April 19, 2023 • 30 mins
BIO: Jacob Zuppke, President & CEO of Whisker Jacob Zuppke is the President & CEO of Whisker, a leading innovator in connected pet care that's most notably known for Litter-Robot. Jacob's passion for creative engineering solutions and innovative marketing campaigns has transformed a connected pet care company into one of the best-selling and highest-rated brands on the international market. Since 2015 when Zuppke joined the team, Whisker has grown from 30 employees to over 500 employees in 2023, and from $7.6M to over $180M in sales. Whisker's team of 500 people are dedicated to shaping the future of pet care. Jacob’s dedication to bringing innovative pet care products to market is partly influenced by his own fur children. At home, he has a Siberian cat named Lexie and a Yellow Lab named Emma.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Colleen Grant, president ofiHeartMedia Detroit, and today we're joined with
Jacob Zupki from Whisker. He's thepresident and CEO. Hi Jacob, welcome,
Thank you for having me this morning. I appreciate being here. Yeah,
good to have you. What isthe mission at Whisker. We are
trying to shape the future of petcare through innovative products and inventive accessories that
(00:23):
we bring to market to help petparents with their pets and give us an
example of what those might be.Whiskers most notably known for the Little Robot,
which is a self cleaning letter boxfor cats. Over the last twenty
three years, we just hit ourmillionth robots sold in December. Wow.
Congratulations, thank you. It's areally exciting milestone. It happened to be
(00:44):
the first day that our new CEOstarted, so we don't know if he
brought good fortune or what, buthe was able to help with shipping that
unit out last in December. Butwe also have the Feeder Robot, which
is a automatic feeder for cats anddogs, and then we have a whole
line of accessories that are really greatproducts for pet parents. So you just
talked about your millions unit. Whatare some of the other most exciting moments
(01:08):
you can remember at your time?I Whisker, December first, twenty fifteen
is a date that really comes tomind. That was a moment for us
as a company where we really gotto see the convergence of how great marketing
and great product could be brought together. So I joined at the beginning of
twenty fifteen. I joined the founderas an Internet marketing consultant at the time,
(01:32):
and throughout the year we got readyfor the launch of the Little Robot
three model. Having been fifteen yearsin business at the time, exponential growth
was not necessarily top of mind inthe moment, and I remember we got
ready in September and October of thatyear leading into November in December for holiday
(01:55):
time to launch the new Little Robotthree. And at the time, there
were these social celebrities now called influencers, and we partnered with twenty five of
them to give away twenty five LittleRobots, which seemed wild and at the
time, and each day in Decemberwe would do one Little Robot a day
giveaway and that first day, Decemberfirst, twenty fifteen, we had all
(02:20):
the influencers posts on one day aboutthis promotion, and we more than ten
xt our website traffic overnight, andso I remember our peak website traffic was
in the high thirty thousands, andwe had over thirty thousand people on the
site that one day. So you'relike, wow, people are really into
this. It was super colt.It was a moment where we finally saw
the power of social right and whatit could do for our business, and
(02:44):
that really carried into the following yearsto come. But that was an eye
opening moment. And I would saythe second one was we wrote a commercial
called Don't Be a Scooper, andour creative team did a retreat where we
went off site and we all haveto pitch an idea and it was an
opportunity to facilitate a moment where thebest idea won, and it was a
(03:06):
really cool opportunity we got away.I had read a book called From Poop
to Gold by the Harmon Brothers,who are most notably known for the what's
it called the Squatty Potty commercial andthe poop Pore commercial and the purple bed
commercial. And after they had somereally big wins, they wrote a book
(03:28):
called From Poop to gold and Iremember I read that and it just it
inspired an idea that I had alreadybeen thinking about, which was to do
a creative retreat and get away fromthe office to write a new commercial.
And we did that and we wrotea spot and we came out of that.
Our creative director's idea was don't bea Scooper. The theme and the
purpose was to make people never lookat the litter box the same again.
(03:51):
And it was a moment for usas a brand where we really turned heads.
And we launched that in November oftwenty nineteen, so right before Covid
started and we accelerated our business overnight. We launched a spot that really got
people to look at the litter boxa different way. And I was just
(04:11):
interviewing somebody who just started this weekin the company, and I remember in
their follow up interview they said tome, I will never be able to
look at the litter box the same. Ever since we talked and I watched
that commercial, all I can thinkof every time my scoop now is the
little robot and that was the intentof the commercial. And so that was
another breakout moment for the brand wherewe really saw the opportunity to turn heads
(04:35):
and to get people thinking differently aboutthe litter box, which is a goal
of ours, is how do wemake people look at solutions or chores in
our case and never look at themthe same again, Because if we can
do that, it's similar to howyou might think about the thermostat nowadays,
or a stationary bike with respect tothe peloton or many other products. And
(04:58):
I always rather an to cleanox andtissue paper. Now is that we have
done that in our category? Iswe've gotten people look at something and now
think of the little robot instead ofthe category name itself. So he said,
you know, don't be a scooperand to think about the litter box
totally differently. That you're revolutionizing theway people will look at that. But
we haven't really addressed like what isthe little robot and how is it different?
(05:21):
So let's let's I think we needto fill people in on what is
the difference. Yeah, well,since this is a podcast, I'll leave
everybody with the thought of if youare mobile right now and you are unable
to quickly remember this, go tocatpoopdot com because you can't onhearcatpoop dot com.
But the Little Robot is a selfcleaning litter box for cats. It
(05:44):
was the first of its kind thatused gravity to sift and separate the clean
litter from the dirty litter, depositingthe dirty clumps into the waste store beneath
containing those traditional cat litter box odors, while leaving your cat with a clean
bot litter each time. Right,We as human beings, unfortunately are not
perfect people, and we don't tendto scoop on a regular basis when we
(06:08):
have a cat at home, Noway. And so when you think about
the idea of a dirty porta pottyfor human beings, we as human beings
tend not to appreciate those as muchas maybe our cat doesn't appreciate their dirty
litter box. So I draw thatanalogy, which is we as human beings
don't want to go into a usedrestroom and have to use that restroom,
(06:31):
Well, why should our cats haveto do that? With the little Robot
you never have to think about thatagain. And as a clean metal letter,
each time your cat goes, it'sgot an ample amount of space for
your cat to get in, doits business and be able to leave.
