 Hello and welcome to the Launchpad! This is a variation of the Startup to Storefront podcast where we talk to the founders of companies that are just getting started and whose stories we find compelling. Today we talk with Hailey Russell, founder of the dog food company, Chip-In. If you've ever bought dog food, chances are the ingredients include something like beef or chicken. Fine for your dog to eat, but when you scale the production, those food groups become entirely unsustainable. On the other side of the equation is the invasive species known as silver carp. This fish has been slowly making its way north up the Mississippi River toward the Great Lakes. To put it lightly, it would be a massive problem if silver carp make it into Lake Michigan. Hailey was able to kill two birds with one stone by substituting silver carp in the place of beef or chicken in her dog food. Our furry friends will still get all the nutrients they need in a much more sustainable fashion. So listen in as we cover everything from running a cricket farm, tapping into the dogecoin craze, and why the standards for pet food and baby food are similar. Now onto the episode. Alright, welcome to the podcast everyone on today's show. We're talking to Hailey, the founder of Chip-In. Thanks so much for joining. Please tell everyone a little bit about what Chip-In is. Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. So Chip-In is a pet food company that we created to deliver on the demand for foods that are great for our pets and great for the planet. And so right now we have a suite of dog food products that are powered by planet friendly proteins like crickets, overpopulated silver carp, and spirulina. Okay so what year did you start the company? I started working at Full Time in 2019. And of course in advance of that there was a whole lot of learning. Sure and so what made you passionate about this space? What were you doing before? Obviously we know you have a pet, we know you have a dog, but what are some of the things that made you passionate about this space and recognize an opportunity for starting something and launching a brand? I have always been a big time foodie. I grew up in the DC area, I was born in Berkeley. The interest in talking about food at the dinner table was lifelong for me. I grew up with a menu from Alice Waters signed in the kitchen. And I think just even as I was looking at my career trajectory starting off I worked in finance. Then I worked with a handful of different food and beverage companies within the human food space. So a juice company, spent time with an NGO working in coffee and so I've always kind of been dabbling within food whether it be from a personal or professional perspective. And so in 2016 I became super intrigued by the potential to innovate within the protein space and we've seen plant-based just boom for people. And when I started to look at my personal pet food experience I couldn't find something that was high quality, really tasty and sustainable and same kind of beef and chicken kibbles when it comes to pets. I thought why isn't there something new? Why can't we find a consumer product within the pet food space that delivers on my values and what I'm seeing has been innovated upon within every other consumer category? I'm just curious in this. So I was born in Peru and in Peru the dogs eat exactly what the humans eat. It's like potatoes or beans or rice like that's what the dog gets. And so when I moved to this country I was like what is what is happening to these dogs? And then I would ask people that own pets I would say why don't you just give your dog what you eat? And they would say oh no that gives the dog cancer or like they were very quick to tell me that it gets the dog sick. And I was thinking to myself how is it that there's a whole country of not sick dogs that are thriving and then I think about the space today and it's exactly what's happening. The dogs are eating exactly like people are now cooking for their dog or we're in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard. There's really a store probably two blocks away and they literally cook food every day whether it's peas or potatoes or some mix and I'm just like what illusion have Americans been under? I didn't understand this and and I still don't know by the way I still don't know if that's accurate but at least that's always been my it was always strange to me. Right. I think there are two things that drive a really different market here within the US. One is there are regulations when it comes to pet food diets and so when we create a diet for our dogs we just came out with an oven baked food that's powered by silver carp and overpopulated fish, wild caught and we source it directly out in Kentucky. And so when we create that we actually have to meet a bunch of guidelines for a complete and balanced meal and so I think with that and people relying upon the advice from their veterinarians they're kind of they there's been a lot of looking to in the past decades really kind of big pet food companies and then now we're seeing all this innovation and how do we how do we create kind of better for our dog products while still kind of meeting these guidelines. And then the second thing is a lot of people here aren't even cooking for themselves. So the notion that they would cook for the for their dog when they're not making their own food you know that's probably a little bit of a stretch for a lot of people. Are the standards higher for dogs or are they about this when it comes to dogs? Yeah it's actually people do their diligence on pet products way more than they do for their own foods and so I would say that when you're looking at a pet food company or the pet food industry it's very somewhat of baby food because it's you know it's your fur baby you want to make sure you're getting the best for him or her. So what was your first step in starting the company? What was the very first prototype or like how