Russell Breuer, founder of Spot & Tango, shares the remarkable journey of building a $100+ million pet food company from a New York studio apartment in just seven years. What makes this story even more impressive? They've remained profitable while operating as a subscription-only, direct-to-consumer brand in the competitive pet food space. Russell reveals the strategic decisions that set them apart—from their innovative "Unkibble" fresh-dry process to building their own 70,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania. This conversation is packed with actionable insights on vertical integration, subscription model optimization, and performance marketing excellence.

Key Topics & Insights:

• The "Unkibble" Innovation: How Spot & Tango created a fresh-dry pet food that delivers premium nutrition without the refrigeration hassles, capturing market share at 30-40% less cost than competitors
• Vertical Integration Mastery: Why building their own $70M manufacturing facility was crucial for quality control, margins, and tariff protection—plus when other D2C brands should consider this path
• Subscription-Only Success Formula: The specific strategies for converting cold traffic into subscribers, including their 14-day trial, risk reversal guarantees, and 3-minute customer service response times
• Return on Invested Capital Framework: Russell's "North Star" metric that combines lifetime value, contribution margin, and customer acquisition cost—how this mindset keeps the entire team aligned on profitable growth
• Performance Marketing at Scale: Their balanced approach across Meta, Google, TikTok, and direct mail, plus why that "grainy office photo" outperformed studio-produced creative assets

This episode is essential listening for any D2C founder looking to build sustainable, profitable growth while maintaining premium positioning in their market.

Chapters: 

(00:00) Introducing Spot & Tango: The Value Proposition of Fresh Pet Food

(06:15) The Importance of Vertical Integration

(11:56) Subscription-Only Model: A Strategic Choice

(15:52) Key Lessons for Increasing Conversion Rates

(19:03) The Role of Education in Customer Engagement & Relationships

(23:09) Understanding Return on Invested Capital

(28:58) Growth Levers & Marketing Strategies

(32:29) The Role of AI in Performance Marketing

(35:05) What’s Next for Spot & Tango

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Russell Breuer:

It's not set it and forget it. We continue to work at it. We continue to try different things and really push the envelope. I think that's one of the reasons why we've been successful on the performance marketing side.

Brett Curry:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we are talking to a really remarkable founder of an amazing brand with an amazing story. Talking to Russell Breuer from Spot and Tango. Listen to this, a hundred million in revenue, profitable, almost exclusively DTC subscription only. Amazing value prop in the marketplace are doing some amazing things. They're vertically integrated, which in a world of tariffs and no tariffs or uncertainty and all that craziness, that is a brilliant play. And so lots to unpack, lots to discuss, lots to learn from. So excited that you're here. And with that, welcome to the show, Russell. How's it going man? And thanks for taking the time.

Russell Breuer:

Awesome, thanks Brett. You hit some key highlights. We're excited to be here seven years into the journey. Still a lot of wood to chop, but it's been very rewarding and happy to share some of my experiences today.

Brett Curry:

Love that. A lot of wood to chop, man, that is the game, right? The game is always, I'm going to do this thing and then I'm going to go build this mode and then competitors catch up. I got to keep going. Things like that. It's a never ending game, but hey, that's what we signed up for as entrepreneurs and so we just got to enjoy it. What I'd love to do, Russell first, because as with any great product, any profitable company, it starts with meeting and need and being different. And so how did you kind of come to the value prop and explain it to people, what you sell and why it's so special in the market?

Russell Breuer:

Sure. So Spot and Tango is a pet health and wellness brand. In short, we make incredible food for dogs. It's a mission-driven brand. All of our products use fresh human grade, whole ingredients. We exclude anything artificial, no synthetics, no food colognes, no fillers. Really. The founding story hearkens back to a studio apartment in New York City, which is cliche but true. My wife was cooking fresh meals for our Golden doodle jack. In fact, her mother was cooking fresh human grade meals for her dog, George. So there's a family history here and of course aspirations to be an operator and entrepreneur. I was head scratching why and explored the space and looked into the category and our belief is that health and wellness as a right, not a luxury. And what started as really a bootstrapped, incubated concept, we found vets and nutritionists to develop recipes that meet the nutritional needs of dogs for all life stages.

