Hi, friend.
Last week, I told you about what I have been through during the previous 18 months. (If you missed my summary of my not-so-great-but-also-pretty-good-for-lots-of-reasons-year, you can read it here and subscribe to future notes.) I confessed that I felt overwhelmed by the hit that our industry (including FetchFind) took in 2020. I was freaked out and not sure about the next steps. But I watched you, heard you, and took inspiration from you.
You didn’t hang up your leash. Instead, you created Zoom dog-training sessions. You masked up to welcome customers back, and you used PPP to engage and retain your staff for as long as possible. You embraced potential in the dramatic increase in pet ownership.
You saw the joy that pets gave their families as they homeschooled, worked from home, and, well, did everything remotely and isolated from loved ones.
Alongside you, I saw opportunity, not setback.
So, in August 2020, I took inspiration from you. As you pivoted your businesses, like you, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and went to work…and set out to create a reimagined business model.
I leaned into the potential, thanks to what we’ve been building in FetchFind for six years, or more specifically, over my 25-year industry career.
To make the vision come to life, I hired and welcomed Katie Smith, Chief Operating Officer; Jason Raper, Head of Marketing; Margaret Littman, Editorial; Jemma Aston, Senior Program Manager; Nicole Stewart, our in house Subject Matter Expert and industry know-it-all; plus a team of dynamic pet pros that answered your emails; content specialists, including writers, editors, graphic designers, and voice-over artists.
As a business owner who has a family to feed–and the families of our staff to support–of course, I am relieved to be generating revenue. But I’m more excited about the new programs and partnerships my team created.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you in detail some of these offerings, including partnerships with companies and brands outside of pet care. Companies that will help you keep your staff, customers, and pets safe while helping you create efficiencies and higher profitability.
We are recrafting existing learning content. We are adding new tools, education, and resources to make training staff easier. We are making changes to our Badges that make them more accessible to a variety of learners.
FetchFind is growing into our new phase. Among many other exciting elements, we are creating best practices for an industry that will outlast any of our ability to walk, groom, board, vet, petsit, or rescue pets. Passion for pets and the pet industry will outlast the pandemic.
Remember, our Facebook Live conversations resume on Tuesday, November 2. As I mentioned last week, I scaled back my personal use of social media in the last year–which was a good decision at the time–but I missed all of you and I can’t wait to interact with you in real-time. Of course, you can message me at any time at jamie@fetchfind.com to tell me how you pivoted and what you are most excited about these days.
Thanks for being part of the FetchFind community.
XO,
Jamie