did you start testing? How did you start launching into the going down the rabbit hole of figuring this out? First step was talking to veterinarians. So I talked to a head of nutrition at the University of Pennsylvania and learned everything I could and then I started talking to PhD's animal scientists about nutrition scientists about these proteins that I believed to be superfoods for dogs to start and was able to get the science-backed information that we needed and then I moved into just in my home kitchen I mocked up our very first treat it's called our superfood treat it's a peanut butter cricket and pumpkin oven-baked crunchy treat I started with that and did it myself and then worked to find a co-manufacturing relationship in which they could execute upon what I designed and then had reviewed by a board-certified veterinarian. How did you get into crickets? You mentioned crickets, you mentioned the oversupply of cod, I like the fact that you're going over you know the oversupply of certain things but how did that get on your radar? Well when we look at Chippen as a company what we do is we really look to strategically source these proteins that are more digestible than chicken, they're complete sources of protein, more ethically crafted and 80% plus less resources. Started with crickets actually before working on Chippen I mentioned that I was doing a deep dive in protein and I I created a small cricket farm so I was going to I was going to business school I got some grants and I had a small cricket farm in which I learned everything about the supply chain and that kind of set me on the path for being able to stand by that as our first protein source. Like you had a cricket farm but you were then harvesting it were you ever consuming it yourself because I know from my own knowledge about crickets is that certain countries around the world it's very normal for them to eat insects because of their very high in protein they're abundantly present and I know for the at least the Western markets it's not been a thing at all because of the aversion to eating an insect. I mean did you ever experiment in terms of using crickets as a dietary source for yourself? You're absolutely right more than two billion people globally eat insects and there are thousands of species that are really nutrient dense and tasty and the initial thinking I had was oh this this could be a protein source for people but then as I started to explore it more and more just saw really the challenges in moving from trial so testing out a cricket protein bar that's kind of novel and maybe something to talk about or as part of a dare to actual adoption where you know you're craving that ingredient and you psychologically feel safe and comfortable with it and so it ended up kind of happening it was by happenstance that my family Golden Doodle Ren wagging her tail expressing interest and I've had this kind of lifelong almost tension of my family generally plant-based my mom was a really early vegetarian then we'd go and feed the dog and it always seemed a little weird and so I ended up having this kind of eureka moment of Golden Doodle Ren wanted to eat a cricket and I was like oh whoa what maybe this could kind of solve what I'd seen as something kind of odd within my my own household and then when I found out that USA pets if you consider them their own country they rank fifth in global meat consumption that was kind of the moment where I saw this was a massive market opportunity and issue what was your first step from there and so did you were you working on packaging branding was it raising capital what was like the very first thing you did before you launched so we did a very very scrappy version of this in 2019 which was funded by a couple of grants and really just kind of a lot of hustle and muscle and so we got out our first two versions of a crunchy treat in 2019 raised a tiny bit of angel capital and then got in got in a few stores started to see that dogs truly loved that pet parents didn't have that kind of a version or challenge like they do and eating it themselves and there had been education through other companies on this is a truly powerful source of protein and so 2019 really really scrappy and then in 2020 raised some capital to create new flavors we introduced a vegan dog treat our spirulina dailies treat and grew and got some more distribution and so how many different products do you have right now now we have four different crunchy treats and we have a daily food made from wild caught silver carp and we just came out at the end of 2021 with two jerks alright so here you are you got three different products it sounds like you're past your seed round let's call it and so what do you view as you know what is the thing on the roadmap for you is it more and more stores a distribution is it d2c what are some of the things that you're just like laser focused on right now for 2022 2023 2022 is going to be a big year for us in terms of store growth when we started to get into retail it was 2020 and we kind of got a handful of pet specialty shops in and then COVID hit and that was a really tough time for those retailers so we actually pulled back from the initial wholesale distribution plan that we had for 2020 and then in 2021 we ended up we partnered with Grove Collaborative so we did some really kind of cool ecom marketplaces we got into Petco but as we're looking at 2022 we've now started selling chip in an air wand and I think there's a ton of room for growth for us within the specialty grocery channel and then some of these kind of specialty shops where you find cool beverages or little gifts chip in place really well in those stores too when you first started out you know it's it's you have this idea what was the first moment that you brought someone else onto your team and and who or what was that higher I first brought on a designer and kind of branding marketing expert and so that we'd be able to build out not only a