The Go-To-Market Playbook with Terri Rockovich, Co-founder of Jinx

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and Again, go to whitelawinning.comwebinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I am here with my new friend, terry rack of it. And Terry is the co founder, CEO and $10 million in revenue this year. They only started last year, folks, and it's the company's call Jinx, and they've got a premier dog food line and who knows what else coming. But we're going to talk this time. I'd like to talk follow up on what Terry brought up in the last episode. And that was her go to market playbook that you know, from her experience out of college getting involved in working with other companies, she learned what she needed to learn so she could have a powerful launch. And folks, when you go from 0 to 10 million in your second year, you're doing something right. So let's talk about Terry. Welcome and thanks for spending the time.

Thank you for having me.

And let's talk about your go to market playbook and how you reach the point where you said, okay, we're starting. Did you start it part time gradually? Did you, you know, get all your URLs and your, you know, your brands copyright, your terms and you know, get all your formulas down and everything in advance before you launched or what did you do before you launched?

So we had a lot of, I call them work streams, but we had a lot of projects running in parallel because the reality was we were capitalized, but money goes fast as it relates to product strategy and brand position. And so we just had these projects running in parallel. As three operators and co founders, we were involved in every element. But I would say the branding and the product strategy work streams were the largest of which needed to be completed before we thought about how to bring everything to life through the website. And so, yeah, there were some upfront foundational things that needed to happen and URLs and social handles, but we really, you know, made some decisions, critical decisions in terms of our ultimate position, our launch position through the branding and product strategy exercise.

Now was this, was this all before you start all before? How much, how much did you do and how long did it take to get your team together that you were gonna co founders and how long did you work on this and how much had you got done before you pull, you know, you flipped the switch.

Our timeline was, you know, was, I would say, pretty tight in terms of sequence. So six months prior to raising capital, myself and my business partners came together, started really kicking the tires on the idea and assembling the business model. We took exactly three months to pitch the business and secure funding. And that kind of brought us to the top of 2019, at which point two of the three of us moved to LA where we decided to headquarter the company. And then we really spent the next 12 months going through those branding and product strategy work streams and then also hiring a team and so really just figuring out the most critical talent needs and then recruiting, doing all of our recruiting internally, meeting a lot of people, expanding our networks within LA specifically, but then also within the pet food industry and then bringing in the right talent and the right resources to make sure that we were kind of filling gaps in terms of skill set. And so going through these, these exercises and all of the work that needed done, thinking about human capital in a way where we could really leverage talent that existed in and outside of industry expertise to get everything done that needed to be done prior to launch.

Exactly how did you start? Now you got like a couple of other people and you've got a group and you say, okay, we're going to get our own company, let's go to work and figure out our brand, you know, what we're going to, where we're going to plant our flag and build an exciting story. Because it's really the idea of the product that creates the story of the company, which creates the magnetism with that turns into not only clients but high quality staffing. They want to be a part, you know, they feel like it's a mission. And so how early in the game did you set, how did you come to the dog food idea? Did you sort through a whole lot of options, look at a whole lot of industries? How did that come about?

We were all very passionate pet parents. Myself, I'm just an animal lover. And so I went to school and my first major was really kind of designed to be a veterinarian. I ended up playing soccer and through that commitment, kind of had to negotiate what I really wanted to do and what was realistic with that kind of athletic mandate. But I've always been an animal lover. And so I was naturally really drawn to the idea and the category that my partner had, which was to create a better brand with a better product philosophy. Because the reality is when you walk down a pet food aisle and you look at these bags and you see wolves or bears catching fish out of streams, or these show dogs, which are not really representative of the rescues and mixed breeds that we have. There really isn't a lot of resonance. And then if you do any research to understand how to interpret the back of a, of a dog food bag, so the ingredient panel, the guaranteed analysis, you start to realize that these diets are built for these working dogs or model dogs. And you know, as millennial pet parents that live in 1,000 square foot apartments, we don't have those dogs from looks through lifestyle. And so our dogs that sleep 50% of the day, in a conservative measure, really are moderately active. And so high protein diets are not appropriate for a moderately active animal. And with that, you reach a pretty alarming stat, which is 56% of dogs in the United States are overweight, and there's 90 million dogs. It's a lot of fat puppies. So it's almost like, how is it possible within a category that's so congested and full of noise, with tons of options, doesn't really present anything, and a premium diet that's appropriate for our animals. That felt like white space. It felt like we had identified the problem solution equation, and then we had all of those foundational elements that were absolutely critical to figuring out how to attract talent into our business to help us really, you know, I would say bring the identity to life, but the essence, the mission, the positioning, the virtues, the values, and the voice were all really intact. And then that's when we started to think about talent acquisition and really bringing people into the business that could help us bring everything to life through a brand position and a visual aesthetic and a website and a product assortment that was really compelling to our target customer.