Russell Breuer:

And it's really studio to incubate our kitchen to a hundred million dollars plus business in seven. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's been a big wave, but the mission remains true. Again, everything that we produce, all products, all ancillaries, treats, supplements, our fresh line Unkibble, which we can talk about, it's all whole fresh human grade ingredients and that's what we do. It's all delivered online. So we are a subscription model. It's all personalized. We learn a lot about your dogs age, weight, and activity level to really inform the portion, the caloric portion per meal, per day per dog. So personalization's a big point, but we're digital junkies. It's what we do. It's all online. The value prop, it's convenience. Skip the trip to the pet store and Pon Tango shows up. That's the high level

Brett Curry:

That, dude, you're speaking my language. And as we were prepping, you were talking about performance driven, conversion focused marketing, which that's been my world since the beginning of my career, and so love hearing that as well. But let's talk about Unkibble just a little bit because you and I we're also talking before we hit record. There's some other food products on the market that are fresh food, but they come cold and you got to put 'em in your refrigerator next to your food, which I love Our dogs, my family, especially my wife and my kids, huge animal lovers. So we take care of our pets. I don't really want my food next to my dog's food, just my personal opinion. But what is Unkibble and how are you differentiated in that regard?

Russell Breuer:

Yeah, so Unkibble offers the benefits of fresh and the convenience of Unkibble. Back in 2019, again, the original recipes were fresh, fresh, frozen. And to your point, it's expensive and it's inconvenient. For an example, urban City Center, the freezer, Aviva German Shepherd, you're choosing either dog's, food and freezer or your own, okay, park the Bengal Bites on the counter. So really is in response to customer feedback. And the question was, is there another way of the mountain? Is there a version mission-driven that's shelf stable that delivers pound for pound the same ingredient integrity? And the answer is un Unkibble. We call it fresh dry again. So we use all the same fresh she in grade ingredients, but we take out the water through a very novel, fresh, dry process. No water removes the need to freeze, it removes the dry ice, it removes the installation in the box. Those savings get passed along to the consumer. So what we're offering is affordable health and wellness. And from a pricing perspective, on average we're 30 to 40% less.

Brett Curry:

It's amazing.

Russell Breuer:

And other fresh brands you may have heard about. And so we're occupying a unique white space from a pricing perspective where we're attracting a lot of aspirational consumers, Unkibble consumers who want to feed their health and wellness, but they want the convenience, it's scoop and serve in the pantry personalized. And they don't want to deal with the headache of, oops, I forgot to defrost my frozen food overnight. Right? Right now my dog's eating ice cubes. So we're in a very different business and we've been doing that since we launched Unkibble in April of 2020.

Brett Curry:

It's brilliant. I think it strikes the perfect cord, kind of threads the needle of exactly what people want. We don't want to feed our dogs junk, and that's become very, very clear that most of what we'd be feeding our dogs is junk, but we also don't want the inconvenience sharing freezer or fridge space or whatever. And so love what you guys have done there. I know a big part of that is your vertical integration and your manufacturing facility in Allentown, pa. And as we talked about in the intro, in a world of tariffs on and off and all kinds of craziness, you guys look like absolute geniuses having your own facilities here. So talk about that decision. Why did you do that and what does that unlock for you and for your customers?

Russell Breuer:

Great question. It's been an incredible journey for the vertical integration build your own factory piece. Yes. In hindsight, it looks like we had the perfect crystal ball. I can assure you at the time we were focused on the supply side, we launched Unkibble in April, 2020. We tell this story that our first purchase order we thought would last six plus months. We sold out in four days in very short order, one co manufacturer turned into six co-manufacturers and they couldn't keep up with demand. There's questions on costs of goods margin. You're shipping freight all over the country between comans to logistics centers, product consistency, there's a number of

Brett Curry:

Questions. Quality control. Yeah, consistency. When you got six different

Russell Breuer:

All over the co, if you asked six people to make a chocolate chip cookie, the cookie is going to look a little bit different. We took that to heart and we decided shortly after launch, having Unkibble that building our own factory and owning our own supply chain was very important. We have now constructed a 70,000 square foot facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It's about two hours west of New York. We have a hundred people on site. It's been a huge win for us. It's amazing. We push all the volume through that facility. It's unlocked, tremendous margin wins, it's boosted inventory, it's hedged against stockouts. We we're rapid innovators. And I think the most important point for us, when you think about the food landscape within the pet category, most brands don't manufacture their own products.

