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The Dog Backpack That Sold Out in 4 Minutes
How a corgi named Maxine and her filmmaker dad built a 7-figure pet brand with zero ad spend...
Collin Armstrong
April 30, 2025
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Issue #183
April 30th, 2025
Quick Hits:
🦴 History: The story of Grover Krantz & his Irish Wolfhound’s skeletons on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History
🛍️ A 3-story department store in Paris dedicated to dogs
Bryan Reisberg never set out to start a pet products company – he just wanted an easier way to carry his beloved Corgi, Maxine, around New York City.
In 2015, a new NYC subway rule required dogs to be in carriers, and like many New Yorkers, Bryan didn’t think much about the actual enforcement of the rule until he was slapped with $200 fine.
So he improvised by toting puppy Maxine, well, in a tote bag.
New Yorkers getting creative with the bag rule
As Maxine outgrew the tote, he scoured the market for a comfortable dog carrier. Every option fell short – flimsy materials, poor design, nothing built for daily commuting.
With no prior pet gear experience, Bryan decided to solve the problem himself.
By 2021, he and co-founder Scott Dunn had designed The Maxine One dog backpack under a new brand cheekily named Little Chonk (a nod to Maxine’s fluffy “chonky” physique).
This first-time pet entrepreneur tapped into his background in film and storytelling to help design a carrier that was actually safe and ergonomic for pets and their humans.
Building a Following, One Cute Post at a Time
Long before Little Chonk sold a single backpack, Bryan was building an audience around Maxine. What began as a fun Instagram account in 2016 to share Maxine’s adventures soon snowballed into a massive online following.
Maxine the Fluffy Corgi charmed the internet with her daily NYC outings (often peeking adorably from Bryan’s backpack).
Over the years, her @madmax_fluffyroad accounts have amassed a big chonk of followers…
Viral videos became routine – one day it might be Maxine blissfully dozing in a backpack on a crowded subway, another day her poking out to greet a train conductor, or partnering up with the account @oldjewishmen to infiltrate Costco’s food court (a clip that exploded online).
Bryan’s filmmaker eye for high-quality, witty content set Maxine apart from other pet accounts early on.
By leaning into humor and storytelling, he cultivated a loyal community of pet lovers worldwide. Maxine became known as “the dog in the backpack,” a true internet celebrity in the pet world.
I saw an opportunity to make high quality stuff, like photos and videos and I started shooting stuff with my cinematographer friends. And that stuff would go viral and keep going viral and I would just kind of follow that.
From Followers to Frenzy: Launching Little Chonk
When Bryan announced the Maxine One dog backpack, his built-in audience was ready.
Little Chonk’s debut drop went live on Maxine’s 6th birthday in December 2021 – and sold out in just four minutes. Thousands of fans-turned-customers flooded the site, snapping up the $120 carriers without a single dollar spent on advertising.
In the first year, with limited inventory, Little Chonk surpassed seven figures in revenue on the back of this organic demand. “We did over seven figures in revenue on a $0 CAC,” Bryan notes of the launch’s success.
The hype was real: the backpack earned rave reviews and was quickly dubbed the “Best Dog Backpack” by Wired, Good Housekeeping, and The Dodo.
More importantly, it struck a chord with pet parents who finally had a carrier made by a dog dad for fellow dog dads and moms.
How did Little Chonk pull this off with no traditional marketing?
The key was leveraging built-in distribution that Bryan had nurtured over the years. He “breadcrumbed” his followers with behind-the-scenes teases during development, building a ton of hype for the product they’d been requesting for years.
By launch day, Maxine’s fans felt like part of the journey.
Bryan and team also partnered with the NYC MTA on a creative campaign (fittingly, since the subway started it all) to educate people on training their dogs to ride in a backpack, turning the launch into a city-wide moment.
Every aspect of the rollout was a masterclass in community-driven marketing – from user-generated unboxing videos to viral reaction clips of people spotting a corgi in a backpack.
Little Chonk had zero need for pricey ads; the community itself was the engine of growth.
A Pet Brand with Personality
Unlike big-box pet brands, Little Chonk was born from a creator’s lifestyle and it shows.
The brand’s voice is playful, personable, and a bit tongue-in-cheek – more “cool dog dad in NYC” than corporate pet supplier. (Case in point: they call Maxine the company’s “Chief Chonk” and an accessory pouch is dubbed the “Snacc Pacc,” injecting meme-like humor into product design.)