With a multi cat household It makesit so that you don't have to think
about the litter box every day.And I have one cat at home and
(06:51):
I only have to empty the LittleRobot with my old Little Robot three about
every two weeks, with the newLittle Robot four every three weeks. It
contains those traditional litter box holders.Even with it being in my wife's office
at the house and heard just beingpregnant for the last nine months. It
has been absolutely a game changer onour household, having used it for eight
(07:14):
years, and while I maybe alittle bit bias given my role, I'm
also a super user of the productwell. And there's a lot of automation
that comes with that because it can'ttake you either, can't be that amount
of time between changes without a lotof automation. Talk a little bit about
that. Yeah, so the LittleRobot is pretty cool. It's as if
your cat is flushing its own toilet. So when the cat enters the unit,
(07:40):
a sensor goes off. With theLittle Robot four, that's a series
of different sensors. With the LittleRobot three that was a weight sensor.
And what happens is seven minutes afterthe cat leaves a unit, it automatically
cycles, so it's fully automatic.And now with the digital product that we
have, we have over a halfa million users now of our digital product
that are connected to their little Robotunits at home or their feeder robot that
(08:03):
get real time notifications and real timeinsights on what's happening with their path.
Back in twenty nineteen, I wastraveling and I was out of town for
about three days. I remember lookingat my phone having I was on a
work trip, and I put myphone in the other room so I could
really focus, and I remember walkingback to my phone and having a flurry
(08:26):
of notifications from my Little Robot app. And my wife had a miscall.
So I called her back and shesaid, I just got a bunch of
notifications from the app. What's goingon. I just went over to check
on the little robot and Lexie wassitting outside the little robot getting in and
out and out, in and out. We rushed sort of the vat we
found a UTI in our cat beforeI became a major problem. Wow,
(08:52):
this is something we would have neverknown with the regular litter box. One
it might have been in our basement. Two it might have been somewhere that
ever that you would have never hadany kind of alert that your cat was
going in and out and in andout and actually was probably in some pain.
Correct. And so we've had alot of these stories come through.
We don't publish them right now becauseour goal right now as a brand is
(09:13):
to under promise over deliver. Wesell you a great automatic litter box,
but some of the new features thatwe have coming out in twenty twenty three
that will backwards compatible for all ofour litter Robot four users and many features
for our litter Robot three as well. Really excited about what's to come with
our digital product, things like theability to recognize your cat by weight ID
(09:35):
and some other cool features that helpto really normalize data for your path and
understand the frequency of use, understandtheir weight change behaviors. Because the literal
about four weighs your cat each time, I don't think I would have ever
known my cat weighs seven point eightpounds consistently for the last year now.
And that's actually important because cats gainingany fraction of weight or losing a fraction
(09:58):
of weight can be subst chanel andan indicator that something's wrong as well.
Yeah, between that and water,I would say water health the ability or
the ability to track how much yourpet is drinking, something that we may
or may not be working on atWhisker right now. I think our really
cool opportunities just understand what is happeningwith your pet, because unfortunately cats can't
(10:22):
yet talk, right, and thisis I would say, the closest way
of understanding what is going on withyour pet. Right Why an't we going
to have stuff from you for dogsand ferrets and our fish and come on,
Jacob, get on it. We'reworking on. We're getting on a
series of things that we believe addressedthe core what we call our product trinity,
food, water and waste. AndI think right there we can address
(10:45):
a lot of really cool opportunities inthe house to both automate chores and also
bring more insight to the pet parentabout what's going on with their pat right,
which everybody deeply wants if they careabout their pet, and obviously the
majority of people do. We sawsome of that in the Super Bowl ads
this weekend, and I think thatthat was a very empathetic way of relating
(11:09):
to pet parents in general. Notably, we were talking yesterday internally about the
Farmer's Dog commercial. I think theydid a really awesome job telling this story
of how we care so deeply aboutour pats, and I think they did
a really good job with that.Yeah, I agree. So there are
there have been challenges over the growththat you're experiencing. Expressed some of those
(11:31):
to us. Yeah. So wewent into twenty nineteen twenty twenty pre COVID
with about ninety nine employees and wecome out employing over five hundred people.
So it has been a very busyfew years. Fortunately, our growth was
starting in twenty nineteen before COVID happened, so it wasn't necessarily COVID induced.
(11:54):
I think it was actually supported withthe extra money in the market and things
of that sort. But we fortunatelyhad a growth year in twenty twenty two
and twenty twenty three is aligning withwhat we believe is possible with the Whisker
brand. Along the way, wehave gone through two factory expansions. So
we started in twenty nineteen with thirtythousand feet, we come out into twenty
(12:18):
twenty three now with two hundred andtwenty two thousand square feet. We did
an expansion in twenty nineteen twenty twentyof doubling our foot principle from thirty to
sixty thousand. Before we completed theexpansion in twenty twenty, we had already
started the phase two. Well,Phase two and phase three. We readid
our office space both in Michigan andWisconsin, and we also expanded again,
(12:41):
tripling the size of our facility.That is a lot with supply chain and
manufacturing scalop right to do that andthen problems the time, and then add
a global pandemic, I add shortagesin supply chain for both building and for
our product. And then in twentytwenty two, I would say we faced
our biggest challenge in our company history, which was launching a new robot at
(13:07):
the volume that we are currently at, which might seem straightforward for certain brands,
but I think when you look atautomotive and you think about automotive being
a really great operator for how youscalp a supply chain quickly. They plan
their volumes years in advance. Andif you look at the ramp up of
(13:28):
great automotive companies, and I'll useTessa as an example, you know they're
ramping up the supply chain their abilityto produce at a volume that excites the
consumer demand and meet the consumer demandover a period of years. And Rivian's
another great example of that. Youknow, they're talking about going from tens
of thousands of units to hundreds ofthousands over the course of a year.
(13:50):
We did that in one year.It was challenging. We faced about every
hurdle you could ask for. Wehad to redesign our computer multiple times from
even the time of our beta untilthe launch because of shortages of different components.
