Adam Torres and Michael Hill discuss the Cardiovascular Tech Forum
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Show Notes:
Listen to the Cardiovascular Tech Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Michael Hill, Managing Director, Octane Capital Markets, explore Well Groomed Pets, Inc. and the Cardiovascular Tech Forum.
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About Octane
The Octane Foundation for Innovation (OFI) was launched as a complement to Octane’s mission of creating 55,000+ high-paying jobs by 2030. The Foundation is targeted to advance equity, diversity, and inclusiveness across all industry sectors alongside Octane’s ambitious mission of growing & strengthening the Southern California innovation ecosystem by creating jobs, scaling startups, and developing busine sses. Octane and OFI work with partners to enhance the economic vitality of the region, contribute to a sustainable ecosystem and augment the live/work experience in Orange County.
Octane Foundation for Innovation’s work is achieved through our initiatives, Women Leaders of Octane, Non-Profit Accelerator, and STEAM Fellows. These initiatives cover the spectrum of opportunities for young students, underserved communities, and women.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I am in Newport Beach at the Cardiovascular Tech Forum, and I have Michael Hill in the show.
Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here. All right, Michael, so what brings you out here today? Well, actually, The reason I’m here is for something totally different. But what we were talking about was health care, but health care isn’t just for about people. It’s also about animals.
And so we have a franchise system called well groomed pets. And what we do is we focus on canine wellness. And so it’s, you know, it’s kind of a, when you think about what has happened during COVID and how many dogs have been adopted when you lose a dog. It’s a big deal. It’s a huge, it’s a whole new family.
And so we built this enterprise around this concept of, can we, the hypothesis is, can we move the needle on canine wellness and extend the lives of these animals? And so that’s what our franchise brand is all about. How’d you get into the canine side? It’s like, where’d it come from? Yeah. Golden retriever.
Eight years old. Oh, man. Yeah, and then the best dogs in the world. Yes, they are. My dog dies of cancer now Chester my dog was with me all the time everywhere. I went that dog was with me and I missed the signs, you know, he just looked like he was getting older slowed down his eating changed a little bit We finally get him into the vet ten thousand dollars later.
Yeah, he dies Can’t save them. So one, the whole, you know, emotional piece is like unbelievable, but you know, I’m a data guy and I, I’m taking a deep dive into this and trying to understand. And so what a lot of people don’t, don’t know is that dogs have one of the highest occurrences of cancer of all mammals on the planet and golden retrievers.
Number one, over 60 percent of gold and die. So that started me down this idea of like, okay, how do we get in front of this? I’m not a guy that’s going to go invent a drug. Like they’re doing here at this place, but can we be helpful? And can we be advocates for pet parents and help them see the changes that are happening?
And so that birth, this concept of well groomed pets, dog groomers, touch animals more than anyone else in the ecosystem more frequently and for longer periods of time than anyone other than the pet parent, 20 times more frequently the veterinarians. Eight times longer in every appointment than veterinarians.
And so we collect a lot of data and that’s kind of our, that’s our special unique aspect of what we do. You know what? I think this is so interesting, this movement. I feel like I’ve noticed it maybe over the last decade, maybe a little bit more being in California, but originally I’m from the Midwest and we didn’t like when I was growing up, we didn’t necessarily look at dogs exactly the same.
They weren’t always, it was kind of like, it was a different time. I love it though, where we’re going, where all of this is heading, like the health. side of things, the like, even the food that they’re eating, like the whole nine, I like this concept. And especially because now I feel like we have a better, I’ll speak for myself, but I feel like us as a society, like we’re starting to understand that relationship more between us and our pets, especially our dogs, because I took them for granted when I was growing up.
I just thought, you know, they’re fun. They were this, they were that. But it was just different. Like it was a guard guard dogs. All my dogs. We’re named Rocky. I had Rocky. I had Rocky two. I had Rocky three. I’m not sure. And they were all and then to make it to make me even more basic. They were all Rottweilers.
Oh yeah. There you go. That’s perfect. I mean, real original Adam, right? Like, but I didn’t know, like, I didn’t know now though. I love it. I love what you’re talking about. Back in the day. Yeah. It was man’s best friend. Yes, today it’s family and when you lose big difference, it’s huge, big difference. And everything about that has changed.
We’re putting off having kids, right? The demographics, we get married later and we invest more in our animals and we treat, I mean, you see the people and the people are crazy on how they react. And so, so the industries are changing, right? How the pet industry is growing like crazy. The pet industry has this acceleration of Cagger.
