Small Business Summit Center

Jordan Kaplan, Petaholics

[Jordan Kaplan has a large, well-established NYC dog walking & pet sitting business. — Andrew]

AB: What are you really selling?

JK: I am in the peace of mind business. Most of our clients are dual income no kids and they pets are their children. What our clients get by using our service is peace of mind, lessening of guilt and anxiety. I have always been an animal lover. Had a standard poodle growing up named Mandy. After graduating and working in Public Relations after 9/11 our company folded and I decided there was no better time to make the leap back into entrepreneurship. Still having a void in my life after my dog passed away from cancer I decided New York was the best place for one to start a pet related business. Today we have 30-40 pet sitters taking care of over 100 dogs on a daily basis and more than 500 clients who call us throughout the year.

AB: What would you do if you weren't in business for yourself?

JK: After having the entrepreneurial spirit as a young child and having worked for people in the past. I could never see myself going back to working for anyone but myself.

AB: How did the business grow?

JK: The business started growing from word of mouth. I started getting referrals and needing to hire people to take on the added clients. I taught myself search engine optimization and was able to get our website to show up #1 in google for our selected keywords which really helped generate business for us. As we grew new problems presented themselves that required systems to be implemented. As there are so many hours in the day I started focusing on what non-revenue generating things I could outsource.

AB: What part of entrepreneurship have you worked hardest on?

JK: Knowing my strengths and weaknesses and knowing what areas to spend my time on and what to outsource. Entrepreneurship is a series of doing every job yourself until you can afford and find people better at certain tasks then you are. A true entrepreneur is someone who finds the best group of all stars to join his/her team.