We had to rewrite firmware, Wehad to scalop the actual supply chain
(14:11):
and headcount in our assembly line toget ready. We had to manage dual
supply chains with the Little Robot threemodel, the feeder robot and the scalop
of Little Robot four. We hadto kind of hedge our bet against the
volumes we would expect with the LittleRobot four against the Little Robot three.
And it didn't all go to plan. You know, life does not always
(14:31):
happen as planned. It did notgo to plan. We faced some challenges
and I think we learned a lotthrough that. I think we'd come away
with a lot of learnings as tohow to communicate even better with our customers,
how to communicate even better internally,how to react and pivot with respect
(14:54):
to both the marketing and operations andcommunication side with the supply chainside was something
that when we launched a literal aboutthree seven years ago, eight years ago
now, we didn't have this kindof volume, so it was a very
quiet launch. We were able todo it behind the scenes. We didn't
have a spotlight on us, andwe have a much bigger spot today than
(15:16):
we did eight years ago. AndI would say it was very visibly seen
that we didn't execute at a levelthat I would say we're all very proud
of. But I think we'd comeout of it a lot prouder in our
ability to work together as a teamand to execute better now with some different
people aboard the organization that I thinkwill help steer us in the right direction
(15:37):
and keep us all aligned for amuch better next time around. You know,
you said all the things that justdon't go to plan as much as
you try to get everything aligned andyou know, make the correct projections for
each line and everything and all thestuff that you learned, like that's the
most fun part of business, youknow, is like you look back and
you're like, oh my gosh,I learned. It's so much going through
(16:00):
that, and that's what makes itfun, you know. It's I talk
about zero to one and one totwo in our business, zero to one
being the things that are inventive andhave never been done before. And in
our case, sure have companies launchedproducts before, no question, but we've
also invented a net new product thatpeople haven't brought the market before, right,
and that comes with its own setof challenges, And you know,
(16:22):
I internally, one of the thingsthat I really talk about is the intellectual
challenge that you get when you're doingzero to one work. And at the
outset of COVID in April of twothousand, we had a lot to learn
very quickly. Having manufacturing our ownproduct, we had to figure out how
to do all of that. Itwas the most intellectually challenging work. I
(16:47):
don't think I've ever had more fun. I think twenty twenty could have been
for me one of the one ofthe most exciting times. Of course scary
and a lot of unknowns, butintellectually challenging. And I think in twenty
twenty two there were definitely some challengeswe've faced before that we faced again in
(17:08):
similar ways, and that was thatwas for me maybe some of the frustrating
moments where I was like, we'vebeen here before, why are we doing
this again? And so that wasa reality check on a certain way that
we were operating and something that I'mreally excited to really learn from our challenges
(17:29):
this time around and make sure thatwe don't make the same mistake twice.
You know, we talk about thatas you know, it's healthy to make
mistakes, it's healthy to learn.But when you don't ask the right questions,
when you don't tap into the stakeholdersthat have seen it before, and
you go into it blindly, withoutapproaching things in a way where somebody has
this knowledge and you should ask questionsand be vulnerable and be willing to be
(17:55):
just ask questions that may even toyou seem dumb, but to someone else,
I've been there, they know whatthey're doing. And when you don't
do that, that's what I think. Making the second mistake is not a
positive and not a move forward.And that's where your gray hairs come from,
right, And it's super frustrating.You'd brought up the zero to one
(18:15):
and I have to tell you becauseI know you have small children's much younger
than mine minor like about ten yearperiod older than yours, and I can't
tell you. You know, youuse business to teach them all the time.
You can't help it. It's justpart of what you do. And
I talk to them all the time. They'll be like, I don't want
to do this, and I'll belike, the difference between zero and one.
(18:37):
Once you've done it one time,just get the first time over with,
and then every other times easier thanthat. So just get that zero
to one over with. Let's go, you know. So it's funny.
I just love the zero to oneall the time because if you can just
do that first one, you gotit. But to your point, hold
on. But to your point islike when you get to six, don't
do the things at zero again.For me, zero to one in my
(19:00):
both personal and professional life is likemy favorite. It's the unknown, it's
the lash the paper, it's theability to think about something that may not
have been done before or that you'redoing for the first time yourself. And
for me, that's the most exciting, both as an entrepreneur and somebody who
enjoys challenges. I think that forme is the most exciting, again,
(19:22):
both in personal life and in professionaleven going from one kid to two.
You see the difference of what youdidn't know the first time around and what
you now know the second time.A great example and I saw it with
my wife of just how much morerelaxed she was the second time around,
of understanding exactly what was going tobe thrown at her. Of course it's
(19:44):
going to be different when the secondchild, they're going to reactively, but
seeing how she handled that in ourpersonal life and then seeing how I do
that and our team does that inour professional lives, it's really exciting.
And then yeah, when you getthe six, if you're doing the same
thing that you tried to do atzero to one that didn't work, yeah,
I think there's a time and placeto try things a second time,
(20:07):
but knowingly what didn't work the firsttime, right, because it might work
the second time as long as youlearn from the first time, right,
and using those resources you mentioned ofpeople who actually have the experience from the
zero to one and bringing that backand going hey, let's talk through this
so and I you know, Icall it my bench. I've get my
bench a mentors that I go topeople that maybe in different roles that are
(20:30):
above where I am in my career, or maybe you haven't yet reached that
point of their career, and Itry and tap into any and all resources
that I can to learn from whatthey've gone through. Because each company is
different, smaller or bigger than Whisker, it doesn't matter because we all experience
things differently. And one of thethings for me that I have really appreciated
it's just asking questions and being vulnerable. And I think that in and of
(20:53):
itself is a superpower, is vulnerabilityand showing where you don't know the answer
and asking the question. And Ithink what's really cool for me, especially
when you're talking to people who havebeen through it or have been through versions
of it, they like to sharetheir experience, and you know, I
like to continue building my bench thepeople that I can go to to ask
(21:17):
questions and how they're doing it.And during COVID, I remember and April
of two thousand, I went tothe president of our plastic supplier, who
is a smaller business than Whisker is, but that was looking at things differently
than we were, and I gotto pick his brain. Every week we
(21:37):
met for a period of time justto talk about what they were doing versus
what we were doing and to exchangeideas. And it was super cool for
me, as a first time operatorof a business of this size, to
pick the brain of somebody who hadbeen doing plastics for as long as they
have and to learn from them.And you know, some people would say,
(21:59):
well, maybe they weren't the sizeand scale that we were at the
time. That didn't matter because thechallenges are the same, It's just at
a different scale. And that forme was really exciting and something that I
still try and do every day.So you'd said, you you're up to
over five hundred people, right,So what is it like to be a
colleague at Whisker? I think rightnow and what has been is it's a
(22:22):
really exciting time to be part ofan organization that I won't steal the Jeff
Bezos mindset of day one, butoperating with a day one mindset, and
by that I mean being willing tochallenge the status quo, being able to
work on inventive products and companies thathave never brought to market before, being
(22:47):
open to new ways of marketing ourbrand and bringing to market a brand that
has never done something like this before, where we're truly growing a category.