This fun, relatable tone resonated with millennial pet owners who see their dogs as family and adventures as a lifestyle. Little Chonk positioned itself as a pet lifestyle brand, not just a pet product.
By representing the modern pet parent’s voice, Little Chonk differentiated itself from legacy competitors and built brand affinity that money can’t buy.
Community is Your Competitive Advantage
Little Chonk’s rise offers a blueprint for today’s pet entrepreneurs.
The biggest takeaway?
Audience-first is a superpower.
Bryan and Scott call their approach a “reverse direct-to-consumer model” – they had the community first and “knew exactly what people wanted…all we had to do was give them the product and watch the business take off”. An engaged audience provides instant feedback, built-in demand, and even content creation (every customer outing with the backpack became free advertising).
Traditional brands spend big on customer acquisition, but Bryan tapped into millions of followers organically.
For founders who aren’t influencers themselves, partnering with relevant creators or pet influencers can replicate this effect.
Find a creator who already speaks to your target market’s passion (be it pet food, enrichment, wellness, etc.) and collaborate on a product. Their trust and reach can jump-start your brand far more authentically than starting from scratch.
Another lesson is to move your community off-platform and into your own ecosystem (capture those emails!).
Bryan leveraged social media to build Little Chonk, but he also knows not to rely on algorithms alone.
He engaged fans directly through avenues like DMs and even launched a weekly pet newsletter, Dog Juice, to nurture a direct line to his audience.
By diversifying channels – Instagram, TikTok, email – Little Chonk deepened its relationship with customers beyond the fleeting social scroll.
Scaling a Community-First Brand
Little Chonk isn’t slowing down.
What started as a single backpack has evolved into a growing product line: from the original Maxine One to a “Big Dawg” backpack for larger pups, and even an innovative doggy water bottle, Lil Gulp. They recently did a limited edition run in partnership with water.org.
Bryan envisions Little Chonk as a full-fledged pet lifestyle brand, with Maxine’s adventurous spirit at the core.
They even launched a pet festival dubbed Chonkfest, which takes place this year on May 17th in St. Louis.
Creator-founded pet brands are emerging as powerful players, turning followers into customers. For instance, Instagram-famous Nala Cat parlayed 4 million followers into a premium cat food line. In an increasingly crowded market, brands with an existing community have a head start in trust and attention.
Little Chonk’s journey shows that a passionate audience can be the foundation of not just a single hit product, but a sustainable business with fanatical loyalty.
WINNER 🏆️ : BITCOIN
Weekly DoggyDex Performance - April 21, 2025
Proudly introducing the DoggyDex™, an index comprised of 10 publicly traded companies whose primary focus is the dog/pet industry.
List of tickers used can be found below.
The yellow line-plot in the chart represents these companies above (DoggyDex™) and their combined performance against both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin on a weekly basis.
Pawformance is measured by % gains & losses.
$CHWY - Chewy: E-commerce platform for pet supplies
$IDXX - Idexx Labs: Vet point of care instruments and vet software
$FRPT - Fresh Pet: Pet food company
$ELAN - Elanco: Manufactures pet disease prevention products
$PETS - PetMeds: Online pet pharmacy
$ZTS - Zoetis: World's largest producer of meds and vaccines for pets and livestock
$TRUP - Trupanion: Pet insurance company
$WOOF - Petco Health & Wellness co.: Pet health & wellness company
$BARK - BarkBox: Subscription service providing dog products, services, and experiences
$PET - Wag! Group Co.: Tech platform that allows pet owners to connect with industry professionals for services such as walking, training, etc.
Interest in dog water therapy as a form of PT is starting to pop off.
Over the past year, keywords like “water therapy for dogs” and “hydrotherapy for dogs” have seen year-over-year search jumps of +46% and +24%, respectively.
Even more telling?
Geo-targeted terms like “dog water therapy near me” and “hydrotherapy for dogs near me” are also spiking, with three-month gains of +46% and +21%.
This suggests not just growing awareness, but real, purchase-intent behavior—pet parents are actively searching for nearby services.
This niche is ripe for expansion. Despite the growing demand, most of these keywords still have low competition in Google Ads, meaning the door is wide open for local service providers to dominate search visibility with relatively low ad spend.
Pair that with high top-of-page bids (up to $4.20), and it’s clear this is a service people are willing to pay for.
Whether you're a mobile rehab provider, vet clinic, or pet wellness startup, now is the time to pour efforts into local SEO and PPC.
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