I absolutely love pets. Especially dogs, I actually have a dog called Hiro, and I actually just found this old picture of myself from when I was a kid, and apparently I've been a dog lover for a very long time, because look at what it says: “Peace and love bulldogs.”
And underneath that: “Ambition is the only fuel I need.”
I have absolutely no idea how I came up with that, but apparently ambition was the only fuel I needed (nice), and peace and love bulldogs lol. Anyway, this is Hiro:
And one thing about this guy, which I'm sure a lot of people who own dogs can relate to, this motherfucker actually needs to eat a lot every single day. Owning a dog is basically like running a whole business that makes absolutely no money. I pay for everything, he eats everything, I'm somehow the employee, which is perfectly fine when I'm around. I can feed him, take care of him, we can play footsies, whatever, But who's gonna take care of this guy when I'm not around? And this actually became a problem this morning, because I was planning a trip to Zurich, Switzerland, because I’m actually in the process of leaving Limassol, Cyprus, because we're setting up a new HQ for myoProcess, like an actual headquarters where the team can physically work together. We're 22 people now, which is honestly a little strange for me to think about.
But I also have a personal reason for wanting to move to Switzerland. I've always loved Switzerland, and I'm a pretty big fan of Carl Jung, who, if you've never heard of him, was a Swiss psychologist who spent much of his life trying to understand the human mind. I actually recommend you guys read some of his work. He had this fascinating idea called the shadow, which is basically the parts of yourself that you don't particularly want to admit exist. For example, you might desperately want to become successful, but every time you have an opportunity to actually do something, you procrastinate, make excuses, whatever. You call yourself lazy, but have you ever actually asked yourself why you're avoiding the work? Maybe you're afraid of failing. Maybe you're afraid of what happens if you succeed. Maybe it's something completely different. That's the kind of shit Jung makes you question about yourself.
But anyway, Jung actually built himself this place called Bollingen Tower, near Lake Zurich, where he would go to think, write and generally disappear from the world for a while. And I've always loved that image.
I spend most of my time running a company, but I also want to become a writer. And I really like the idea of having my own little place somewhere in Switzerland where I can write, work when I want to, and generally be left the fuck alone.
And unfortunately, Hiro cannot come with me, he absolutely does not give a damn about my dreams of becoming a writer, he doesn’t care about coming with me to every business meeting I have in Switzerland (as much as i would want too, he’d probably help sales conversion by 20%), so now I'm thinking, where the hell am I gonna leave this poor little guy?”
So I went ahead and Googled if there any types of businesses/people who can actually help, and I found out, that there are basically places where you pay somebody to take care of your dog while you're away. They feed him, give him somewhere to sleep, look after him, whatever. And while I was looking at these places, I started thinking about something, and then I said “wait, I have one dog, and this guy already eats like he has a freaking mortgage to pay. Imagine running an actual business where you're looking after twenty, thirty, sometimes even 50 dogs and other animals. And this is where it hit me, “hmm, this is probably an actual legit industry and I’m gonna try to actually get a customer in it, I was not even looking to get customers, I was just trying to figure out where to leave my freaking dog. 🤪 & this whole industry came in.
Apparently, these businesses are called kennels. People pay them to look after their dogs while they're away. Some also do grooming, training, daycare, all kinds of things. And if you think about it, when you're taking care of twenty, thirty, sometimes fifty dogs, you're running an actual business, like this is an actual operation, you need food, treats, cleaning supplies, equipment, and probably a bunch of other things I haven't even thought about yet. And all of those things have to come from somewhere, and cost money, somebody has to sell them to these businesses. So I started looking around, and I found something interesting. In the US, the government actually keeps a public list of licensed kennels. Licensed just means the government has given these businesses permission to operate, so naturally, it has a list of them, including their names and contact information.
And on the other side, I found something equally interesting. There are these state-supported directories too where businesses literally advertise what they produce and sell. Things like pet food, pet product stuff, so now we can have people who run kennels, and we have companies that sell pet food, treats and other supplies.
So what we can do here you guys, and this is where you guys can get customers, since now we have both sides, is we simply sell the pet food company a kennel, and the pet food company becomes our customer, these kennels have dogs to feed every single day, so they will keep buying from the pet food company every single month. That's what nerds call recurring revenue.