And when you think about growing categoryand being for lack of a better words,
the cleanex of tissue paper, we'vedone that in self cleaning utter boxes.
(23:07):
Our brand, the litter Robot asa brand has grown at a rate
that's almost three times faster than thecategory itself, and we've helped to grow
the categories. The categories enormous andimagine what you've done through the category.
And it's cool because our search volume, which I'm an SEO geek in my
core, our search volume is somuch greater for litter Robot than it is
(23:29):
for self cleaning and automatic letter boxesbecause of our marketing. And so everybody
at at every part of the organizationgets to influence that in one way or
another. Whether you're on the frontlines building our product or talking to our
customers and our customer experience department,whether you're in marketing helping to shape the
brand that we're building for tomorrow,whether you're in engineering inventing tomorrow's products and
(23:52):
bringing to market new digital and physicalsolutions, or you're in another department operations
finance or otherwise. You get towork on things that haven't been done before
and scale a company at the ratethat we have, and that's just exciting.
And I often say in our business, if we're not having fun in
pet care, in technology, ine commerce and directing consumer, we're doing
(24:18):
everything wrong right and it's all new, how fun and exciting. There's so
much energy there, and you canfeel it when you talk about it.
It's really exciting, and I thinkyou can feel it at a lot of
throughout our entire organization, even whenI'm in the assembly plan and I'm talking
with our team. But you know, one of the things that we did
in the leadership group, we wentand worked on the line with everybody for
two days to kick off our holidayseason. It and people ask why I'm
(24:42):
doing that, And maybe I wouldsay a little brash in the way that
the question was asked, But Jacob, what the heck are you doing on
the line with us? And Ismiled and I laughed, and I said
two things. One, I wantto kick off our busiest time in the
year. Alongside everybody. I wastaking customer phone calls. I was working
(25:03):
on the line. If I don'tknow what's actually happening, I can't do
my job effectively. And secondly,I look at things differently than they do.
When you do something repeatedly often,you don't necessarily see it from a
zero to one mindset. You don'tnecessarily see the thing that you're doing every
day the same way. And Ido, and our team does in a
(25:23):
fresh perspective. Part of our corevalues is looking at things with fresh eyes
and being inventive in your approach atevery level of the org. I do
that every day, and when I'mdoing working in somebody else's role, I
get to see it in a differentway. And one great example where I
was inventive one of our core values. I was watching we have a calibration
(25:47):
step in our literal ro about fourassembly line. It allows us to calibrate
a scale to make sure that it'salways perfect, and it's towards the end
of the assembly line. And Iwas watching this operator do it, and
he was he was doing what hedid every day. And I watched him
move the mouse to move to thenext step, and he kept moving over
(26:11):
the next step button and I askedhim, said, Andrew, or do
you need the button to be bigger? Because no, no, I'm all
good. He was defending it likelike I was asking him if he did
something wrong. And I watched himfor another twenty thirty minutes and I kept
watching him do it over and over. So I walked away. I called
her it director. I had himmake the button bigger in the moment.
(26:33):
I came back a couple of hourslater, and Andrews like, all right,
I did thinking about it all day. I liked the button to be
bigger, and it was this small, subtle thing, but for him as
an operator, for him to beable to move more efficiently, feel more
empowered by the work that he wasdoing, feel more confident in his ability
to do it, and work within our case, and I hate my
(26:55):
title in this way, but workwith the CEO of the company to be
able to make a change up positivelyimpact everybody on that step. That's what
we want to see every day,and that's what I hope that everybody at
Whisker brings every day, is thisinventive, fresh eyes, empowered approach to
how they bring change in our company. So what do you with all the
things that are being developed? Whatis your favorite product at Whisker? So
(27:22):
I'm a user. I have beensure that I haven't said my dog in
three years and I haven't scooped thelitter box in eight years. So between
not feeding my dog and not scooping, I have a lot more time to
think about the exciting products that we'reworking on. UM I think for me,
combination of our our digital product roadmapis super exciting. So with the
(27:48):
literal about four platform drawing the analogyto you know, any other IoT product
platform, we get to continually inventfor consumers about the product last year and
the year before that and the yearbefore that four years to come, so
they will continually get new upgrades ontheir platform. Given I know the product
(28:12):
roadmap, I would say i'd bias. I think they're really cool. I
think some of the things we're ableto do in pat health, your ability
to know that your eight eight yearold Siberian cat, that's what I have.
She's eight years old, who weighseight pounds in comparing her anomalies in
(28:33):
weight, fluctuation in litter box useand eventually food consumption and water consumption,
and compare that to all other eightyear old Siberian cats on our platform with
a similar weight profile. No othercompany in the world can do that.
And we have been able to takein just a short amount of time,
over twenty five million cat weight readingsin less than a year since we onto
(29:00):
Literal four platform. And that's compoundingand exponential. How many did you say,
twenty five million? Wow? Talkabout some data, you know,
first party data that you're going tobe able to use to help the health
of animals, and it is superexciting. Some of the things that we
have in our product roadmap for thedigital the ability to really understand more about
(29:22):
your pat and when we layer infood and water what we call our product
trinity, the digital platform gets thatmuch stronger. And I think for us
that's really cool because when you thinkabout the ecosystem of Apple and why you
get bought into an Apple line ofproducts is one makes the other better,
right, And that's what we wantto do here at Whisker, And I
(29:44):
think the digital product for us isone that is really exciting for me.