Russell Breuer:

They

Russell Breuer:

Don't know where the ingredients come from. They're not involved procurements, they don't understand food safety plans. They don't understand quality control. They don't understand packaging, shipping or logistics. They are marketeers selling somebody else's product as their own, which is a reality that's existed since the beginning of time.

Russell Breuer:

Sure.

Russell Breuer:

Which is fine for us. We take ingredient integrity very seriously and delivering an exceptional customer experience. And our Allentown facility has been the tool, the enabler of that since we own every facet of supply chain, that for us has been an incredible differentiator in this space as we are the leaders in fresh dry, in a fantastic moat and something frankly that most people just aren't doing. And then to your point, yes, the phone rings now and gosh, you guys tariff proof, resilient. You know what the answer to that question is? Yes. Did we know? So at the time, no. It was a bit of a false send and here we are and we're reaping the rewards.

Brett Curry:

I love it, man. I love it. I know this isn't the path for everybody for a variety of reasons, but what did you learn in that process of going vertically integrated and what advice would you give? When do you think other DTC brands might consider taking the path that you took?

Russell Breuer:

Sure. I think the business case needs to be very strong product market fit firstly, and depending on growth rate. And look, ultimately there are thousands and tens of thousands of brands that outsource production A okay, my point was more within the pet space, and so that's fine, but for us, demand, outstripped supply significantly. So there was a need. So rapid product market fits is one two, unity economics is the second consideration. Are you better outsourcing or insourcing? And in many cases, depending on the category, it's better to have someone else. If it's a commoditized trade, it's better to have someone else do it. And you focused on what you do best, whether that's marketing or

Brett Curry:

Marketing, sales, whatever. Yeah,

Russell Breuer:

Exactly. And then ultimately when it comes to actually building a facility, give yourself a long lead time. Like two years. Okay. This

Brett Curry:

Is not overnight notes. We're not spinning this up in six months. This is not our tariff for leaf plan. This is like I'd say thoughtful, intentional, strategic. Yeah,

Russell Breuer:

Exactly right. Brett, I think at a sprint it's 18 months if not two years. Identifying a site, obviously there's a bill design firm involved, there's CapEx, there's equipment, there's staging capital, there's equity, there's debt, there's a lot of pieces involved and team to bring that to life. And of course operating a facility brings a number of other challenges that we've managed and managed well. But nonetheless, there's an early consideration set. But I would say that having your own assets, having your own manufacturing unlocks significant intrinsic value for any company in any more. I think a lot of brands that are winning do own those types of assets and the strategic landscape looks at and says, these are different. Haven't seen that playbook.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, love that. Totally agree with that for sure. So you guys are subscription only. Was that the plan from the beginning or was that a pivot over time? Why did you guys land on that and what have been the pros and cons of going that route?

Russell Breuer:

Great question. So day one, yes. At the person personalized product firstly. So we have kind of an onboarding questionnaire. We learn about your dog's weight activity level to really inform portion or calories consumed per day subscription is fit for the pet category. Why is that dogs need, it's not a want, it's a need. Subscription is a convenience, it's a value prop. You don't need to go to the pet food store. It shows up on a regular cadence. On average, for us it's every four weeks. Customers love it. We're building out broader product platform with treats and supplements and other food products as well. Dental care, which we're launching soon, which we can talk about. But because that need exists, people need the box every four weeks. And so for us, it's always been that way from a reoccurring revenue perspective, commercially speaking, that's certainly a way to scale business. Brilliant. And I think the other point here is within the pet landscape, dogs do need consistency of diet. We don't advocate the dogs to change proteins every day. This is not Turkey on a Monday, beef on a Tuesday, lamb on a Wednesday. That can be a disaster for the Persian rug digestion important. So consistency of diet is also very important and that also leans towards a subscription model. So it's very fit for purpose for the category.

