DTC growth Show. Welcome to the DTC growth Show presented by banknotes minted by hashtag pay. My name is Ian. Each week we talk to founders and operators in the DTC and E commerce space about all things brand and retail. This week I get to speak with Jackson Cunningham, founder of tufton. Park tufton. Past sells a collection of thoughtfully designed pieces for cats, like litter boxes and scratching posts. A ton of thought goes into everything on the site, with the majority of Jackson's team working on product development, not marketing. And the brand has now branched out into cat litter and food. Welcome, Jackson. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about tufton Pond and how you got here. Yeah, so I was actually working as an E comm manager for a different company in 2016 2017. And I had some background in E commerce, random econ businesses and had recently adopted my own cat. And yeah, sort of started as a side project tufton Paws a DTC brand for cat people. So we make cat furniture, cat litter, we're working on cat foods, so all cat specific stuff. So it started as a side project and then slowly started gaining more and more momentum to the point where I just started working on it full time.
Cool. Yeah, super Have you always been a cat person?
I've always been like an animal person. So grew up with cats and dogs, but grew up with kind of like a family cat, you know, and like a house. And the cat was always just kind of around. But my partner she is like a cat obsessed person. And so now I've definitely turned more into a cat person living in like closer quarters with a cat. He's really like, you know, a part of the family more so than like the family cat growing up. So I'm a cat person now for sure. Cool. Awesome. So tell us a little about like, what were you trying to disrupt here? What need Did you find starting in the pet furniture? Space? Yeah, so. So the obvious one was, when we adopted our cat, we wanted cat furniture, litter box, scratching post, cat tree, we live in a small apartment in Vancouver, which is like an expensive city. And so we wanted to, you know, we care about the stuff that we're putting in our house. And it just felt really janky having this, like, ugly plush, you know, like, you can imagine what they look like, like these, like fuzzy scratching posts. And it just seemed really surprising that there was no other options out there. And so yeah, that was kind of like
the, the starting point was, hey, let's start this little small business, it's gonna be really small. And it was kind of almost a joke when people would ask about it. Like, you're doing cat furniture. Like, that's funny. That's like, so niche.
Yeah, so that was kind of like, there was no great ambition to disrupt until I started seeing the momentum where we were like, trying to catch up with the demand. And then at that point, I'm like, Wow, this could actually be a lot bigger.
So yeah, let's talk about that. That momentum. And that demand, I mean, what, talk a little bit about your product and what sets you guys apart. And what you're seeing is a winning strategy there. On the product side, I've always felt impostor syndrome when it comes to marketing, you know, you hear about all these new strategies like okay, like performance marketing, people who are trying the newest stuff on Tik Tok, and Facebook, and like, you know, all these little tactics for growth. And I felt like I've to compensate for that, I've always leaned into just having a better product, and a harder to find product so that you don't need to be as good of a marketer. And so it's like you put in this extra effort to developing a product
that that's super high quality and hard to find, then you don't need to compete on all of these different tactics and offer the lowest possible price. So I've always put a ton of emphasis on the front end work to creating a really unique product.
So that so that Yeah, we don't need to be competing on the different marketing channels. So for us, that meant just having like a completely
different product for our stuff is made. It's not just tweaked from an existing product, changing the color like we draw these products on a napkin and figure out how to build them. So if somebody wants a
Tucked in power product, they can't find that product anywhere else. Like it's, it's not anywhere else and it would be a real, you'd need a big investment actually, for another company to start offering that product. So
not sure if that answered the question. But that's, that's where I've we've leaned into from the beginning, is having our own distinct stuff, and I think that's investment is starting to pay off. Yeah, ya know that that makes a lot, a lot of sense. And being unique in the vertical and unique in what's
I mean, you would think DTC or ECAM, kind of pet furniture, pet food would be a crowded vertical, but it is becoming more and more. So. Yeah, I'm gonna think having that differentiator on the product side is is really critical. So So what does differentiate your product? Obviously, it's the time that goes into product development. But I mean, I guess explain to me like if we had a cat, yeah, my wife my for a bit, but yeah, we did. We went to