I think also some of the excitingrobots that we have in development and the
accessories we got we got a funroad ahead. Well, it has been
an absolute joy speaking with you today, Jacob. We've been joined today with
Jacob Zupki, the president and CEOand board member from Whisker. Thanks for
joining us today. Thank you forhaving me. I appreciate it.
This is Colleen Grant, president ofiHeartMedia Detroit, and today we're joined with
Jacob Zupki from Whisker. He's thepresident and CEO. Hi Jacob, welcome,
Thank you for having me this morning. I appreciate being here. Yeah,
good to have you. What isthe mission at Whisker. We are
trying to shape the future of petcare through innovative products and inventive accessories that
(00:23):
we bring to market to help petparents with their pets and give us an
example of what those might be.Whiskers most notably known for the Little Robot,
which is a self cleaning letter boxfor cats. Over the last twenty
three years, we just hit ourmillionth robots sold in December. Wow.
Congratulations, thank you. It's areally exciting milestone. It happened to be
(00:44):
the first day that our new CEOstarted, so we don't know if he
brought good fortune or what, buthe was able to help with shipping that
unit out last in December. Butwe also have the Feeder Robot, which
is a automatic feeder for cats anddogs, and then we have a whole
line of accessories that are really greatproducts for pet parents. So you just
talked about your millions unit. Whatare some of the other most exciting moments
(01:08):
you can remember at your time?I Whisker, December first, twenty fifteen
is a date that really comes tomind. That was a moment for us
as a company where we really gotto see the convergence of how great marketing
and great product could be brought together. So I joined at the beginning of
twenty fifteen. I joined the founderas an Internet marketing consultant at the time,
(01:32):
and throughout the year we got readyfor the launch of the Little Robot
three model. Having been fifteen yearsin business at the time, exponential growth
was not necessarily top of mind inthe moment, and I remember we got
ready in September and October of thatyear leading into November in December for holiday
(01:55):
time to launch the new Little Robotthree. And at the time, there
were these social celebrities now called influencers, and we partnered with twenty five of
them to give away twenty five LittleRobots, which seemed wild and at the
time, and each day in Decemberwe would do one Little Robot a day
giveaway and that first day, Decemberfirst, twenty fifteen, we had all
(02:20):
the influencers posts on one day aboutthis promotion, and we more than ten
xt our website traffic overnight, andso I remember our peak website traffic was
in the high thirty thousands, andwe had over thirty thousand people on the
site that one day. So you'relike, wow, people are really into
this. It was super colt.It was a moment where we finally saw
the power of social right and whatit could do for our business, and
(02:44):
that really carried into the following yearsto come. But that was an eye
opening moment. And I would saythe second one was we wrote a commercial
called Don't Be a Scooper, andour creative team did a retreat where we
went off site and we all haveto pitch an idea and it was an
opportunity to facilitate a moment where thebest idea won, and it was a
(03:06):
really cool opportunity we got away.I had read a book called From Poop
to Gold by the Harmon Brothers,who are most notably known for the what's
it called the Squatty Potty commercial andthe poop Pore commercial and the purple bed
commercial. And after they had somereally big wins, they wrote a book
(03:28):
called From Poop to gold and Iremember I read that and it just it
inspired an idea that I had alreadybeen thinking about, which was to do
a creative retreat and get away fromthe office to write a new commercial.
And we did that and we wrotea spot and we came out of that.
Our creative director's idea was don't bea Scooper. The theme and the
purpose was to make people never lookat the litter box the same again.
(03:51):
And it was a moment for usas a brand where we really turned heads.
And we launched that in November oftwenty nineteen, so right before Covid
started and we accelerated our business overnight. We launched a spot that really got
people to look at the litter boxa different way. And I was just
(04:11):
interviewing somebody who just started this weekin the company, and I remember in
their follow up interview they said tome, I will never be able to
look at the litter box the same. Ever since we talked and I watched
that commercial, all I can thinkof every time my scoop now is the
little robot and that was the intentof the commercial. And so that was
another breakout moment for the brand wherewe really saw the opportunity to turn heads
(04:35):
and to get people thinking differently aboutthe litter box, which is a goal
of ours, is how do wemake people look at solutions or chores in
our case and never look at themthe same again, Because if we can
do that, it's similar to howyou might think about the thermostat nowadays,
or a stationary bike with respect tothe peloton or many other products. And
(04:58):
I always rather an to cleanox andtissue paper. Now is that we have
done that in our category? Iswe've gotten people look at something and now
think of the little robot instead ofthe category name itself. So he said,
you know, don't be a scooperand to think about the litter box
totally differently. That you're revolutionizing theway people will look at that. But
we haven't really addressed like what isthe little robot and how is it different?
(05:21):
So let's let's I think we needto fill people in on what is
the difference. Yeah, well,since this is a podcast, I'll leave
everybody with the thought of if youare mobile right now and you are unable
to quickly remember this, go tocatpoopdot com because you can't onhearcatpoop dot com.
But the Little Robot is a selfcleaning litter box for cats. It
(05:44):
was the first of its kind thatused gravity to sift and separate the clean
litter from the dirty litter, depositingthe dirty clumps into the waste store beneath
containing those traditional cat litter box odors, while leaving your cat with a clean
bot litter each time. Right,We as human beings, unfortunately are not
perfect people, and we don't tendto scoop on a regular basis when we
(06:08):
have a cat at home, Noway. And so when you think about
the idea of a dirty porta pottyfor human beings, we as human beings
tend not to appreciate those as muchas maybe our cat doesn't appreciate their dirty
litter box. So I draw thatanalogy, which is we as human beings
don't want to go into a usedrestroom and have to use that restroom,
(06:31):
Well, why should our cats haveto do that? With the little Robot
you never have to think about thatagain. And as a clean metal letter,
each time your cat goes, it'sgot an ample amount of space for
your cat to get in, doits business and be able to leave.
