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April 26, 2004

Hip hounds | A chat with Carol Hammond, co-owner of RetroRover

By Brendan Hughes
Founded: August 2003
Revenues, year one: $5,000
Projected revenues, year two: $50,000
Address: PO Box 10997, Portland 04104
Phone: 725-5057
Web: www.retrorover.com

Describe what your company does.
Right now, RetroRover makes dog beds, but we're planning to expand to make retro-inspired dog accessories. This summer we're going to launch leashes and collars and a line of jackets and blankets. We are the brand for the hip dog.

How many employees do you have?
Just two of us [Hammond and business partner L.K. Gagnon] right now, but we hope to add more employees. It's a lot of work to split. I do the marketing and L.K. handles the sales and customer service end of it.

When did you first get the idea for the company?
L.K. and I were working together at a local nonprofit, and we weren't thrilled with the work we were doing. We were looking for something fun. I left that job and thought up the idea of RetroRover as a website selling retro-inspired stuff ˆ— just a retail site, not making our own stuff. L.K., almost at the same time, had this idea of selling retro dog collectibles online.

What was the biggest challenge going from idea to reality?
The hardest thing was finding fabric. There's the fashion industry and the home decorating industry, but we make dog beds, so people didn't really want to talk to us. We use extremely high-end fabric, furniture quality, so we had a really hard time breaking into it.

How did you finance the launch of your business, and what did it cost?
Around $16,000 for everything. We financed it with personal funds and split the cost in half.

What could this company become?
We'll always be the original retro dog bed, which is very exciting, and we'll be adding more lines that are equally as cool. The website will expand and become a one-stop shop for all things cool and dog. So I think the manufacturing side and retail side will both grow. We'll be introducing new lines over the next year, and the retail site should be revamped by early summer [to allow us to] start selling other people's retro-style stuff as well as our own.

What could stop you?
Dog beds are expensive to make. [Ours] are high quality, and they cost a lot for us to make them, but I think people believe that they're high enough quality for the price. But someone with a large company could come out with a design and be able to manufacture it overseas. But I think side by side people would see the difference and buy our bed anyway.

What's the competition like?
There's a lot of competition. The pet industry is huge. Our competition runs the gamut from small companies like us to large companies like L.L. Bean.

How are you different from your competition?
The quality is better. [Our beds are] handstitched in a small mill, they're double stitched, and the seams are surged ˆ— that means it's extra durable around the seams. The fabric is furniture quality, not your run-of-the-mill twill or denim. The liner is especially different because it's stuffed with acrylic polyfill instead of polyester polyfill. It's a totally different texture. It feels like down and you can fluff the bed up in the same way you'd fluff a down pillow.

Describe a mistake you've made in your business, and what you learned from it.
We've made some manufacturing mistakes. One in particular was when we had fabric that was cut the wrong way so it was impossible to use for the large beds. Things [like that] drove our manufacturing costs up significantly. We check everything more fervently now. We're more on top of what's happening at the mill, what's happening point to point.

If you were given $500,000 toward your business, what would you do with it?
We would definitely do product development to grow the lines we have and expand on our brand. And we might pay ourselves something.

Those dog beds look pretty comfortable. Ever use one yourself?
All the time, because we have so many in our own homes. At parties they're great. We always sit on them. They are also really good in teenagers' rooms as floor pillows.


New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to editorial@mainebiz.biz.

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