Bow Wow Labs grow sales by 82% in 6 months

Bow Wow Labs was founded by Michael London with the goal of creating innovative products to keep dogs safe, healthy and happy. With a great product range and a talented team, Bow Wow Labs have were expanding quickly.

But, as they looked to continue their growth, they realized they would need external funding.

When they first started working with Wayflyer, Bow Wow Labs used a small amount of funding to test the concept. After this delivered strong growth, they have went on to take further rounds of capital , allowing them to make bigger inventory orders and increase their marketing budget.

Using Wayflyer's funding and Marketing Insights, Bow Wow Labs have doubled their ROAS and grown their sales from $257,000 in June of 2020 to $470,000 in December - an 82% increase in just six months. All without diluting their ownership.

Keeping dogs safe, healthy and happy

Michael London is a serial entrepreneur. Over the course of his lifetime he has founded 4 successful businesses. He has also raised over $400m in funding for his own businesses and has been an investor in many more.

Michael founded Bow Wow Labs after hearing a frightening story about how a friend’s dog had nearly died after choking on a bully stick. After discussing some ideas on how to solve this common problem for dogs, Michael and his team finally landed on The Bully Buddy, an innovative product allowing dogs to enjoy their bully sticks whilst reducing and choking risk.

Bow Wow Labs initially launched this product through a highly successful crowdfunding campaign and defined Bow Wow Labs’s mission as “to keep dogs safe, healthy and happy”. Michael knew there was a huge group of people who cared deeply about their pets and set the challenge for his company to “create a voice that resonated with these people”

Michael built a team of talented, highly experienced individuals. This team, coupled with their innovative product, meant they could generate huge demand, and very quickly grow their sales.

The challenges of explosive growth

However, this kind of explosive growth can be a challenge for cash flow. ”As great as we were doing, we knew we could go grow even faster if we had more capital”, says Michael. They had been approached by several finance providers but never felt like they were the right fit for their company - “All the terms were bad and we weren’t comfortable giving up control over our business” says Bow Wow Labs CFO Jim Rodisch.

Michael, Jim and their team considered using equity funding, but wanted to wait until they were bigger before raising their first round of investment. This would mean they could raise more money, at a higher valuation, when they did decide to bring on investors.

When Bow Wow Labs were first approached by Wayflyer, they were still skeptical of external funding providers. However, after several conversations with the Wayflyer team, they started to see that Wayflyer’s offering was a great strategic fit for their company; “it felt like we could work as partners together” says Jim.

They were also impressed by Wayflyer’s deep expertise in marketing analytics and their ability to add value using Wayflyer’s Marketing Insights.

Testing Wayflyer's offering

The Bow Wow Labs team decided to take on a small amount of funding from Wayflyer to test the offering. After this resulted in significant growth, they have since taken further rounds of funding from Wayflyer, all being used to fund their inventory purchases and to grow their marketing.

Wayflyer has been able to help Bow Wow Labs create some incredible business results. “Working with Wayflyer has allowed us to grow without diluting our ownership” says Jim, “6 months ago we considered raising equity capital but used Wayflyer’s funds instead, and we’ve used the capital to double our sales from $257,000 in June of 2020 to $470,000 in December”.

Growing without diluting ownership

“We believe this enabled us to delay our Series A round of funding”, says Michael, “and as a result, we feel this has resulted in a 2-3X increase in our market value in just those same six months.” Such incredible growth is a testament to the genius of Bow Wow Labs’s products, the commitment of their team and having access to the right funds at the right times.

Throughout this period of growth, Bow Wow Labs has also been able to increase the profitability of their marketing campaigns “Our ROAS has almost doubled, and is now at 4x” says Jim. Wayflyer’s Marketing Insights and consultations with Wayflyer’s analytics team were pivotal in this step change in performance.

Bow Wow Labs’s focus on building a great team extends to their partners as well; “Wayflyer is a really collaborative partner” says Jim “they are a funding partner who are also able to provide additional insights and support which is really valuable”.

With big plans for the future, Michael, Jim and the rest of the Bow Wow Labs team are as passionate as ever about helping to keep dogs safe, healthy and happy all around the world.