People say, you know, what’s the, what’s the growth rate? And they tell you, Oh, growth rates, nine or eight or six or whatever. In the pet industry, it’s an accelerating growth rate. And this is a mature industry. It’s been around forever. So, we’re a franchise system. We’ve sold over a hundred franchises around the country.
We have a couple, you know, 20 open, something like that. And every dog that comes in, we do a 50 point wellness exam on these animals. And so we’re looking at everything from Physical, physiological, behavioral, and we’re trying to understand, well, the first thing is we baseline every dog. So even if you brought a dog in that was sick, which is typically what veterinarians are seeing, right?
They only see sick animals, but if you brought a dog into our salon, we would just identify that dog’s baseline as this is what it is without judgment. We’re not healthcare professionals, but the next time you bring them in 42 days later, we’re going to do it again. And we’re going to be able to see that there’s something that has changed.
So what our technology does is we flag. Yeah. And that is where we become, we become the advocate for the pet and for the pet parent to do something about it. So our theory is early detection, early intervention, better treatment outcomes, and hopefully we can extend the lives of these animals. So the dog grooming franchise system that we built is our Trojan horse.
Yeah. to canine data that has never been available before. And so that’s kind of what’s unique about what we’re doing. Do you say a 50 point system? It’s actually more than that. Yeah. Wow. All the things like, I don’t know if I get a 50 point system when I go to the doctor. No, hold on. Wait, we’re at, we’re at the cardiovascular check.
I mean, last time I got a checkup, I don’t know. That’s amazing. I just like, what, what went into like, what went into you know, Creating that system if you could give us high level because that’s significant. Yeah, one of the I think one of the important elements to understand is the the groomers are spending a couple of hours.
Yeah, that’s true. Because it’s in. Yeah, you’re not doing a 15 minute appointment with a physician or. Even a veterinarian, you’re two hours. So our workflows, we don’t just test everything up front. It’s all part of the workflow. And so it’s not disruptive to our business. We can actually add and bolt on canine studies.
So let’s say you’re a veterinarian college and they do like 200, 300 studies a year, right? They’re not all canine, but, but animal studies. But if you, if they came to us and said, Hey, we want to do this observational study on this kind of behavioral thing and the correlation between something else. For us to just bolt that into our system with 15, 000 dogs that we see, it’s pretty easy to drop it in.
And so it’s kind of a unique moment in time. Hopefully more, we’ll start to copy this because we think there’s a lot of opportunity here, but yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do. Trying to move the whole needle. You know, we knew we could compete in this industry. That’s not why we got in. This is one of those unique moments in time for us when we feel like, gosh, maybe we can move the needle on an entire industry.
And have dogs live in longer. And that would be an amazing thing. And yeah, let’s go further down that. Like, let’s dream for a moment here. A lot, a lot of entrepreneurs that watch this show, big ideas, big things, all this data, this canine data that’s never been available before. As you mentioned, pet groomers, two hours with the dog establishing these bait lines.
So just my entrepreneurial brain thinking breeds types, all this, like it’s all there. So now like, what is this? What can this lead to in the future as these data sets get bigger, as they get, like, you know, more advanced, as you have more and more and more and, you know, the analysis, what can this lead to?
Let’s dream for a moment. Yeah, well, no, the holy grail is AI modeling, which we’re starting now. And so we’ve got a couple million data points already. So we have enough data that we can play with this. And the goal is to predict. Based on your dog’s profile, because I can now compare your dog, your eight year old golden retriever, with every golden retriever out there.
And I can tell you the likelihood, based on his profile, compared to all the others, what may be happening. And so, think about insurance companies, pet insurance companies, think about dog food companies that want to intervene because of canine obesity that cuts the life of dogs by as much as 18 months.
Imagine 18 months. Which is significant. That was 10 years. Yeah, that’s 10 percent of a life. More. Yeah, 15%. Yeah. So, if you knew that, what would you do about that? So, we’re not the folks that are And put that in human years, right? So, like, if we’re going to live to be 100, that’d be like, okay, now we live to be 115.
Just for perspective. So, when we say 18 months, 15 percent of your life, like, who doesn’t want another 15%? You know, I’m not smart enough to create a drug. I’m not the guy that’s going to do that deep science. Yeah. Yeah. And then back it up by all that data. What I’m going to do is take what’s already available to us and put that in the hands of people who can actually do something meaningful with it.