Brett Curry:

Totally makes sense. It fits the value prop for the consumer in terms of the pet owner, but also for the pet and also for you guys. So perfect alignment there across the board. Curious, what have you guys learned? What have you done to make that Yes, easier for shoppers? Because I know a lot of people will probably hear the story and hear the value prop and think, I want that for my dog, but what if they hate it? What if I hate it? What if something like that. So how do you get someone to take that initial leap? They've never seen the food, they've never held the bag, they haven't seen it in store. To immediately go yes to a subscription. How have you made that an easier yes.

Russell Breuer:

Right. So firstly, it's a considered purchase. So we're not selling tennis shoes or to your point, what is this thing? I've been feeding my dog Unkibble since the beginning of time. Why are you using fresh human grid ingredients? There's a lot of education. Firstly, I'd say we use a lot of email marketing and funnels on SMS to continue that education. The pros, the benefits of these types of recipes. We use a trial also, so there's a 14 day trial, there's a happy pup guarantee. These are our tools to give consumers comfort, that

Brett Curry:

Risk reversal guarantees type of thing.

Russell Breuer:

All of the above. And I think it gives people, look, I think the landscape's changed. I think obviously e-commerce is playing a greater role in purchase decisions and people have greater comfort online disclosing their credit card details, receiving a box in the mail when they haven't maybe heard of these brands previously. Our job is to educate, give people comfort that we're here to support them. And then we have an incredible customer service team. We're available on SMS, email chat, voice messages, don't go unnoticed for days. They are responding. It's amazing lesson. So it's those multiple touch points that I think builds a relationship and that's unique to direct to consumer. We have a direct relationship with our customers. They tell us what's working well, they tell us things that we can fix or improve upon. They inform new product innovation and it's an amazing first party. Data is an amazing dynamic and again, our job to serve the customer, but those are some of the tools that we use initially to help give people the idea that we're here for them, give 'em comfort to make that purchase decision.

Brett Curry:

It's amazing. As with most things, when you're building a great business and running great marketing or building great offers, it's not just one thing that you do that kind of creates the unlock. It's lots of little things, stacking lots of little things to create a delightful experience. But what would you say are the biggest levers, the biggest levers or the biggest lessons in increasing conversion rate? Increasing the number of people that take you up on subscriptions.

Russell Breuer:

Yeah, I think when you think about the marketing funnel, and we're very much focused on direct response, lower funnel, I'd say consistency of call to action. What you're advertising in terms of product image and copy, is that experience replicated on site, on homepage or landing page is the consistent checkout Is pricing consistent? It's the no surprise rule. What we promise we deliver through the funnel through checkouts following through post conversion as far as onboarding with email or otherwise. So I think that's really important. Supply chains

Brett Curry:

Also, one thing I'll kind of interject there because it's such a great point, Russell, is we talk about you don't want to create whiplash where it's like I see an ad, I see an offer that looks great, I click on it and then I'm like, wait a minute, where am I now? And what is this

Russell Breuer:

Exactly?

Brett Curry:

And if it creates a disconnect or whiplash almost, man, it's hard to overstate how impactful that is negatively. So

Russell Breuer:

That's right.

Brett Curry:

Really let call that up.

Russell Breuer:

I completely agree. I think rapid AB testing informs that consumer feedback informs that. And look, everyone's busy. There's many distractions online. People always ask who are your competitors? And look, e-commerce, we're all competing for clicks, right? We're all competing for your attention online. And so totally in terms of the marketing funnel, that's one point. And then look on the supply chain side, maybe Amazon ruined the party, but people expect product to be delivered soon thereafter. Once you check out, they want that box within one, two days max. And so we've spent a great deal of time ensuring that we can do that. We work with four distribution centrals across the country for business. And so monitoring that one to two day shipping, radius delivery accuracy, all of the above, that's really important. That's important for retention. And again, to my point about food being a need versus a want, food can't be late, right? And it's late three or four days. Again, maybe you can

Brett Curry:

Wait, looks like you're fasting for the next couple of days. Fido doesn't work, doesn't work, yeah,

Russell Breuer:

It doesn't work. Maybe your tennis shoes can be delayed but not your food. And so that's another really important point here. And then expectation management with our customer service folks have a lot of questions about, again, back to the benefits. How do I transition to this new diet? How often should I expect this? I want to try a new recipe. I have multiple dogs, all of the above. There's a lot of education handholding. And so we've invested significant resources in our customer service team and our kind of customer data tech to ensure that we are in rapid response mode in education mode at all times.