PetSmart. And got, you know, like, so? Yeah. What is the differentiator in the product? Yeah, so I guess before that, I'll just say that when I do talk to people who are starting it, like E commerce brand, I find that it is the step that people want to skip. Or go through the quickest, like, Okay, I don't really care what I sell, I just want to run ads. And so like, what's the easiest product to get? Okay, I went on AliExpress. And I found was gonna say Ali Express, right? Everyone just wants to be that white label dropshippers. Exactly. And so it's like, okay, I put in this, like, I want to do that. And I don't care what I sell even and you know, I'll make a cup, but it's just a larger cup, and ours is gonna have a different color. But then you're just setting yourself up for having no moat down the road, anybody can sell that product, it's just as easy for you to do it, anybody else can do it. And it's going to make your marketing jobs so much harder for the next like 10 years versus having a longer term mindset and being like, Okay, I'm actually going to do this stuff at the front before making a lot of money. And then I'm going to have this like defensible product that nobody else can touch. So that's the number one thing, when I'm talking to people who are looking to start something, they're like, oh, no, I don't care about the finding the product, I just want to get started. So I think that's the step that's the most important in terms of what differentiates ours. So we started with kind of, like, you know, not the grandest ambition, which was just making nicer looking stuff. So it's like a litter box is the most obvious thing, like you talk to somebody who wants a cat or who got a cat recently, and they're like, Oh, I just don't know where to put the litter box, or like, Oh, I'd get a cat. But just the litter box, I live in a small apartment. And
yeah, to me, it was surprising that the only option out there was like a $10, like nasty plastic bin. Or there's like, you know, these really electronic like self cleaning litter boxes. And so
we started with products that just like looked nicer like that, you would be fine putting in your house, and you could pay a little bit more. And that was the main thing was aesthetics. But it merged more into like
taking a functional aspect as well. So we work with a cat behaviorist, all of our products are designed by like, legit furniture designers, like industrial designer with furniture background. So we are super concerned about quality. So we're always testing different scratching materials
to see which ones are going to last the longest reusing, like
real wood.
So the quality of the materials is high, and you'd expect the products to last a really long time. But then there's also like a functional aspect. So our litter box, for example, is made with like super anti stick plastic, which makes it way easier to scoop the litter out of it. The curves of the scoop match the exact curves of the litter box. So it's like made easy to get into all the nooks and crannies.
Yeah, it's very, like considered. We're taking like, it's funny, because
it's like a
it's such a it can sound like a trivial thing, right? Like, okay, that how do you make the perfect litter box? It's like, kind of funny to be approaching it with such a serious like mindset. But that's kind of what we're doing with cat furnitures. It's like this playful.
It's this playful category, but we're approaching it with like a real like sciency mindset with cat behaviorists. And so I'd say just overall our products are like super high quality. And there's like a functional aspect that our customers are delighted by like the little things that we've done that they're like, Wow, this is just better.
Yeah, well, I mean, it seems you definitely for those who want to
You spend more and care about their cat more than just probably the typical cat owner. You're appealing to that super consumer of sorts so so you have to go into it just can't just be a simply a nicer or slightly nicer product. I mean, it has to have functionality and has to actually prove show your passion behind it just like the the owner has a passion for being a cat. Or petting. Yeah, and so so we started with, we started with the approach of like, really high end beautiful stuff for people who could afford to pay more, but we're definitely shifting, now more into like, attainable products for the masses. So for example, just to something to highlight this. One of our early products was a, like $800 cat tree, that just looks really nice. Like, it looks like it could go in a museum or something. And,
but that's very unattainable for most people. And so we recently launched this, like cat window hammock, which is $70. And it is really cool looking, it is super easy to install. And it just looks beautiful on like any window. And so we're veering more now into products that fit that category. That's kind of like any cat person can get this. But it's not like luxury by any means. Interesting. So I just You mentioned something really interesting in working with a cat behaviorist originally spoke with the founder of dog child who's in, you know, dog food space. And so you're dealing with a consumer kind of or use end user can't communicate with you. So what's the What's that process like of lacing, what product? It's and what actually is functional? And what doesn't? Yeah, yeah, definitely one of the hardest things. So it's like we work with a cat behaviorists to gives us some insights early into the product design. So how it works is, there will be a business objective. So it's like, okay, I want to create a cat window hammock that is under $100. So that's kind of the business objective, the industrial designer sketches out if we go through a process where they have a whole bunch of different ideas, then we work with the cat behaviors to look at the different concepts and say,
Okay, do you see any red flags with any of these are like what are the most important things that like a window hammock should have, and they'll say, well, it should be really stable, a cat will, it's super important, this design might not be stable enough, it'll scare the cat away.