With a multi cat household It makesit so that you don't have to think
about the litter box every day.And I have one cat at home and
(06:51):
I only have to empty the LittleRobot with my old Little Robot three about
every two weeks, with the newLittle Robot four every three weeks. It
contains those traditional litter box holders.Even with it being in my wife's office
at the house and heard just beingpregnant for the last nine months. It
has been absolutely a game changer onour household, having used it for eight
(07:14):
years, and while I maybe alittle bit bias given my role, I'm
also a super user of the productwell. And there's a lot of automation
that comes with that because it can'ttake you either, can't be that amount
of time between changes without a lotof automation. Talk a little bit about
that. Yeah, so the LittleRobot is pretty cool. It's as if
your cat is flushing its own toilet. So when the cat enters the unit,
(07:40):
a sensor goes off. With theLittle Robot four, that's a series
of different sensors. With the LittleRobot three that was a weight sensor.
And what happens is seven minutes afterthe cat leaves a unit, it automatically
cycles, so it's fully automatic.And now with the digital product that we
have, we have over a halfa million users now of our digital product
that are connected to their little Robotunits at home or their feeder robot that
(08:03):
get real time notifications and real timeinsights on what's happening with their path.
Back in twenty nineteen, I wastraveling and I was out of town for
about three days. I remember lookingat my phone having I was on a
work trip, and I put myphone in the other room so I could
really focus, and I remember walkingback to my phone and having a flurry
(08:26):
of notifications from my Little Robot app. And my wife had a miscall.
So I called her back and shesaid, I just got a bunch of
notifications from the app. What's goingon. I just went over to check
on the little robot and Lexie wassitting outside the little robot getting in and
out and out, in and out. We rushed sort of the vat we
found a UTI in our cat beforeI became a major problem. Wow,
(08:52):
this is something we would have neverknown with the regular litter box. One
it might have been in our basement. Two it might have been somewhere that
ever that you would have never hadany kind of alert that your cat was
going in and out and in andout and actually was probably in some pain.
Correct. And so we've had alot of these stories come through.
We don't publish them right now becauseour goal right now as a brand is
(09:13):
to under promise over deliver. Wesell you a great automatic litter box,
but some of the new features thatwe have coming out in twenty twenty three
that will backwards compatible for all ofour litter Robot four users and many features
for our litter Robot three as well. Really excited about what's to come with
our digital product, things like theability to recognize your cat by weight ID
(09:35):
and some other cool features that helpto really normalize data for your path and
understand the frequency of use, understandtheir weight change behaviors. Because the literal
about four weighs your cat each time, I don't think I would have ever
known my cat weighs seven point eightpounds consistently for the last year now.
And that's actually important because cats gainingany fraction of weight or losing a fraction
(09:58):
of weight can be subst chanel andan indicator that something's wrong as well.
Yeah, between that and water,I would say water health the ability or
the ability to track how much yourpet is drinking, something that we may
or may not be working on atWhisker right now. I think our really
cool opportunities just understand what is happeningwith your pet, because unfortunately cats can't
(10:22):
yet talk, right, and thisis I would say, the closest way
of understanding what is going on withyour pet. Right Why an't we going
to have stuff from you for dogsand ferrets and our fish and come on,
Jacob, get on it. We'reworking on. We're getting on a
series of things that we believe addressedthe core what we call our product trinity,
food, water and waste. AndI think right there we can address
(10:45):
a lot of really cool opportunities inthe house to both automate chores and also
bring more insight to the pet parentabout what's going on with their pat right,
which everybody deeply wants if they careabout their pet, and obviously the
majority of people do. We sawsome of that in the Super Bowl ads
this weekend, and I think thatthat was a very empathetic way of relating
(11:09):
to pet parents in general. Notably, we were talking yesterday internally about the
Farmer's Dog commercial. I think theydid a really awesome job telling this story
of how we care so deeply aboutour pats, and I think they did
a really good job with that.Yeah, I agree. So there are
there have been challenges over the growththat you're experiencing. Expressed some of those
(11:31):
to us. Yeah. So wewent into twenty nineteen twenty twenty pre COVID
with about ninety nine employees and wecome out employing over five hundred people.
So it has been a very busyfew years. Fortunately, our growth was
starting in twenty nineteen before COVID happened, so it wasn't necessarily COVID induced.
(11:54):
I think it was actually supported withthe extra money in the market and things
of that sort. But we fortunatelyhad a growth year in twenty twenty two
and twenty twenty three is aligning withwhat we believe is possible with the Whisker
brand. Along the way, wehave gone through two factory expansions. So
we started in twenty nineteen with thirtythousand feet, we come out into twenty
(12:18):
twenty three now with two hundred andtwenty two thousand square feet. We did
an expansion in twenty nineteen twenty twentyof doubling our foot principle from thirty to
sixty thousand. Before we completed theexpansion in twenty twenty, we had already
started the phase two. Well,Phase two and phase three. We readid
our office space both in Michigan andWisconsin, and we also expanded again,
(12:41):
tripling the size of our facility.That is a lot with supply chain and
manufacturing scalop right to do that andthen problems the time, and then add
a global pandemic, I add shortagesin supply chain for both building and for
our product. And then in twentytwenty two, I would say we faced
our biggest challenge in our company history, which was launching a new robot at
(13:07):
the volume that we are currently at, which might seem straightforward for certain brands,
but I think when you look atautomotive and you think about automotive being
a really great operator for how youscalp a supply chain quickly. They plan
their volumes years in advance. Andif you look at the ramp up of
(13:28):
great automotive companies, and I'll useTessa as an example, you know they're
ramping up the supply chain their abilityto produce at a volume that excites the
consumer demand and meet the consumer demandover a period of years. And Rivian's
another great example of that. Youknow, they're talking about going from tens
of thousands of units to hundreds ofthousands over the course of a year.
(13:50):
We did that in one year.It was challenging. We faced about every
hurdle you could ask for. Wehad to redesign our computer multiple times from
even the time of our beta untilthe launch because of shortages of different components.
We had to rewrite firmware, Wehad to scalop the actual supply chain
(14:11):
and headcount in our assembly line toget ready. We had to manage dual
supply chains with the Little Robot threemodel, the feeder robot and the scalop
of Little Robot four. We hadto kind of hedge our bet against the
volumes we would expect with the LittleRobot four against the Little Robot three.
