The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast 251 Nick Hill, CEO Of Surepetcare.com

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Nick Hill, CEO Of Surepetcare.com

Hi folks, this is Foss here from thechrisfossshow.com thechrisfossshow.com Hey, we're coming here, of course, as always. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. You guys are the best audience in the world. I can never tell you that often enough. And we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to watch for all the new episodes we're doing on The Chris Foss Show

because guess what? Next week is CES Show, the Consumer Electronics Show. Oh, my God. We even have the CEO, Gary Shapiro, announcing his new book on the show. And, of course, we interviewed him. So be sure to check out those wares as well. Over this next week, you're going to see us interviewing interesting entrepreneurs from CES. We're going to be talking about some of the products and stuff that they're doing at cs show and of course you're going to see live video of us touring the site

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certainly appreciate it and if you can give it a review we certainly like that as well today we have a the first interesting guest from ces i suppose gary was but he he runs it so that's not really doesn't count so we have the first person who's at CES presenting and has a booth there. And his name is, let me make sure I get this right, Nick Hill. Nick, how are you doing today, bud? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Good, good, good.

I was flipped over to the screen that shows us your guys' company is Sure Pet Care. And you guys' booth is four two three six seven you're gonna be the Sands Convention Center during the show welcome to the Chris Voss show and tell us about your company give us a plug on what website to look up for that okay so website first of all most short pet care.com easy so um the company does uh technology-based pet products that really solve a problem and uh what we're launching is is a particular new activity monitor for dogs and i can tell you all about that and the uh how that is going to help you and your dog and then also we do a whole suite of products which work off a pet's microchip. So any pet that is microchipped then is a unique identifier that identifies that unique

pet. And so we have products that allow access to a home, we have products that separate feeding. So if you have multiple pets in one household, you can identify and feed them. And then we have a whole suite of products which also give you information monitoring your pet on an app as well so you can tell how much your pet's feeding when they're coming in and out and if we get disturbed during this podcast it's because my cat's gone through the cat or at home my phone might be out so your cat's gonna rule your life

for your pet or animal i guess because you guys are doing pet doors and dog doors. But first, let's start. Let's talk about you, Nick. You're the CEO and I believe the president of the company. How did you get started in this? What's the journey that you made here? OK, so my background is I originally trained as a physicist. So quantum physicist, Dr. Nick Hill, that's been used a lot. So I studied in Cambridge in the UK and that is the high-tech sort of hub for the UK. Originally I was all set on going down the academic route but then caught the startup bug,

worked in the startup sort of area around Cambridge for about 10 years and then really started with the product idea and so for me the product idea was born purely out of need which was I had cat at a cat door and I had the whole neighborhood cats all coming in through the cat door eating my cat's food urinating in the cat's in the kitchen it's just it's a real problem So I set about developing our very first product, which was a global success, which is the microchip cattle. And this is a great story because this is what a lot of entrepreneurs do.

We, of course, cover a lot of entrepreneurship here in the Chris Voss Show and interview a lot of entrepreneurs. And this is the journey many of them take. They have a pain or an itch or some sort of thing that they need to have resolved. And they can't find a product or something out in the marketplace to resolve. And so that's interesting. It took your journey of your cats, having strange other cats wander in through the cat door, eat your food, pee on your carpet. I mean, for me, I call that Wednesdays or the weekends, but I never finally got a restraining order that I can't do that anymore.

But that's awesome that you guys have that sort of thing, because I got to tell you, I've had dogs and I've had a lot of issues with pet doors and, and other things coming in the house. Creepy crawlies, of of course as well uh the the spiders and the bugs they love the pet door because they're like hey just this thing's halfway open half the time with the wind you know so uh this is really cool i've taken a look at your guys website and scenes the products you guys are making and we're gonna of course see it at ces show uh you guys want to check out their booth while you're there uh and uh so tell us more about it or what the journey was that got you there and got the company started and where you're at now. Okay, so going back to the start of it,

then it's really that one problem I'm looking to solve, which is other cats coming in. No, in the UK, less creepy crawlies or snakes or anything, but we've had all sorts. And then I wasn't the first person to have the product idea. So the idea of identifying a pet through the microchip implant, but then the microchip implants are really, they're about the size of a grain of rice. They're designed to be injected under the skin. So they were never really designed to have a long read range for, to operate other products.

So then it became like a technical challenge, which is create a reading technology that allows you to create a consumer product with the right read range to actually deliver a service based on the PECS identification microchip. So that was when my technical background came in, which is on the physics, the antennas, the electronics, all of these sides. So really, it was a product idea,

an interesting technical challenge, and then creating a winning product. The thing you bring up, too, is a lot of people don't understand that sometimes becoming a great entrepreneur is preparing for it. And sometimes you don't know entrepreneur is preparing for it and sometimes you don't know that you prepared for it like in your case you probably didn't go to school going i'm gonna make a pet door company someday part of the the genesis of what you've created and what you've designed is from the concept that you had that this is possible technically. And I probably know how to do it, or maybe I have enough skill to be dangerous or education to be dangerous in the field.

And it comes down to that question of, well, why can't it be built that way? And so many people, I think, in this world, they just accept things as they come. And the beauty of entrepreneurs is entrepreneurs go, why not? You know? Some entrepreneurs go, why not? Why can't we have that? Why can't we have, you know, X, Y, Z? Why can't we create this?

