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Founding a Business & Innovating Pet Care with Kimberly Weiner of Fluffology 8-18-25
00:17:04
This episode features Kimberly Weiner, Founder and CEO of Fluffology, who shares how her passion for animals inspired a new, transparent approach to pet grooming. She discusses the challenges of building a brand from the ground up,
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by an incredibly innovative and creative entrepreneur who's got an incredible level of energy and drive. We're joined today by the founder of Fluffology. And Fluffology is a unique sort of pet concept. We're with Kimberly Weiner, the founder, brilliant businesswoman. Kim, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself and about fluffology?
- [00:32]
B
Sure. Thanks, Scott. I'm thrilled to be here today. So I'm Kimberly Weiner. Let's see. Entrepreneur mom. I am pretty passionate about animals, of course. I'm a huge animal lover. I have two beautiful dogs myself. And I've really most mostly spent my career building businesses that are rooted in empathy, sort of, and community outreach. And you know, most recently, of course, I founded Fluffology, which became an R D project when I got a puppy after not having a being a pet parent for over 30 years, raising children. And I soon, I soon found out that being a pet parent somehow along the way has gotten extremely complex. What do I feed my dog? Feed them kibble. No, kibble's the devil. You know, what do I feed him? Raw. No, you know, raw will kill him. And then how do I train him? And you know, where do I get him groomed? I take him to a grooming shop. They're booked out for months. It's still the same grooming shop in my neighborhood. That hasn't changed in 30 years. And, and so I said, it has to be easier than this. So I started Fluff ology as a way to create relative and reliable quick information to pet parents, simplify the process. And definitely I'm set out to change the way consumers and pet parents look at the grooming aspect of pet parenting. And so it really started with a simple insight, really for, you know, grooming, to most people, it feels chore, like, right, Scott? Like it's, it has a transactional, stressful feeling around it. I dropped my dog off. He was a puppy. I dropped him off at 8:30 in the morning. And they told me they'd call me by five. And I said, how long is it going to take to cut a puppy? And they said, oh, well, we'll call you. And I said, well, do you take him for a walk? Will you give him snack means a puppy? Nope, he takes that long. And what I found out is that the traditional grooming industry stacks appointments, right? So they'll bathe a dog and they'll throw the dog in the kennel, and they'll take another dog, bathe that dog, take Ezra back out, put him on the table, dry them a little bit, halfway, then let them air dry a little bit. And so that's what takes so long, and that's what creates stress and absolute. No, absolutely no transparency. Right. So they take them behind the door, they close the door. You have no idea who's. Who's doing what to them. And they're there all day. I get Ezra back eight hours later. Yes, he looks cute, but he's so stressed out the entire night that he wouldn't even eat his dinner. So that's where it all started. I wanted to create a transparent brand for pet parents, and I wanted to emphasize and dig deeper into the pet parent relationship and how that bond and connection is there. And we want to highlight that and be able to provide that for our customers.
- [03:53]
A
Really fantastic. And talk about. I'm going to take you off target for one second. You recently featured on a nationally broadcast show, the Marcus Lemonis show, the fixer. Just. Just take 30 seconds if you can. Did you love that experience? Did you enjoy that experience? Was that experience interesting? Just. Just talk about that for a moment, if that's okay with you.
- [04:16]
B
Oh, it's perfectly fine with me. We need more than 30 seconds, but I'll.
- [04:21]
A
I'll.
- [04:21]
B
I'll do it quickly. We were approached by the casting crew for the Fixer, and we were asked to be on the show. And I paused for a very long time because it's a reality TV show. I don't watch reality, but I do know about reality, and it's a business show, and I do know Marcus Lemonis, and I respect him highly. He is a great businessman. He's a TV personality, but he's an entrepreneur, and he really is out to help people and their businesses. Talked it over with my team, Scott, and, you know, we're a new brand, We're a fragile brand. We're a vulnerable brand. And what I didn't want to do is go on to go on national television and, you know, put all for a better, lack of better phrase, put all your dirty laundry out there. And so we thought about it long and hard. We went out to New York, we pitched to Marcus, and he. He said, I'm coming out to L. A. Next week. Well, they give you a schedule. The. The taping of it is grueling. It's grueling. It's disruptive, and business is going on. We're conducting businesses. We have clients coming in, and people Shopping and my groomers are grooming and there's cameramen everywhere, everyone's miked. And we're sort of given a little bit of what we're going to talk about, where we're going to set up next, about five minutes before it changes often. And at the end of the day, two months of filming is condensed into 44 minutes. And you don't know what the shows end up, is going to end up looking like or featuring you. And I had anxiety over it. And the experience is the experience. Would I do a reality TV show again in, in this way? Probably not. The show has, has created a few things challenging for me. I'm getting hate mail for it, which I don't quite understand how people go out of their way to find your personal email and then send you horrible emails. Some of the response was great. Other, other people, you know, will hate, as usual. But I think that the whole experience is something, you know, that we tried. I don't know if we'll do it again. And I think it was overall stressful.
- [06:58]
A
Thank you very, very much. And, and take a second on. And Kim, the business just recently had a record month 20. Talk about the pride in seeing the business move in the right direction. You know, it's been two or three arduous, arduous years. You've put your heart and soul into this. Is there some pride, some little bit of, of, of like sprinkle in the eye or, or glint in the eye as you see things start to hit record months of revenues? Just a little bit of a moment there.