product but really set ourselves up to create chip and into more of a movement and so even when you look at the name chip in gets that kind of how can we all participate and do something that's really awesome for our dogs in the planet did you try and design and market it yourself first or did you recognize right away that this wasn't your your forte I have a background in my first job was in finance and then I did a lot of work in supply chain and operations and I'm someone who likes learning about cpg companies but I've never designed packaging or anything like that so I knew that that was something where we need to bring on someone to help I like the fact that you're an air wand to me that makes sense like I just think about from a strategy perspective you want to be where people are like you said if you're not cooking for yourself you're probably like not going to cook for your dog and so the fact of meeting people where they are air wand whole food some of these stores there's an alignment there and there's a natural appreciation for betterness for wellness and so I think there's it seems like a no-brainer at the same time I think being in a place like petco I go the opposite right where it's like they're just looking for the kibbles and bids the super dry food and they probably don't care what fluffy likes in my head obviously like when I think about petco I think about toys buying you know all like the things that are fun for the dog not so much food related unless I'm buying a 40 pound bag of food but that also makes it challenging to scale right exactly so we we did the petco partnership as part of an eco initiative that they launched in 2021 and so we were one of nine anchor brands in which they released this much broader commitment to bringing in sustainable products and so it was sort of a shorter term feature in which we were working with them to help set a program for introducing sustainability into the pet food space but totally agree you're exactly right like we as a small company think a lot about how do we ensure that we're getting distribution and eyes really in front of the people that are ready for cricket protein or wild silver carpet based dog food at the end of the petco feature what takeaways did you have from that it was a great learning experience for working with a really big retailer the timelines of course for kind of creating in store displays or kind of setting up marketing promotions were way longer than I realized I'm sure that's me just kind of being new to the industry but I think also just you know kind of really looking at how how can we as a brand that also has a pretty strong Instagram presence and does a good job of driving DTC sales also add value to these bigger companies was you know kind of interesting to explore for us so when it comes to like what markets hit for you LA it's got to obviously it's a slam dunk is it the same in terms of like just major city chicago new york uh is that is it follow suit we see really interesting pockets of consumers throughout the country Boise Idaho is a city in which um there's a lot of interest in in chippin bozeman montana um so I think wherever you have a group of folks who are interested in sustainability or kind of maybe living more of a natural lifestyle um there tends to be a chippin interest in then one of the things that's really cool about our silver cart protein is it's it's an invasive species and so anybody who grows up in the midwest like if you're growing up in Wisconsin you live in milwaukee you as a high schooler are learning about this problem and how it's a threat to the great lakes and that we need to save the seven billion dollar great lakes fishing economy and so there's been a lot of education in states around the great lakes and so we see a ton of interest there you know it's interesting the the silver carp phenomenon is something that I didn't grow up in the midwest but I have become aware of in the past few years and there have been all sorts of proposals in how to deal with the problem and they range from from everything to like let's create dams in the rivers and streams up to lake michigan so that they don't go any further there have also been proposals to electrocute the the rivers and and it'll kill the the silver carp and probably everything else but at the cost of saving lake michigan I'm curious about by integrating the silver carp into your dog food have you seen an increase in terms of the number of commercial fishermen or just people who are able to like you said they're wild caught have you seen an increase in the interest in people trying to at least fish these things out of the river we're seeing some we're we're a small company and so we're really trying to get the word out too but I think the the point that you make around there are so many resources being directed toward this problem but most of them are just trying to kind of stop the movement of the fish from the mississippi river kind of surrounding waterways into the great lakes and we're really one of very few companies and especially you know kind of one of the only that's operating kind of more at scale that's including it in a food product domestically and so we're kind of creating a market around it and we know and I know from talking to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife out in Kentucky and a couple other states that the most effective way to control for it is to actually fish for this fish it's a fish we need to fish when so many others are over fished do you think that maybe other companies will jump on board or like with unlike the crickets do you think that that human consumption of silver carp will will rise as well I hope please spread the word I I have been sending samples to some chefs because it's really a very mild like flaky nice whitefish just nobody knows about it and so one of the things that our team did was we got some silver carp had it all sent out and we did a zoom session where I created a