Different Dog

Idea

Introduction

I used to work for a company that sold a lot of dog food. One day I got to see the food being made and it turned my world upside down. It seemed crazy to me that a diet of purely processed food, which has a two year shelf life and doesn’t even live in the fridge, could really be the best way to health and happiness. So Alex, Crumble and I set out to prove that adding hand cooked food to a dog's diet would change their life, and make them a different dog.

We started cooking in our own kitchen for Crumble. We asked an experienced vet, Alison, to join our team. We spent 18 months experimenting with different processes and recipes and testing our food in the lab. The more we tested our food, the more we learnt and the more convinced we became that this food would make a tangible difference to the health of dogs fed processed foods.

We launched our subscription business in 2018. Since then our customers have told us time and time again that we have changed their dogs’ lives.

Intended impact

Different Dog addresses 5 problems that matter to dog lovers:

1. “My dog is overweight.” C.50% of UK dogs are.

2. “My dog has a skin & coat condition/ear infection/digestive problem.” Many of the most prevalent health issues are linked to diet.

3. “My dog is off her food.” Many dogs struggle with processed or raw food.

4. “I have to cook for my dog.” 40% of UK dog owners home cook some of their dog’s diet, which can be risky.

5. “I’ve forgotten to buy dog food.” The UK subscription box market is set to grow 72% in the period 2017-2022.

Different Dog was set up to change dogs’ lives with real food. Our customers regularly tell us that we’ve done just this:

97% nutrition score on AllAboutDogFood.com, the leading independent reviewer of dog food in the UK. Different Dog has the highest nutrition score in its category

4.8/5 Trust Score on Trustpilot with 91% of all reviews 5-stars

This investment will allow us to change more dogs' lives through accelerating our growth.

Substantial accomplishments to date

To our knowledge, Different Dog is the only UK dog food company that cooks the food gently in a pan, with a wide variety of recipes and ingredients, and uses compostable packaging.

Today we have over 740 subscribers, up from c.100 at the start of 2019.

In 2019 we achieved real traction with the press, including a live interview on the BBC News Channel and 5 minutes of TV coverage on channel 4 during Crufts. We believe that we are the only UK dog food company that is willing and able to demonstrate its cooking processes at shows and events, and hires chefs from the human food industry. As a result, Clare Balding came to our stand at Crufts and participated in a cooking demonstration. The resulting spike in volume of traffic and sales was so large that our website crashed.

We won “Best Natural Dog Food Company 2019” at the UK Small Business Awards.

We regularly receive CVs from our customers, and some of our best hires have been customers who wanted to work for us.

Monetisation strategy

We are an online subscription model for hand-cooked dog food. Our key subscription metrics are:

Please note, the figures above are based on unaudited management accounts. Cost of Acquisition and Monthly Recurring Net Revenue / Subscriber are the figures for the month of September 2019.

At some point in the future we anticipate an exit event will occur, either through a public listing, a sale of the business or a significant investment from a strategic investor. At this point, we hope that existing investors will have the opportunity to monetise their investment and capitalise on gains due to the growth of the business.

Use of proceeds

The money will be spent on two activities, which will allow us to further accelerate our growth:

1. 50% will be spent on marketing. Given our cost of acquisition is £53, this would pay for acquisition of approximately 7,500 customers. Amongst other activities, we will be stepping up our presence at events, significantly increasing our digital marketing activities and launching a referral scheme.

2. 50% will be spent on salaries, tech and working capital. New hires will be made in tech, operations and digital marketing to support continued growth. Further investment will be made to improve all aspects of our systems and our user experience. The aim is for this raise to give us sufficient capability and runway to reach break even.

Investor Rewards

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