How Customer Behavior Turned Into a $600 Pet Product

Issue #291

January 13, 2026

Quick Hits:

👏 Loyal gets FDA acceptance on senior dog anti-aging drug

🦷 Antech launches AI-powered dental analysis for cats

🍻 Portland, Maine jumps on the restaurant & dog park trend

🫀 New market report has functional pet food going from $3B in 2025 to $7B in the next decade

😼 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the cat

🥹 Train driver fed a stray dog and now he waits on the platform for him every night

Lauren Berlingeri and Katie Kaps didn't plan to enter the pet market. The HigherDOSE co-founders had built a thriving wellness tech business selling infrared saunas and PEMF mats to biohackers and recovery enthusiasts.

Then their customers' dogs started weighing in.

What you'll learn:

• How HigherDOSE identified a $600+ product opportunity by observing customer behavior rather than conducting traditional market research

• The strategic timing discipline that separated this launch from typical brand extensions—and why waiting years was the right move

• Why veterinary partnerships from day one created competitive advantages that pure consumer brands can't replicate

• How design differentiation allowed HigherDOSE to bridge the gap between $120 commodity beds and $700 clinical devices

• The brand equity transfer playbook: leveraging existing customer trust, distribution, and pricing architecture to accelerate pet market entry

• What the BARK Air partnership reveals about experience-based marketing in premium pet categories

• Key differences between human wellness brands entering pet versus pet-native startups building from scratch

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