So there's little insights that the behaviorist gives us. But then a huge part for us is we also work with a local cat cafe, where that has all of our products, and we get a ton of feedback. So we leave, for example, a scratching post that has, if you can picture a scratching post, but each side has a different material on it. And we leave it there for, let's say, a month, but it's getting almost like five years worth of scratching in that one month based on all the cats and we can come back and be like, Oh, this material the cats use the most. And it's not worn down at all. So there's a mix between like the insights from the hit behaviors, but then super important to actually see what the cats do.
So, so interesting. Yeah. And our use of the cat cafe. Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense in that, to be able to get that feedback. So now you started out with furniture, now you're diversifying into litter and food. Is that right? So talk about that process? Yeah, so
just, you know, as I'm sure you know, with like the ecosystem changing, it's
seems like an obvious play in hindsight to go into subscription products.
So with litter, there's, with litter and food, there's the advantage that it's subscription, consumable. So having more of a long term mindset on that. And
then
also just the scale of it, like not every cat parent wants a cat bed. But every cat parent needs cat litter, or unless you know, you have an outdoor cat. But so just the scale of these options, I think we're a little bit intimidated in the early days to go into it. Because this really feels we're not in the business of just white labeling a random product, we really want to make something better as like we talked about early in this. And so I felt like we were a bit intimidated early on because it felt like real sciency stuff if we actually want to make a new product that has some sort of innovation. And now our team, you know, we're 10 at this point with the majority of the team being on the product development side. So I think it's something that we can actually tackle and we feel confident that we really can make
Be a leader in making a cool new product. So with our cat litter,
it has a few interesting aspects, it dissolves, disintegrates in water, so you can flush it down the toilet, which, for me was, as the person who cleans the litter box was just the most annoying thing having this nasty little garbage bin beside the toilet that you're kind of putting cat poo in. And so just being able to flush, it makes it that much easier. And then it's also super, it's large, lightweight pellets, so they don't get carried around your house. Like almost every other litter. It's like a full game changer. And so we are in the we're already working with. But in the midst of hiring full time, like
legitimate scientist, it's like real science that we're actually testing
in house different formulas which reduce some of these big issues that cat people have. So it's like, legitimately reducing odor. And tracking around the apartment and with food we're looking at doing
using different ingredients. So it's it's ambitious, but it's something that I feel like we can finally tackle now. And then from a business perspective, it's just the scale of these products is so much bigger because everybody needs it. So I felt like we started super niche. And now we're expanding more to the like more competitive, more ambitious projects.
Very cool. Um,
talk about how you you're leveraging community, I imagine this there's so much and I guess as a channel as well.
Again, this is a very niche sort of community even niche in terms of cat owners, but but then cat owners who want to go that extra mile. So so how are you leveraging community in terms of word of mouth in terms of your marketing in terms of yeah, all that?
Yeah, so we get most of our new customers, I would say from just being an educational
thought leader. So
you know, we put out educational, like really high quality educational content on our platforms and our emails, they're all kind of meant to be
just like really valuable from the source info that we've we've gotten directly from cat behaviors, vets, that's kind of the angle we take in terms of community.
It's something that we still haven't fully tackled yet.
As a as an entrepreneur.
Myself, it's frustrating, I haven't quite figured out how to
lean into like this social side, I just feel like, or from a growth perspective, Instagram is, is a channel that we have
struggled to really see direct sales from, like organic. And so I you know, when people talk about community
I've been working with my team to figure out like, Okay, what does this really mean? Like? Sure. So, so like, imagine the internet didn't exist? What would the community what would a community look like for tufton? Pa? What would that mean, like meetups, you know, throwing events where people meet up and do cat related stuff. But the challenge that we've run into is that people who have cats, we've done surveys on this, like, don't necessarily want to go hang out with other people who have cats. It's like different than cooking or something like that. So it is kind of where you want to meet other people or entrepreneurship where you want to meet other people with that skill set. But lots of times when we ask people about
you know, setting up meetups and stuff, it is that challenging one for that reason, where
it's, the connection is between you and your cat, not you and other people have cat. So it's something that you know, transparently is something that we're still trying to figure out.
How to how to leverage that. Yeah, I mean, I think from what I've seen, I think you're you're undersell yourselves a little bit. I mean, it looks like you guys have nearly a combined 100,000 followers on Instagram. So it was a lot of that. And I think that could be like Tik Tok also can be your community, there's a community.
Do you find a lot of the growth in that it's just people like cat stuff? Or, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I think there's like some semantics there. I guess like when I'm thinking community, there's like the community that's like, there's community that's like, okay, social, organic social marketing.