recipe for us to all make silver carp dumplings and they were so tasty when I think about your business there's a lot of it's it's almost like it's straightforward but it's also difficult right and so it's like I think about okay how would I grow her business okay one I'd probably have to do all these tastings all the time at Irwan other places dog parks I have to hit the ground running hit the pavement hire a whole team to be able to do that too there's this like the sustainability eco-friendly portion that you could spend a lot of time in it and get no value right in the sense of like how much time do I want to spend in Kentucky versus in Irwan or right and so it's like yield but you have to do all of it and some of it and so it's a function of like where do you get the most yield and so and you're in that like before you get to that next step right you're in that that that challenging part where it's just pounding the pavement you're absolutely right and we just we just brought on a field marketer and so we've really been leaning into that on the ground effort and it's been interesting for also kind of seeing how that translates to the digital experience and education and telling both the nutrition and the sustainability story to people directly yeah it's a tough one for sure when I think about it it's like dog parks do you guys go to dog parks you know I know there's there's a lot of like subscription based dog parks now popping up around the country mostly because because it within COVID everyone adopted a new pet of some kind and so it seems like the market is growing and with that obviously education also goes but where do you guys place most most of your energy in terms of sort of like when you talk to your field marketer now what's that what does it look like what's on the agenda yeah and we've definitely been doing doing some dog parks apartment buildings have been great too because you have a really easy way to target a certain set of consumers and then shelters are awesome because whenever you can get someone at the point in which they're bringing a dog into their home is a kind of critical point where they're making that food decision and so we do quite a few events at shelters where there's an adoption event and people are kind of coming home with their dog and we sample the product and they can even buy that on site I wanted to ask you something so here our coffee shop we have a coffee shop in front of our studio which is kind of fun and every dog that shows up gets a free treat to me I hadn't actually thought about this until I'm talking to you but it's almost like coffee shops become an opportunity also not because they're literally selling it but it's like hey does your dog want to treat here here you go and then oh what's what's in it people always ask at least here obviously we're in west hollywood so a lot more consciousness around food but it's like the free samples of casco yeah exactly one of the things we're we're talking we're asking all the founders this year is around crypto the nft space maybe a little early for you in terms of your business but are you thinking about that at all are you thinking about how do you yeah go ahead how do you view that for chippin it is a little early for us i was interested in crypto pretty early had been working at a bank out in la and so it's always been on my radar we did this is not quite what you're asking but with dogecoin we did a couple of kind of fun campaigns so we did like a little to the moon special and coupled our treats with kind of this like really cool forever tin and so we've kind of been playing a little bit more in in the meme space and just like hopping on some of the trends related to it more than anything i think it's going to be the theme of 2022 for us is like asking people how they view the space for their business specifically because it's evolving everything i mean even even for yourself like you know dogecoin this this random meme coin that all of a sudden made its way into the the the thought process of people that we're never aware of crypto but like it's a good that you were able to capitalize off that and then shiba followed up right behind it did you ever think about doing anything with shiba as well it's a perfect coin name to be honest yeah there you go good idea we haven't done the shiba one but i've been following it there's also some interesting ties when you kind of zoom out and even look at blockchain technology within the food and ag space tons of interesting work going on there and then also ties to sustainability and traceability and so for us there's kind of a much broader application as we look at our sourcing practices and offering within kind of our actual tangible food product well listen for people that are listening and interested in and getting their pets some food just tell everyone where they can find like literally buy it whether it's d to c or even in the grocery stores and then um yeah yeah just share where they can find you check us out on chip and pet dot com d to c at air one grove collaborative or take a look at our store like locator on our website we have a handful of other pet specialty in grocery stores there well hello thanks hailey yeah thanks for joining the podcast i appreciate it yeah thank you great to talk to you the start of the storefront team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Owen Capolini, Lexie Jamison, and me Nick Conrad our music is composed by DoubleTouch we release a new episode each week so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing our handle for all social media platforms is at start of the storefront we also film all of these episodes and put them up on our youtube page because there's just some things that can't be experienced through audio alone you can always go back and listen to any of our other episodes available wherever you get your podcasts and on our website startofstorefront.com thank you for listening we'll see you next time