How They Scaled a $100M Pet Food Brand | Spot & Tango

Описание: This week, we sit down with the founders of Spot & Tango, they quit wall street to build a $100M dog food brand

Russel and Dylan break down how they went from cooking dog food in their kitchen to building a $100M/ year pet food company, why they chose to own manufacturing instead of outsourcing, and how they perceive profitability as a responsibility and not a bonus.

From being prudent operators to dog lovers we talk about the moments where things nearly broke, the risks most founders avoid, and why they believe discipline beats speed when building something that lasts.

Honest, opinionated, and packed with real lessons, this episode is about building a durable consumer brand, making hard decisions early, and staying focused when the pressure to move faster is everywhere.

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Timestamps:
01:43 - Cooking dog food at home and where the idea came from
04:02 - Leaving finance to bootstrap a side hustle
06:26 - Early demand signals and distrust in legacy pet food
07:55 - Humanisation of pets and changing consumer behaviour
10:26 - Inventing UnKibble to solve cost and convenience
12:05 - Selling out in 4 days and scrambling for supply
14:09 - The reality of outsourcing manufacturing
15:34 - Choosing Allentown and building a factory from scratch
18:29 - Why there’s no ceiling in the pet market
18:51 - How they deploy capital: manufacturing and marketing
19:22 - Why adding friction actually doubled conversion
22:28 - Becoming obsessed with data and dog health
24:48 - From 0% margins to nearly 50% gross margin
27:01 - Manufacturer vs marketer business models
30:28 - Curiosity, risk, and learning by doing
31:01 - The biggest challenges of bringing manufacturing in-house
32:22 - Frugality as an operating philosophy
34:22 - Early failures and slow early progress
37:46 - Automating procurement and logistics with AI
41:29 - ROIC, CAC, LTV, and how they measure sustainability
43:57 - Why growth at all costs destroys businesses
45:13 - Staying profitable while growing 55% year over year
46:49 - Creative testing, volume, and rapid iteration
48:28 - Why spending more doesn’t have to increase CAC
49:42 - Keeping CAC flat while tripling ad spend
54:23 - Retention as the hardest metric to improve
57:53 - Why heavy discounts destroy LTV
1:01:20 - Why they launched PupGum as a separate brand
1:03:56 - Branding, provocation, and earned media
1:05:16 - Selling out fast and early demand signals
1:08:03 - Amazon launch and blended CAC benefits
1:10:52 - Why they’ve avoided retail and wholesale
1:17:33 - Goals for the next 12 months
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We connect the world's best DTC brands with the software they need to scale efficiently.

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