Brett Curry:

That's amazing. Let's talk a little bit about the education piece. So you've kind of broken it down. It sounds like there's definitely an education piece upfront. So you're competing for that click, getting someone to the website, maybe they're signing for your email list, you're educating them on why Unkibble, why this process? How is this going to work? So there's some upfront education, there's then education after someone becomes a customer. Can you talk through that? What have been some of the big lessons you've learned there and some unique things you do in terms of education?

Russell Breuer:

The most important consideration upon purchase is ingredients. And we've learned that through Hotjar. Heat maps on websites, iterate surveys, talking to our customers directly, voice of customer people have always said the first consideration when considering a new diet or new food is what's in it, right? And I think ultimately the consumer is much more educated than maybe they used to be. We have very simple ingredients. It's very straightforward. There's no confusion. If you look at a pet food label, if you have a dog, it's confusing. We're that. That's one point. And so that education piece is like, here's what it is. I think two reinforcing vertical supply chain story about this is where it's made, this is how it's made. Again, that builds confidence in our brand. And then

Russell Breuer:

Ultimately there's a lot of touch points after purchase in terms of the inbox experience with feeding guides or brochures, continual education, whether it's in regards to new product launches or breed specific data. We have content marketing, a blog if you will, called what the Pup, which is really talking about love that parenting and pet issues. Is it okay for your dog to sleep in the bed? I'd rather spend more time with my dog than my spouse talking about breed specific information or what diets would work or what to do with your dog's paws in the winter or in the summer. So again, it's this kind of ongoing relationship. And honestly, it's not all about selling product, it's about building a relationship. Pet parents too. And I still have a ton of questions and I've been doing this for a long while. I've 80 pound English golden retriever named Sully who takes up half house's, my fourth child, and I ask her that questions often. So again, we want to be a resource. So it's not only providing food, it's being a resource and supporting the pet parent too.

Brett Curry:

It's so important and that education piece upfront, but also understanding the education doesn't really stop. I had a great experience recently with these amino acids that I purchased for myself, trying to follow a pretty strict workout program and have for years, but I'm 45 now. It's like building and keeping muscle masses hard. So I bought these amino acids based on an influencer's recommendation, but then I got this great guide to amino acids in email after the purchase. It was talking about, Hey, how you should use this 30 minutes before workout, take it immediately after workout. Here's how you can take it, how it differs from protein and creatine and all these other things. And I'm like super helpful. I feel like I understand fitness decently well,

Russell Breuer:

But

Brett Curry:

I felt more empowered. I'm taking more of the product, I feel better as well. I started ordering more. And so it's just one of those things where I think we underestimate the value of education post-purchase because that's going to create sticky relationships, more referrals, more all the things we want, plus happier pets and happier pet owners.

Russell Breuer:

That's it. And that speaks to channel as well, right? Yeah, so any direct to consumer brand, whether you're in pet wallet, razors meal kit or otherwise, there's an opportunity to educate versus on shelf. So on shelf it's unpacked, but once that purchase decisions takes place, a person leaves store, that relationship doesn't exist. And so that's part of the power we have from this channel of acquisition.