Meet versus like, if I think about like a true community, which is what I'd love to build for tufton Pa, it's like, how do you really bring that offline almost or like, it doesn't have to be offline? But like, how does it really feel like there's a true connection between all the people who are part of that community, versus what I feel like tufton pa really has right now is mostly like,
an audience. So
I would love to graduate to that next step where we have like a, we've launched a cat person,
community forums, which are cat behaviorist and vet answer every single day, all the questions in the forums. So that's kind of a way that we're hoping that, you know, people can bring up some issues. And that to me feels a little bit more like one step above social media.
Where we can really support or we've talked about ways that maybe we can do some crowdfunding test support, if your cat needs like, an operation or something, you know, where it can really feel like a true community. But in terms of like, organic, social,
I think you're it's like, yeah, people love cats. And people love cats.
But they also love people who are doing stuff that's different. So we actually have a lot of like, raw, interesting content, like working with a behaviorist showing some of our product development processes going into the cat cafe. That makes my job a lot easier that I'm not trying to Shell some product off. Aliexpress like we talked about. Yeah, no, I think that's that's a great point. I think the idea of of having a therapist answer all these questions is amazing. And I think to your point to me to think you're you're developing a brand that is and just i We don't own a cat currently, we did in the past, but we have two dogs, and we have a casper bed for our dog. Yeah. And if I go into someone else's home and I see they have a casper bed, it immediately makes me think like, okay, they they think more of almost they were they respect their dog more love more dog, Marcus, they're willing to, to spend a little more for this bed. So I mean, I think that's a lot of what you're developing there. And that's, that's, there's a sense of community in that as well.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Like I could see, if you went to a friend's house, and you saw that they had this tufton pipe product, and you also knew about tufton Pa, you'd immediately be like, Oh, you're a cat person.
I think the challenge that we've been dealing with, is that
cat people have a little bit of like,
bad rep. You know, like you the only cat people you hear about are the like, the far end of the spectrum of cat people, which you know, is fine. But there's a lot of cat people who are just like
regular people, and they have a cat and they love their cat. And so, so people aren't out there broadcasting. I'm a cat person, like on Instagram.
And so I think that's the challenge is it's a bit more of a private thing. It's almost like when you find out one of your friends is like a cat person. You're like, oh, like, I didn't know you had a cat like, and then you show your phones. And you both have like, all your photos are of your animals.
So it's kind of like more of a hidden community thing. And we're trying to figure out how do we actually bring that
out? So it has been one of our biggest challenges is like that's why when you mentioned community, I had to think about it for so long. I'm like, it's something that I'm like, how do we crack this with with this topic? Yeah, that's really interesting. I never never really give too much thought of like, yeah, hidden hidden cat community.
Yeah, very interesting. Um, so as we wind down I mean, I guess what's next for for tufton pa and what do you like, I guess both in terms of product and in terms of where you see channel acceleration, what are you looking to dive into? Yeah, so we started with products that I felt like we the low hanging fruit, which to me was like just making nicer versions of existing kind of products.
And now we're moving into like I said, more ambitious stuff. So every product we launch from now on, I have the feeling or I have have to have the conviction that it will be a hero product with mass appeal. So we're doing litter and food which are two huge ones, but then we're also working on like, the two other things that we're working on are smart products. So you can think like you know, automatic litter box
and feeders and also a basic collection which is going to be like the one product we recommend in each category that's under 100 bucks. So super excited about that, like you know, a beautiful scratching post for under 100. If you're gonna get any scratching posts, this is the one
Rather than focusing on offering like a wide assortment of products, it'll be kind of consolidating, and channels just continuing we're, as everybody is having, you know, issues with paid, we're being really careful about spending on paid
if it continues to have, you know, these iOS issues, instead, we're focusing on organic, which is kind of where our DNA is from. So educational content blog, YouTube, just continuing to put out high quality content on channels. And then Yep, product product marketing is kind of our thing like good products that are unique. Customer word of mouth based on how good those products are.
Awesome. Well, I mean, I really must say your, your you and your team's diligence of just really thinking through creating something unique for this vertical and for these these pet owners and these pets. It just really shines through and just shows how much thought you're really putting into this. So So kudos for sure. Thank you. Yeah, so Jackson, just I guess let us all know where we can find tufton Pa. Yeah, yeah. tufton pa.com. And on any of the social Tiktok and Instagram, where the most active at tufton, PA or people can follow me and Jackson see on Twitter. Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for joining us and we invite anyone who may be a hidden or secret cat owner to check out Tufte and TA.
Thanks for joining us, Jackson. Thank you