- [07:29]
B
Well, you know, for, for founders and entrepreneurs, the journey is 24, 7, 365 days a year. Right. It never leaves my psyche getting to, you know, you know, paying attention to, you know, your metrics. Right. And your growth. And all of that noise sometimes gets in the way of clarity. Right. So you have to take a minute to give yourself a pat on the back. And I'm not always very good at that. It has been a slow crawl. We're building a brand from the ground up. Not only are we a brick and mortars, completely different experience to pet parents, but we're also educating them to the fact that there are other options in the grooming space. Right. And so I kind of thought that was going to be a little easier, Scott. I really did kind of thought, well, kind of like Las Vegas build and they'll come. It hasn't been that. It has been a very arduous, diligent move toward brand awareness. And so I think we're finally getting there and we're sort of a beta store. So we try lots of things. If they work, we continue to explore them and promote them and increase them. And things that we quickly find out that aren't working, we try to get rid of immediately. But we're constant shift. We're constantly looking at why things work or they don't work. But at the end of the day, I think, you know, it's tough. It's really tough. I enjoy what I do. But you know, founders really deserve, you know, that banner month in sales because it's so much hard work. It's a ton of teamwork. It's a ton of, you know, some of its guesswork. Not all of means that you have to be laser focused 24 7. But unfortunately as a founder, you have to be laser focused. I think pretty much every day, every day I walk into the shop, I have to be laser focused on growth of the brand.
- [09:42]
A
And take a moment. Kim, I know a few of your teammates have been great assets to the business. Can you take one moment and talk a little bit about how important it is, how important some of your teammates and leaders are in the business?
- [09:56]
B
Oh, absolutely. To be honest, you know, no founder does it alone, right? There are no self made men. I think that it's important to understand that building from the inside out is what you should strive for as a founder every day. The way you treat your team, you know, it has this ripple effect right into how they treat our customers. And then I think ultimately that shapes the way the brand is experienced. Right? So having some key employees that understand the mission, that are fully vetted because as a startup you wear 18 hats. It's, you know, we like to define job roles around here, Scott, and responsibilities, but, but we all do everything because you have to on a small team. Fortunately, I think we're off to a great start. Our culture here is one of collaboration and thought and respect. And so I think that is so vital. Turnover in an early startup can really be detrimental. So I am proud to say that my team has been with me since the early R and D days, which I think says a lot. And they're, they're a huge part and that is a huge part as to why we're growing and finally having banner months of income.
- [11:23]
A
I mean, really, your determination and drive are just remarkable. Talk for a second about what you wish somebody had told you as an entrepreneur before you started. Is there something you wish someone had told you before you started? Advice that you can give others, like what Would you wish somebody had told you?
- [11:43]
B
Interesting that there are so many moving parts to creating a new brand from, I mean, from advertising to marketing to HR to finding the right space, how to market, how to find your client, then how to. How to proceed. Create a perceived value for your services. It's incredibly complex. I. I would, I would think a solid, of course, a solid business plan always helps, but in the real world, you know, we don't live inside a business model. We live in the real world, right, with real people and real issues and, you know, real concerns and we have needs to meet. So, I mean, I, I kind of wish that someone might have said, don't be afraid to ask for help. I think I'm not really good at that personally, but I really don't think that a founder does this alone. I really don't. And I think that if someone would have said, definitely surround your people. Surround yourself with people who, like, challenge you and believe in you and your concept and aren't afraid to speak the truth, right? To say whiner, you're just, you're way off here. You know, here's what we. Here's why we think this. And not be afraid to say, that's not going to work or, okay, fine. Because I think that as a founder, sometimes they might expect their team to always agree with them and always execute what she says. And, you know, I think being a leader is tough. It's tough. It's pushing people up the mountain constantly, every single day, and then there's really no one pushing you up the mountain, Scott. And so that takes a certain individual.
- [13:43]
A
Well, it takes tremendous determination and you've got that in droves. It's really amazing what you've done and your team has done. I. Kim, what are you most focused on and excited about currently? When you look at the next several months of this year, next year, what are you most focused on and excited about currently?
- [13:58]
B
I would say that now that we bought our first flagships, we got our flagship store sort of really up and running and we're fully booked now. We are definitely focused on expansion. I am going to be building a prototype store, store in Santa Monica, Brentwood area, and we'll use that as a prototype for our future franchise model. And I'm super excited about that, definitely excited about that. Again, you know, expansion is. Is all. Has always been a part of the. I have not done all this work, Scott, for one store. And then, you know, I'm focused on sort of the intersection between pet care and AI. I am fascinated by AI and I am diligently looking for ways to incorporate it into our model. I think it's important, I think it helps with the customer journey. I think it can help from the basics of appointment making platforms and I think it's a good reason resource of reliable information and quick information to the pet parent which you know, isn't always readily available. And then I guess, you know, I think that the consumer, I think since the pandemic I have to, I think that there's been a consumer behavior shift being, you know, locked up as we were. Pet parenting, you know, pet ownership rose for the first time. All the kennels were empty and rescues couldn't keep up. And so with that I think the pandemic has taught us that we've shifted into a more experience, sort of more transparent in my opinion that is between like pet parent and the pet that's experience is more meaningful and I guess, you know, the transparency and building of community, which is something that flopology does as well. We, you know, we have private events and they're all pet friendly and you know, we have the same regulars. And so the consumer shift after the pandemic was to have more positive experiences in the things that they had to do on a day to day basis.
- [16:26]
A
Fantastic. Kim. What, what a fantastic pleasure to visit with you today on the Becker Business Podcast, the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're, we're obviously we know you well, we know the family well. We're big fans of your biggest fan, Rick Levin. We are just thrilled, thrilled to have you on the Becker Business podcast, the Becker Private Equity podcast. You are surely one of a kind and fantastic, an incredibly driven and gifted entrepreneur. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Business Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Podcast.
- [17:01]
B
Thanks so much, Scott.