Meet The Youngest Entrepreneur in the Pet Space! 🚀

Issue #75

June 18th, 2024

Quick Hits:

🐩 Meet Kevin, the world’s tallest dog

😮 Nationwide is dropping 100,000 pet insurance policies

Oh Norman is looking for their next CTO (Chief Treat Officer), with a salary of $10,000!!!

🇨🇳 More pets, less weddings, less kids. China is spending more on their pets

🐈 Cats can’t taste this one flavor, any guesses what it is?

This week we chatted with a young yet very impressive entrepreneur - Ava Dorsey, the founder of Ava’s Pet Palace. If you’re an entrepreneur of any age, this is a must-read.

Some say entrepreneurs are born not made. If that's true, you are the epitome of the saying. You drew your first business plan at 6 years old, what did you write and what was the business?

So my first business plan was this palace-type building. It had an animal shelter, a vet, an animal restaurant, an animal daycare, and basically everything for animals. I knew that I wanted to do something good for our animals. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember. 

You started your first business (Ava's Pet Palace) at 8 years old, what was it like starting it out, how did you make it, sell it, get the word out about your new company and why did you decide to start a pet business?

I love this question so when we first started, we started by making everything in our kitchen. We were rolling treats, packing up every treat in bags, and putting labels on the bags. At this time we weren’t really shipping orders, but we were going to local shows, meeting dogs and their families. This is how we initially got the word out about Ava’s Pet Palace.

I was a really shy child, but going to these pet shows helped to build my confidence. I also started making short animal fact videos on my IG page. That really helped me to get comfortable in front of the camera too. I would get to be around animals which was absolutely my favorite part and we would also get to sell treats at these shows. I was usually the youngest person there and sometimes I felt like I wasn’t really taken seriously as a nine-year-old with my own booth. But as I continued to get older and found more confidence in myself, I enjoyed these events more. We would also pass out treats around our neighborhood.

We live in a very dog-friendly neighborhood and community. I remember we had these little paper bags we’d put our homemade treats in to pass out and a lot of the time people would tell us about their dogs. We would learn about what they could and couldn’t eat and this really helped us shape what kind of treats we wanted to make and what we truly wanted to focus on.

I’ve always had the biggest love and passion for animals and I knew I wanted to do something with animals and be able to help them in some kind of way. I wanted to spend time with animals, whether volunteering at a shelter event or even just passing our treats out around our neighborhood, I just knew that I loved doing it.

When you were 8 years old you attended your first craft show, how did it go? What did you learn and how was the overall reception?

When we attended our first craft show in 2016, I was very nervous, but very excited. It was actually this Christmas show that we still have gone to every year since except for 2020. I remember not really talking to anyone because I was so nervous. But everyone was so kind. And when they did want to learn more about my treats I was happy to tell them.

At that time, we started by putting our treats in glass jars and had a board on the table showing all of the wrappers from the organic products we used to make them. Overall it was so fun and I even still have the photo of the first $20 I made. I’m so glad and thankful to have had all these experiences in the business so young.

4 years ago, your mother quit her job and joined Ava's Pet Palace, what is it like working with your mom how does the work distribution split?

Yes, this was a big change for us. First I want to start off by saying that I’m so grateful to even have the opportunity to have my mom work for Ava’s Pet Palace full-time. It was a very exciting milestone but also, with those milestones come challenges. Being a mother-daughter duo working together definitely has its own challenges. Sometimes it gets hard to separate business from our personal life especially as a teenager in high school, since Ava’s Pet Palace is a very big part of our lives. But for the most part, we have a lot of fun together and it’s cool to have the ability to talk business stuff, personal stuff, and everything in between.

In 2018, only 2 years after you started you were invited on for a TV interview, on Val Warner at Windy City Live. How was that experience?

This was one of the most exciting days. I still remember it very well. My mind kind of just went blank as I was probably the most nervous I’d ever been! This was prior to me doing any interviews or podcasts and it was my first time ever being on TV and live TV at that! But Val Warner was very sweet and definitely helped the interview go smoothly. Overall I’m so grateful they found us and that I was able to do something so cool at such a young age.

You are currently in junior high school, how do you balance school, homework, friends, and running your business?

Being a teenager in high school and a business owner is definitely a lot. I don’t really have specific ways that I help balance. Each day I’m learning new things to help me feel more productive and keep that balance between everything going on in my life. It can be a little overwhelming. I will say that my absolutely amazing parents do step in to help when I need it or I need that extra push. But overall, I’m still learning how to balance everything in healthy ways.

Since 2020, you've been busy. You managed to get into Target and other big box stores, win the WDB Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition, ran a successful Kickstarter, move to a commercial kitchen, sign with a distributor, and more... What are your plans for the next 4 years?

Looking towards the next few years, I would say really just focusing on three main things: Growing our retail presence, adding two key team members, and growing our product line! And I do want to do more within the business world not just the pet industry, although we love the pet industry, I think that it’s important to make connections in other industries for collaborations and growth as well :)

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What is your advice for other kid entrepreneurs who want to start a business but don't know how?

Whenever I’m asked this question the first thing that comes to my mind is to just go for it. Although that sounds like such a simple sentence, it is really important to hear. Having a passion or doing something related to something you are passionate about is so important. Sometimes there will be bumps in the road and there will be challenges, but remembering why you’re doing what you’re doing and what you want to accomplish will help you continue on your journey and keep pushing through.

How have you learned to handle rejection, which is something every entrepreneur goes through but can be more difficult at a young age?

For me, I would say really just getting out there and talking to people more. I do remember that I was very sad when people wouldn’t take me seriously as a business owner but as time went on and we started going to more events, I began talking to people more and telling them about myself and my business, that really helped me. Rejection isn’t easy and it will be present throughout your journey, but remembering your passion and why you’re doing what you’re doing is one of the most important things you can do.

What were the most difficult challenges you faced over the last few four years and how did you overcome them? Were there any setbacks that taught you important lessons along the way?

Throughout the years, we have faced so many challenges. When we first started, we faced the challenges of not knowing where to start. My parents didn’t have any background in this and there really was nowhere to turn online for info. In 2020, after we went viral and faced new challenges. We went from shipping from 2 -3 orders a month on our website to around 2000 in 2 days! It was absolutely crazy but so rewarding to see!

We definitely had to make a lot of changes very quickly and we were faced with challenges with how we were going to get all these treats made, since we were still hand-making them and we had run out of our first run of printed bags just a day or 2 before this happened. I could go on and on about the challenges we faced, but instead of folding, we came together as a family to make it happen!

Everyone stepped up to help us. It was one of the most exciting times of my life!  And now as time has gone on and we’ve grown in so many different ways we’ve struggled with capital, growing our team, and inventory. These are all things that we are actively working through, but with our determination and motivation, I know we’ll get to that next level!

You reached the end, you deserve a treat 🍖

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Finally, why did the cat ask for a guitar?

It wanted to make some mew-sic.

See you Thursday!