Brett Curry:

It's amazing. Yep, totally, totally agree. Okay, so you'd said something when we were prepping very unique. I've been in this m and a space and I have some friends in private equity and we're looking at acquiring a couple agencies and things like that. So you mentioned return on invested capital. That is not a term that I hear marketers use a whole lot. Not a term that's really come up on this podcast a whole lot. So how do you guys look at return on invested capital to measure and manage your growth and related to marketing? And I will say just another bit of context, I think I'm really delighted that there's this trend towards marketing and finance becoming friends and how, and I know you're a direct response guy, I've been doing, I started doing DRT V in the early two thousands and so direct response tv. And so I've always lived in this world, but it's really a trend in e-commerce of hey, let's get finance and marketing communicating and let's make sure we're getting good return on our marketing dollars. But even then, I don't hear people talk about return on invested capital. So why is that a metric for you? What kind of insights does that unlock? Unpack that a bit for us,

Russell Breuer:

It's our north star, our ops, our finance, our marketing, the entire organization speaks this language. A lot of direct to consumer. Brands have learned hard lessons. Growing top line and hypergrowth with product market fit is possible for many businesses. If you understand performance marketing, meta search, TikTok, direct mail, you can generate outsized returns on the growth side. But oftentimes brands forget about the unique economics. They forget about things like net income, cashflow, ebitda, and they've learned hard lessons years later when they look to exit or go public and third parties deeply discount valuation or otherwise.

Russell Breuer:

Totally, totally.

Russell Breuer:

So I think that's a starting point for a mind shift in terms of how we've operated this business. We are very prudent operators. And what I mean by that is prudent growth. So return on invested capital really is a measure of our marketing spend and it combines three key metrics, lifetime value, contribution, margin, and customer acquisition cost. Okay, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. When we spend our dollars on any channel, let's say we spend, I'll give you a very rough example. Let's say we spend a million dollars on marketing today. I'm now minus a million dollars. The question is how soon do I repay that a million dollars and get to zero? That's one x return on invested capital. And then how long does it take to generate a million dollars of profit?

Russell Breuer:

And so we look at the lifetime value of our customers. In other words, how much do our customers spend on average per year? That's my numerator. Multiply that by the fully loaded contribution margin in the business. So what is my average profit per customer per year? And then I divide that by the customer acquisition cost and that informs the timeline to repay my investment in marketing. We use that paradigm to inform everything that we do, such that there are caps in terms of how much we are willing to invest in marketing in terms of customer acquisition cost. Of course if our LTV or our average revenue per customer increases over time and our margin increases, we can spend more dollars at a higher acquisition cost. But we use that framework and route everything we do in that framework and that ensures that our operations team, our customer service team, product innovation, they're thinking about we need to boost retention, we need to find margin wins, we need to figure out higher LTV, we need to figure out channels of acquisition that are more efficient. We need to rapidly AB test. Is our creative strategy working? How do we actually get CAC lower on that or search? And so when you combine those elements, that has enabled us to be a nine figure business and be profitable. And we've had that mentality really since inception. And I think ultimately that the other reality is data. You've got to understand

Russell Breuer:

From day one, if you're spending a dollar on market and you've got to know attribution, how do you allocate your money and does that dollar go far? Are you acquiring a customer in a subscription business? If you acquire a customer and they churn 10 days later, that's not good for business. What percent of your customers are churning in second order or third order? So the sooner you are aware and understand the data that will inform and can lead to this type of ROYC equation and that really drives decision making.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, it's so good man. And it's one of those things where, yeah, looking at lifetime value, looking at contribution margin, looking at customer acquisition cost, creating these KPIs where your entire team is seeing it and managing against it, it's what matters. It's what matters most. And so you've got alignment across the team on it. And I'm going through the book right now, Moneyball, I dunno if you've seen the movie or the book, but it's so good. And it's one of those things where they're kind unpacking this guy, bill James who kind of revolutionized baseball metrics. He created Saber Metrics is the title that he gave it. But he's like, Hey, looking at rbis and looking at batting average, that just tells a really weird part of the story. But what matters is on base percentage and slugging percentage without getting inside baseball, he unpacks why that matters. It's like that's how you manufacture runs and that's how you manufacture wins. Those are the numbers that matter and there's some other things they measure too, but getting that kind of clarity and getting that clarity across the team, man, it's valuable. So kudos to you guys for getting that clear.

Russell Breuer:

It's part of our onboarding. We talk about it incessantly throughout the organization and again, I would advocate any brand really uses those types of metrics.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, yeah, it's really, really great. So that's awesome. Let's talk growth levers for a little bit. So I mean you guys have experienced some great growth and it's all within the constraints or with the guardrails of your return on invested capital, but what have been your best growth levers over the years? What's really allowed you to scale?