And it didn't all go to plan. You know, life does not always
(14:31):
happen as planned. It did notgo to plan. We faced some challenges
and I think we learned a lotthrough that. I think we'd come away
with a lot of learnings as tohow to communicate even better with our customers,
how to communicate even better internally,how to react and pivot with respect
(14:54):
to both the marketing and operations andcommunication side with the supply chainside was something
that when we launched a literal aboutthree seven years ago, eight years ago
now, we didn't have this kindof volume, so it was a very
quiet launch. We were able todo it behind the scenes. We didn't
have a spotlight on us, andwe have a much bigger spot today than
(15:16):
we did eight years ago. AndI would say it was very visibly seen
that we didn't execute at a levelthat I would say we're all very proud
of. But I think we'd comeout of it a lot prouder in our
ability to work together as a teamand to execute better now with some different
people aboard the organization that I thinkwill help steer us in the right direction
(15:37):
and keep us all aligned for amuch better next time around. You know,
you said all the things that justdon't go to plan as much as
you try to get everything aligned andyou know, make the correct projections for
each line and everything and all thestuff that you learned, like that's the
most fun part of business, youknow, is like you look back and
you're like, oh my gosh,I learned. It's so much going through
(16:00):
that, and that's what makes itfun, you know. It's I talk
about zero to one and one totwo in our business, zero to one
being the things that are inventive andhave never been done before. And in
our case, sure have companies launchedproducts before, no question, but we've
also invented a net new product thatpeople haven't brought the market before, right,
and that comes with its own setof challenges, And you know,
(16:22):
I internally, one of the thingsthat I really talk about is the intellectual
challenge that you get when you're doingzero to one work. And at the
outset of COVID in April of twothousand, we had a lot to learn
very quickly. Having manufacturing our ownproduct, we had to figure out how
to do all of that. Itwas the most intellectually challenging work. I
(16:47):
don't think I've ever had more fun. I think twenty twenty could have been
for me one of the one ofthe most exciting times. Of course scary
and a lot of unknowns, butintellectually challenging. And I think in twenty
twenty two there were definitely some challengeswe've faced before that we faced again in
(17:08):
similar ways, and that was thatwas for me maybe some of the frustrating
moments where I was like, we'vebeen here before, why are we doing
this again? And so that wasa reality check on a certain way that
we were operating and something that I'mreally excited to really learn from our challenges
(17:29):
this time around and make sure thatwe don't make the same mistake twice.
You know, we talk about thatas you know, it's healthy to make
mistakes, it's healthy to learn.But when you don't ask the right questions,
when you don't tap into the stakeholdersthat have seen it before, and
you go into it blindly, withoutapproaching things in a way where somebody has
this knowledge and you should ask questionsand be vulnerable and be willing to be
(17:55):
just ask questions that may even toyou seem dumb, but to someone else,
I've been there, they know whatthey're doing. And when you don't
do that, that's what I think. Making the second mistake is not a
positive and not a move forward.And that's where your gray hairs come from,
right, And it's super frustrating.You'd brought up the zero to one
(18:15):
and I have to tell you becauseI know you have small children's much younger
than mine minor like about ten yearperiod older than yours, and I can't
tell you. You know, youuse business to teach them all the time.
You can't help it. It's justpart of what you do. And
I talk to them all the time. They'll be like, I don't want
to do this, and I'll belike, the difference between zero and one.
(18:37):
Once you've done it one time,just get the first time over with,
and then every other times easier thanthat. So just get that zero
to one over with. Let's go, you know. So it's funny.
I just love the zero to oneall the time because if you can just
do that first one, you gotit. But to your point, hold
on. But to your point islike when you get to six, don't
do the things at zero again.For me, zero to one in my
(19:00):
both personal and professional life is likemy favorite. It's the unknown, it's
the lash the paper, it's theability to think about something that may not
have been done before or that you'redoing for the first time yourself. And
for me, that's the most exciting, both as an entrepreneur and somebody who
enjoys challenges. I think that forme is the most exciting, again,
(19:22):
both in personal life and in professionaleven going from one kid to two.
You see the difference of what youdidn't know the first time around and what
you now know the second time.A great example and I saw it with
my wife of just how much morerelaxed she was the second time around,
of understanding exactly what was going tobe thrown at her. Of course it's
(19:44):
going to be different when the secondchild, they're going to reactively, but
seeing how she handled that in ourpersonal life and then seeing how I do
that and our team does that inour professional lives, it's really exciting.
And then yeah, when you getthe six, if you're doing the same
thing that you tried to do atzero to one that didn't work, yeah,
I think there's a time and placeto try things a second time,
(20:07):
but knowingly what didn't work the firsttime, right, because it might work
the second time as long as youlearn from the first time, right,
and using those resources you mentioned ofpeople who actually have the experience from the
zero to one and bringing that backand going hey, let's talk through this
so and I you know, Icall it my bench. I've get my
bench a mentors that I go topeople that maybe in different roles that are
(20:30):
above where I am in my career, or maybe you haven't yet reached that
point of their career, and Itry and tap into any and all resources
that I can to learn from whatthey've gone through. Because each company is
different, smaller or bigger than Whisker, it doesn't matter because we all experience
things differently. And one of thethings for me that I have really appreciated
it's just asking questions and being vulnerable. And I think that in and of
(20:53):
itself is a superpower, is vulnerabilityand showing where you don't know the answer
and asking the question. And Ithink what's really cool for me, especially
when you're talking to people who havebeen through it or have been through versions
of it, they like to sharetheir experience, and you know, I
like to continue building my bench thepeople that I can go to to ask
(21:17):
questions and how they're doing it.And during COVID, I remember and April
of two thousand, I went tothe president of our plastic supplier, who
is a smaller business than Whisker is, but that was looking at things differently
than we were, and I gotto pick his brain. Every week we
(21:37):
met for a period of time justto talk about what they were doing versus
what we were doing and to exchangeideas. And it was super cool for
me, as a first time operatorof a business of this size, to
pick the brain of somebody who hadbeen doing plastics for as long as they
have and to learn from them.And you know, some people would say,
(21:59):
well, maybe they weren't the sizeand scale that we were at the
time. That didn't matter because thechallenges are the same, It's just at
a different scale. And that forme was really exciting and something that I
still try and do every day.So you'd said, you you're up to
over five hundred people, right,So what is it like to be a
colleague at Whisker? I think rightnow and what has been is it's a
(22:22):
really exciting time to be part ofan organization that I won't steal the Jeff
Bezos mindset of day one, butoperating with a day one mindset, and
by that I mean being willing tochallenge the status quo, being able to
work on inventive products and companies thathave never brought to market before, being
(22:47):
open to new ways of marketing ourbrand and bringing to market a brand that
has never done something like this before, where we're truly growing a category.