And so that’s our whole strategy. And so, you know, we’re early in this journey, but, but we’re leading in the journey. And our goal is to work with the constituents in this industry, all of us together to figure out how do we extend the lives of these incredible animals that give so, I mean, a gift to humanity.
And they deserve a little bit of attention from everybody that’s trying to service those people, or those dogs, so that’s what we’re trying to do. Talk to me a little bit more about the, about the rollout plan. I believe you said you had 20 open already, over 100 sold, like, talk to me a little bit about that.
So let me start at the end. We think we can do 2, 000 locations here in the United States. We’re, we think we’ll do, we’ll have about 1, 000 sold sometime around 2, 000. 27 28 Our impediment to growth is high caliber entrepreneurs, right who understand how to run a business Yes, we want to be selective. We want to put people in good positions to be successful but also there is building Permits and zoning and it’s time.
Yeah, you just got to get through it So when we when we sell a salon, it takes 9 to 12 months to open up one more thing We don’t sell one. If you just want to buy one, go hang your own shingle. You don’t need us. You don’t need our software. You don’t need, we have nine revenue streams, but you don’t need that.
You can be successful having one because there is such a demand supply gap. So when people come to us, we sell multiple units. We want them to own in their territory, want them to have a really strong presence. So you want the footprint to be so. Exactly. Yeah. So they take kind of take over the city or that genre.
Yeah. So 3. 5 is our average. Okay. And we have some that are a little bit bigger and some that we have some twos, but we have one, one, which was a test for us. But if you think of our business model, If I have to train you and teach you how to open up a salon, that’s a lot of effort. Yes, it is. If you’ve never done it before.
Yeah. But by the time you go to number two My lift has dropped significantly. Yes, because you’ve already gone through the learning curve. And by number three, they’re calling me up. Mike, stop calling me. You know, I got this. And so our business model is built on harvesting, you know, profit later. Investing today into the future.
And hopefully that’ll all work out for us. But we’re on a good journey right now. And in terms of the types of, you mentioned, seasoned entrepreneurs you’re looking for, like, do they have to have franchise experience? Or what are you looking for there? We’ll It’s a great question. Franchising’s been around.
Modern franchising’s been around for about 50 years. By the way, I was watching The Founder the other day. So that’s why I was looking at it. If you haven’t seen that movie, they don’t pay me to talk about it, but I was like, man, I better not be selling chicken at McDonald’s. Fried chicken. Go watch The Founder.
Go ahead. I digress. No, no. This is the art of all of this, right? It’s getting the right people in line. You start with people who care about animals, right? Do you have a dog yourself? Not right now, but I’ve had many. I just want you to know you’re out. No, I’m just kidding. I got it. No, we so we want to start with people who are pet enthusiasts who are advocates and and they have that love for animals because that’s the mission right behind what we do.
You don’t need entrepreneurial experience, but it’s preferred because the entrepreneurial journey is a special and unique journey and You know, starting a business and growing a business is very difficult. But it’s incredibly rewarding. And so we need people that can understand how to do that and know how to fight through.
And some people, you know, you get, you get a mix, you get folks who come in and they want to sit back and let you do everything. And then you have those that are like, Hey man, I’m in and I want to build a monument to myself. And, you know, you got to find the right kind of person. So I will tell you in our franchise system, We have accountants, we have software people, we have tech people, we have real estate people, we have customer service sales people, we have commercial real estate people, we have, I mean, they’re from all over the place.
Yeah. Okay. And it’s really more about commitment, attitude, character, and passion for what we’re doing. And if you have those things, we’re going to find a path for you. Amazing. Final thing I want you to do here, Michael, look into the camera, tell people how they can learn more, how they can visit your website, all that good stuff.
Yeah, it’s, it’s Well Groomed Pets is the name of the brand. The Well Groomed Franchise System is the name of our company. And to get connected to us, it’s just Well GroomedPets. com or Well GroomedOpportunities. com and someone will get back to you right away. And even if you just have a question, if you’re in the industry and you just had some thoughts on what we’re doing, you We’re happy.
We’re, this is, we’re happy to share that. We’re not trying to keep anything exclusive. We want to move the needle on a whole industry. So we need to be collaborative. Amazing. And for everybody watching, just so you know we’ll put the links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t hit the subscribe or follow button, we welcome you hit that. That button, because guess what? This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new interviews, new content, and hopefully new inspiration.
That’s going to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow and Michael again. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you, man. That’s good. Thank you.