.

So we've been scaring away behind the

scenes and it goes live next Monday,

June 2nd.

It's amazing.

And it's one of those things where I

think that's so well aligned with who your

target buyer is and what

they care about. And yeah,

just a huge tam there for you to tap into.

And so that's really exciting. And then

one thing I was curious about there,

I know that there's been really some

education over the last few years on human

health and how really oral

health for humans impacts

so much of the rest of your health, right?

You could be healthy in a lot of ways,

but don't take care of your mouth.

And that has an impact on

potentially the rest of your body.

I'm assuming it's got to be the

same to some degree with pets.

Exactly. It's all connected.

And this is holistic health and wellness.

It's not just here's a single

ingredient treat or here's a supplement.

It even comes, it.

Sounds a breath mint it

serving a real health purpose.

And to your earlier point about being

really health conscious and focused on

exercise, it's the same with your dog.

Healthy exercise, going for a walk.

It's really a mentality.

It's not just scoop and serve

and it fixes all problems.

You need to really embrace that. An

active lifestyle is really important.

You need to think about all aspects,

all moments of consumption and

dental care is no exception to that.

It's awesome. It's awesome. Well, Russell,

this has been an absolute pleasure.

Kudos to you guys on building

a great brand, a great product,

a great offering is loyal

following people love you,

pets and owners alike.

And so I'm excited to see where

you guys go and grow from here.

I'm definitely a fan. And so for those

that are listening, they're like, man,

I got to get on this Unkibble Train and

I got to check out what Spot and Tango

is up to. How can they learn more? How

can they figure out what their pet needs?

Spot and tango.com, all

information's there,

whether it's Un Unkibble or our treats

or supplements in this new dental care

product. Spots and tango.com,

we offer discounts on trial.

It's a 14 day trial with

a happy pup guarantee.

So there's no reason not to give us

a try. And Brett, thank you so much.

Amazing, fantastic opportunity. Really

enjoyed the conversation. Again,

thanks for the opportunity here.

Absolutely. Russell Breuer,

ladies and gentlemen, Russell,

good luck to you and Spot and Tango

and look forward to watching the future

success. Super exciting. And as

always, we'd love to hear from you.

So I'd love to hear feedback.

What would you like to hear

more of on the podcast?

If you found this episode inspiring,

please share it with somebody else.

And with that, until next

time, thank you for listening.