And when you think about growing categoryand being for lack of a better words,
the cleanex of tissue paper, we'vedone that in self cleaning utter boxes.
(23:07):
Our brand, the litter Robot asa brand has grown at a rate
that's almost three times faster than thecategory itself, and we've helped to grow
the categories. The categories enormous andimagine what you've done through the category.
And it's cool because our search volume, which I'm an SEO geek in my
core, our search volume is somuch greater for litter Robot than it is
(23:29):
for self cleaning and automatic letter boxesbecause of our marketing. And so everybody
at at every part of the organizationgets to influence that in one way or
another. Whether you're on the frontlines building our product or talking to our
customers and our customer experience department,whether you're in marketing helping to shape the
brand that we're building for tomorrow,whether you're in engineering inventing tomorrow's products and
(23:52):
bringing to market new digital and physicalsolutions, or you're in another department operations
finance or otherwise. You get towork on things that haven't been done before
and scale a company at the ratethat we have, and that's just exciting.
And I often say in our business, if we're not having fun in
pet care, in technology, ine commerce and directing consumer, we're doing
(24:18):
everything wrong right and it's all new, how fun and exciting. There's so
much energy there, and you canfeel it when you talk about it.
It's really exciting, and I thinkyou can feel it at a lot of
throughout our entire organization, even whenI'm in the assembly plan and I'm talking
with our team. But you know, one of the things that we did
in the leadership group, we wentand worked on the line with everybody for
two days to kick off our holidayseason. It and people ask why I'm
(24:42):
doing that, And maybe I wouldsay a little brash in the way that
the question was asked, But Jacob, what the heck are you doing on
the line with us? And Ismiled and I laughed, and I said
two things. One, I wantto kick off our busiest time in the
year. Alongside everybody. I wastaking customer phone calls. I was working
(25:03):
on the line. If I don'tknow what's actually happening, I can't do
my job effectively. And secondly,I look at things differently than they do.
When you do something repeatedly often,you don't necessarily see it from a
zero to one mindset. You don'tnecessarily see the thing that you're doing every
day the same way. And Ido, and our team does in a
(25:23):
fresh perspective. Part of our corevalues is looking at things with fresh eyes
and being inventive in your approach atevery level of the org. I do
that every day, and when I'mdoing working in somebody else's role, I
get to see it in a differentway. And one great example where I
was inventive one of our core values. I was watching we have a calibration
(25:47):
step in our literal ro about fourassembly line. It allows us to calibrate
a scale to make sure that it'salways perfect, and it's towards the end
of the assembly line. And Iwas watching this operator do it, and
he was he was doing what hedid every day. And I watched him
move the mouse to move to thenext step, and he kept moving over
(26:11):
the next step button and I askedhim, said, Andrew, or do
you need the button to be bigger? Because no, no, I'm all
good. He was defending it likelike I was asking him if he did
something wrong. And I watched himfor another twenty thirty minutes and I kept
watching him do it over and over. So I walked away. I called
her it director. I had himmake the button bigger in the moment.
(26:33):
I came back a couple of hourslater, and Andrews like, all right,
I did thinking about it all day. I liked the button to be
bigger, and it was this small, subtle thing, but for him as
an operator, for him to beable to move more efficiently, feel more
empowered by the work that he wasdoing, feel more confident in his ability
to do it, and work within our case, and I hate my
(26:55):
title in this way, but workwith the CEO of the company to be
able to make a change up positivelyimpact everybody on that step. That's what
we want to see every day,and that's what I hope that everybody at
Whisker brings every day, is thisinventive, fresh eyes, empowered approach to
how they bring change in our company. So what do you with all the
things that are being developed? Whatis your favorite product at Whisker? So
(27:22):
I'm a user. I have beensure that I haven't said my dog in
three years and I haven't scooped thelitter box in eight years. So between
not feeding my dog and not scooping, I have a lot more time to
think about the exciting products that we'reworking on. UM I think for me,
combination of our our digital product roadmapis super exciting. So with the
(27:48):
literal about four platform drawing the analogyto you know, any other IoT product
platform, we get to continually inventfor consumers about the product last year and
the year before that and the yearbefore that four years to come, so
they will continually get new upgrades ontheir platform. Given I know the product
(28:12):
roadmap, I would say i'd bias. I think they're really cool. I
think some of the things we're ableto do in pat health, your ability
to know that your eight eight yearold Siberian cat, that's what I have.
She's eight years old, who weighseight pounds in comparing her anomalies in
(28:33):
weight, fluctuation in litter box useand eventually food consumption and water consumption,
and compare that to all other eightyear old Siberian cats on our platform with
a similar weight profile. No othercompany in the world can do that.
And we have been able to takein just a short amount of time,
over twenty five million cat weight readingsin less than a year since we onto
(29:00):
Literal four platform. And that's compoundingand exponential. How many did you say,
twenty five million? Wow? Talkabout some data, you know,
first party data that you're going tobe able to use to help the health
of animals, and it is superexciting. Some of the things that we
have in our product roadmap for thedigital the ability to really understand more about
(29:22):
your pat and when we layer infood and water what we call our product
trinity, the digital platform gets thatmuch stronger. And I think for us
that's really cool because when you thinkabout the ecosystem of Apple and why you
get bought into an Apple line ofproducts is one makes the other better,
right, And that's what we wantto do here at Whisker, And I
(29:44):
think the digital product for us isone that is really exciting for me.
I think also some of the excitingrobots that we have in development and the
accessories we got we got a funroad ahead. Well, it has been
an absolute joy speaking with you today, Jacob. We've been joined today with
Jacob Zupki, the president and CEOand board member from Whisker. Thanks for
joining us today. Thank you forhaving me. I appreciate it.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.