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Yeah, I remember I did show jumping for 16 years, and I remember that, you know, I didn't get into all of the details, of course, but it was, you know, the, the diets of the horses changed based off whether or not they were competing or not, you know, they didn't need the grain, for example, which the higher protein is in the grain. They just need hay, you know, go out in the field, you know, eat grass, and if you're not competing, you know, cool off in the off season. But when they came time to go, start training them up for competition, you know, you needed that energy, you know, you needed that go power. And so it seems like you discovered kind of a central fact. There are probably a bunch of them. But 50, when you to me, with the fact of 56% of the dogs in the country are overweight, does equal the opportunity for some new products and some new voices out there. And so you went from that. So you're following your own natural passions for pets. And what were the ingredients in your go to market playbook?

So in addition to having this mentality around real ingredients in the right proportions, so proportions that were most appropriate for millennial dogs or modern dogs with moderate activity levels, we started to really chase the idea that we needed to create a clean label product. Clean labels are really common and trending and human foods, but in pet foods, there's just so many filler opportunities and people aren't as diligent at reading labels for their pets. And so our desire to create a clean label brand really became the filter for how we thought about not only recipe design, but then ingredient sourcing as well. And the easiest way to say it is that we only use functional foods. And so it's foods that have automatic resonance and transfer in terms of why we know they're good for us and why they should be good for our animals as well. Either they're fiber packed or they've got a host of antioxidants, or they help with general body function by creating really extreme good gut health, which regulates the entire body. And so all of these things really can be found in superfoods. And I think one of the most common misunderstandings about animal nutrition, specifically for dogs and cats, is that they're carnivores and they only eat meat. But the reality is you can source protein, fats and fibers from both animal based sources and plant based sources. And so that really is how we think about our recipe design, is mapping.

In for that to reach the market. That you know, because your playbook, I mean, this is, this was the clean label. In other words, this was this under the brand, Is this under the product? Where did you, where does this fit into your playbook? You know, the elements of your playbook. If you had a checklist, what Would.

That be product strategy and differentiation?

So let's talk about. Was that what you got done in the first six months or the first three months? There you were talking.

I would say that happened within an 18 month block. And so idea initiation and carving out a position that did feel different and beneficial. Beneficial and like a value add happened within the first three months of ideation and modeling out the business. But then the product strategy was really a horizon that was 12 to 18 months in terms of R and D testing and ultimately producing at scale.

So how did you get now to the fundraising and how did you reach out and talk about the how? You know, I think you showed that you fundraise, you had like five, over $5 million in funds put together pretty quick and a lot of celebrities getting involved. Of course you were in la, but how did you get the message out there and how did you win them over?

My co founder and I were at a startup prior to starting our own business. And at that startup we were able to build a pretty impressive network of investors and high profiles. And so the startup was called Casper. It is a bed in a box company. It had, you know, what I would classify as unicorn success. It launched a million dollars in its first month and grew pretty significantly over the next five years. Since we all overlapped there, we kind of had the network. And then once we relocated to la, we started to create some demand within the venture community. And so we started to secure financing or funding. And then through our investment network we were able to meet high profiles. So the only real requirement was that you needed to be a dog lover. And we were able to find quite a bit of celebrities or influencers that fell into that category that also wanted to get into deals or investments. And so we assembled a slate of investors pitched literally hundreds of times, raised some money, which really kind of funded the first 24 months of the business.

And talk about that part, because people would think, well, they knew a bunch of celebrities and they just made a couple of phone calls and bam, millions of dollars in funding. How big of a blitzkrieg effort did you make and what did that involve to? Cause it sounds like you went on the attack with the fundraising thing. It wasn't like, well, we hope we can find some people. It sounds like that was a major campaign itself.

Yeah, you know what, we spent three months hustling and hosting hundreds of conversations. We had a spreadsheet with every single contact that we had. Formal investors, atypical investors, family offices, celebrities, really just, you know, entrepreneurs that had accumulated some wealth. Through their own experiences. And we just pitched everybody. And I would say, you know, we definitely received more no's than yeses. And with those nos and with that feedback, it really helped to optimize the pitch. We took so much of that constructive criticism and went back to our model and really pressure tested it. And so, you know, I would say that the process was intense and created a lot of pressure. We were able to spend those three months effectively hosting conversations and moving things along. So our process was relatively short in terms of securing money. And then once we actually closed our seat is when we started really pitching the brand and its identity and its position to high profiles. And so as we met people, as we kind of inspired them or energized them around what we were doing, we still had to sell them and we still had to kind of beg for meetings or hustle our way into the room, but we really did get them excited about what we were doing. And because most of them are also dog owners, they actually trialed a lot of the early product, gave us feedback, and then we use some of that feedback outside of our own echo chamber to really inform product decisions.

Yeah, and that's where, you know, you. That's a first. Other than planning and talking and deciding, that's really where the launch of any project or company occurs, is when you start to take your message to the masses and start to get the re, you know, the reactions to whether or not they think it's a great idea or not. And that can really inform you on any adjustments you might need to make in your project. So that is really fascinating. Appreciate you taking the time to share that, Terry.

Of course, if you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.