Russell Breuer:

So we have a balanced playbook between meta search or Google TikTok affiliates, influencer direct mail. We've been experimenting with OTT over the top and also linear television. You could argue some of these are very lower direct response channels, other are more mid funnel. We haven't spent and invest as much in top of funnel things like billboards or subway cars or wild pasting or otherwise. I think that's intentional because ultimately our belief is that in impressions and an impression, and you may be spending dollars on meta and getting a million impressions and fewer conversions, but nonetheless you're still getting brand awareness. So you could argue that lower funnel is both lower and top and mid, correct. There are different both at the same time. Exactly. And I think that's oftentimes it falls on deaf ears because more traditional brand marketers think they need a billboard in Times Square to justify proper funnel investment. We see lower funnels as kind of serving both purposes. But look, we've got a performance marketing playbook. I think for us, two big differentiators. One we focused on building on incredible team internally that focus, we have channel specific buyers focused that are pulling lever in-house, that's really important. And then two creative. We are in the entertainment

Russell Breuer:

Business at the end of the day,

Russell Breuer:

Totally

Russell Breuer:

Busy on the go parents, they're getting solicited for clothing, food, SaaS services. There's a lot of distractions. And so

Russell Breuer:

Creative is key and it's all about feeding all of these channels, whether it's meta or otherwise with a lot of options. AB test created and maybe iteration, a slight iteration on creative. It may be woman with dog with then Unkibble in park and then it's copy test A and you can run the same image, but copy test B, copy test C. In fact, some of our best performing creative, we took a grainy photo of Unkibble on shelf in our office with a post-it note sale that we ran and we tested that versus studio produced assets, gifs, you name it, and the grainy photo because it looked realistic. It is

Brett Curry:

Looked authentic. It was authentic. Yeah.

Russell Breuer:

People identify with that. That's why GC user generated content plays quite well, but ultimately it's not set it and forget it. We continue to work at it. We continue to try different things and really push the envelope. I think that's one of the reasons why we've been successful on the performance marketing side.

Brett Curry:

I love it, man. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was any business should view themselves as in the business they're in plus their media company. Plus you're in the business of getting, keeping attention, driving some sort of action. And at the core of that really is creative testing. I've always been a media guy and a strategy guy. I love that stuff, but I love creative too. And really creative is the biggest lever that we have now and into the future. And certainly AI and other things are going to enable more rapid testing and more rapid expansion, things like that. While we're on the topic, we didn't really plan on this, but any insights or any perspectives on how AI is going to change performance marketing or e-commerce in general or your business? Any POVs on ai?

Russell Breuer:

Absolutely. No, we are all exposed to it. It's topical innovations here. I think it's a wonderful, we're looking at AI from both workflow automation on the ops side. We're working with it on the performance marketing side in terms of either creative ideas or creative iterations and helping AI to inform how rapidly creative gets tested in platform and helping us make some of those decisions. We're using it on the coding side. I won't mention all the vendors we're working with. But nonetheless, even on the coding side, there's suggestive code to help our engineers actually iterate faster when they're in the development cycle. And so customer service as well, there are tons of opportunities where you can start to not automate everything. We're still a very high touch business, but nonetheless, there are some very standardized questions that are better served through automation, not FAQs, but where is my order?

Russell Breuer:

Totally, totally

Russell Breuer:

Necessarily to give a tracking number or provide guidance to where boxes. So we're looking at AI across all functions of our business really to improve efficiency and ultimately compliance in many ways and push the envelope. I would argue AI is not going to replace everybody ultimately in a hightest, totally,

Russell Breuer:

Totally.

Russell Breuer:

Humanity will rule, right? People do like having conversations and asking questions and there's TLC that customers expect when we're talking about their dogs in particular. But look, AI is here and I think there's a steep learning curve for a lot of brands, but there's a lot of folks out there having the conversation. I think ultimately it's going to be beneficial for all of us.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, I 100% agree. That's what we view it. And I've got a very run, very people driven business. Our greatest expense is people. We can't scale without people. And I have the same view where one, I think at a base level, AI is allowing us to do the things we just have not ever had time to do. So that's part of it's allowing us to do some of these things we would love to have done but just haven't been able to. So that's one layer, but then it just supercharges your best people and becomes personal assistant, personal strategist, executioner to make people more productive and better. And so yeah, we're very bullish on ai. We're testing it in lots of different ways. So yeah, I think that's a great perspective. As we wrap up, we'd love to hear what's next for Spot and tangle. It sounds like you got a big product release coming up, or actually at the time of this release, we'll just come out, but talk about that product release, talk about what's next for the brand.

Russell Breuer:

Great. We are very excited. We are building product platform. So we have our food, we have UNC Unkibble, we have our fresh recipes. We sell treats and supplements. Again, addressing all the needs states of the consumer. We know a lot of our consumers feed supplements or treats, even a third feed supplements. So there's ways and we've used that input to launch new products. The human grid version of that product for pets, the dental care solution is the game change. It comes out next week, you'll hear more about it nonetheless. It is a scientifically proven two years in r and d. The big game change here is a lot of the existing dental care products in the marketplace are really physical in nature. There's a physical mechanic that scrubs the dog's teeth, periodontal disease, it's a problem for dog penetration with dental care products within the pet food landscape or pet category is very low.

Russell Breuer:

I think there's a lot of education required. The worst case scenario is your dog gets periodontal disease and ends up at the vet and spends $2,000 for a cleaning or teeth removal or otherwise. This product does two things. There's a very novel ingredient, a novel fermentate that reduces oral biofilms. What does a biofilm is bacteria that leads to plaque on a dog's teeth, plaque leads to bad odor. This product actually removes those biofilms. So there is a scientifically proven mechanism to do that in addition to the brushing. So it's health and wellness, it reduces plaque, it reduces bad odor, it fights periodontal disease. It's a big game change. We're excited. We think it's another tiger by the toe, if you will. And Unkibble has been a hero product and we think this product will be one as well. Yeah. So we've been scaring away behind the scenes and it goes live next Monday, June 2nd.

Brett Curry:

It's amazing. And it's one of those things where I think that's so well aligned with who your target buyer is and what they care about. And yeah, just a huge tam there for you to tap into. And so that's really exciting. And then one thing I was curious about there, I know that there's been really some education over the last few years on human health and how really oral health for humans impacts so much of the rest of your health, right? You could be healthy in a lot of ways, but don't take care of your mouth. And that has an impact on potentially the rest of your body. I'm assuming it's got to be the same to some degree with pets.

Russell Breuer:

Exactly. It's all connected. And this is holistic health and wellness. It's not just here's a single ingredient treat or here's a supplement. It even comes, it

Brett Curry:

Sounds a breath mint it serving a real health purpose.

Russell Breuer:

And to your earlier point about being really health conscious and focused on exercise, it's the same with your dog. Healthy exercise, going for a walk. It's really a mentality. It's not just scoop and serve and it fixes all problems. You need to really embrace that. An active lifestyle is really important. You need to think about all aspects, all moments of consumption and dental care is no exception to that.

Brett Curry:

It's awesome. It's awesome. Well, Russell, this has been an absolute pleasure. Kudos to you guys on building a great brand, a great product, a great offering is loyal following people love you, pets and owners alike. And so I'm excited to see where you guys go and grow from here. I'm definitely a fan. And so for those that are listening, they're like, man, I got to get on this Unkibble Train and I got to check out what Spot and Tango is up to. How can they learn more? How can they figure out what their pet needs?

Russell Breuer:

Spot and tango.com, all information's there, whether it's Un Unkibble or our treats or supplements in this new dental care product. Spots and tango.com, we offer discounts on trial. It's a 14 day trial with a happy pup guarantee. So there's no reason not to give us a try. And Brett, thank you so much. Amazing, fantastic opportunity. Really enjoyed the conversation. Again, thanks for the opportunity here.

Brett Curry:

Absolutely. Russell Breuer, ladies and gentlemen, Russell, good luck to you and Spot and Tango and look forward to watching the future success. Super exciting. And as always, we'd love to hear from you. So I'd love to hear feedback. What would you like to hear more of on the podcast? If you found this episode inspiring, please share it with somebody else. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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