And that's how our world just gets better and better, which is good for people like you folks and us actually, the consumers. Yeah, I agree completely. And I think you hit the nail on the head where I think you prepare to take your own luck. Now, when I see other people leaving school and then going straight in and becoming an entrepreneur and creating a business and being successful,'m always in awe of that i certainly wasn't ready to do that but

you know about 10 years working in high tech learning about intellectual property learning about how you would actually create a business for me that was like an important first step and then to take that next step then i think you you kind of you're more likely to take the shot right chances and more likely to succeed at least in my case yeah I mean I I grew up very poor I didn't go to college but I knew I needed to learn how to be a CEO if I ever wanted to run a big company someday and I dreamed of doing it and so I read every book I could consume. I basically got my own sort of MBA. I actually studied programs and projects from the Harvard Business Review,

which back in the day, you'd buy the Harvard Business Review book and it was just filled with all this just really core, raw theory of business. and so i would consume all that and and basically kind of give myself my own college course i just skipped all the late night drinking fraternities and oh that's nice that was the smartest turn on my part because i don't know uh bill kavanaugh who just went to judgeship here and tells me the beer is really good in sort of fraternity parties. But at least I know I'll probably be able to become Supreme Court justice without someone questioning my fraternity drinking. That's your next step.

That's the next step. It's going to the Supreme Court. I'll be on the panel with the congressional thing. They'll be like, says here your experiences are running a podcast and being a social media person. What makes you qualify for this job? I like beer. There you go. So you came with this idea, and so did you create a company with it initially, or where did you go with your idea what was the steps you took yeah so it was basically creating a product and creating a company and really

starting small but growing organically um but it was a product that was okay it was hard enough so there wasn't a competitor out there and there wasn't a competitor out there for quite a while um so it was a good competitive landscape at least in the form we created it. And then it was really choosing your customers so that you can grow that company, give them the cash flow and all the requirements around that. But there was very, very high demand for the product. So on the back of that, it allowed us to reinvest in a suite of products, which started off with different pet door products, then moved into feeders and then moved into

internet connected and app connected products as well. And then that really was the, I guess, the company that I built. And then back in 2015, we were acquired by a much larger company that brought even more technology to bear so then allowed us to scale more and actually then bring some of our latest products like the the animal so behavior monitor actually app so that's the more recent thing then that's part of you know that process of being acquired and then having more resources and more technologies even draw from that's awesome That's awesome. That's awesome. So the journey is you've been acquired by the bigger companies and they've

seen the forefront of your technology. I love these app things that allow me to interact with my, with my animals, my pets. I've got two Huskies and I've got different things that we've sent to be reviewed here on the Christmas show where I can watch them, of course, on all the different monitors as they roam around the house and chew everything that I own while I

travel back to CS I'll be checking in like about 20 times a day to see what they're doing cameras and to see how much of my stuff is being shredded into small pieces since I've left for the day you're really part part of the global community that now a pet is a member of your family. You want to be in touch with them all day. You can't be with them 24-7. And they're huskies, so I kind of have to be in touch with them all day

because, like I say, when I travel, I'll never forget years ago, I went to see a show, and I had a kind of younger puppy and an older puppy, and I thought, well, it's going to be okay to leave them and uh it's my horror about the second day into my trip i was

i was tuning in to see what was shredded and i don't my dog was somehow aware of the scope of of area that my camera operated in because she was making a point of putting it right in the middle and shredding it into small pieces whatever it was and just basically sending me that message and then i would tune in uh to hear her crying and bang both in the backyard and wandering through the house wondering where i was and uh and it so it was about two days of like a horror show. Like I think that's going to be the next movie I'm going to do. I think it should be like a Burbux horror show is really popular. I think that's going to be what the new show is. It's going to be a guy who's in a hotel room in a faraway city

watching an entourage at every loving thing that he has to punish him for leaving for four days on a business trip um and uh if you could think of a product to make out of that uh with all on the line you're doing uh uh you know uh you might want to send me a few bucks that's all i'm saying okay all right i mean that would be the new horror show. Oh, oh, you're in your hotel room. You're like, you're like tuning in. The music comes up, the suspense and you're tuning in going, what is, what are they going to shred now?

But the beautiful part about your product is, is you don't have to tune in and find out some other cat or dog or snakes or birds or some other thing. It's like squirrels you know have snuck into your home and they're like eating your cat food and everything else you have on the counter because you know raccoons and stuff they can get up on stuff Oh raccoons we've we've had fun with raccoons yeah they're a tricky old animal they've got opposable thumbs you know so many others and then you know they're very dexterous so uh just don't advance this product the next level where uh you attach this to fridges and people like me because my

girlfriend will probably put me on one to where i can't get into the fridge and stuff um so tell people saying can you can you chip my teenage son you know there you go i'm sure she'll chip me i want to know know what bar was he at, who was he with at the time, where has he been? He told me he didn't want to meet with my parents and that he broke his leg in the ER. I want to see proof of the geolocation. So tell us more about your guys's product and what it does so so when you consider you know what you can do with products like um uh say a microchip operated cat door where it started and then a microchip operated feeder which was our next range of products so if you a lot of people

have pets in a multi-pair household and if you've got two cats, you've often got, say, one fat cat, one thin cat. Fat cat eats your food. Or you've got two cats on medicated diet, or even as simple as a dog eating the cat food. So segregating delivery of food to a pet is a really important thing, but especially when you're thinking about custom diets. So our feeder was our next range of products and that again has been the product that solves the problem and this is what we get from our customers all the time is your products they solve a problem and now suddenly I can't do without them and I never thought a pet feeder would change my

life but they're really once you solve that problem that's what drives success and really what drives your customer's happiness, which ultimately is our goal, our pet's happiness and our customer's happiness. Yeah, it's interesting. People tell me, I want to be an entrepreneur so I can get rich. You're like, well, what are you going to do? I don't know. I'm just going to get rich. You have to understand the sequence of how being an entrepreneur works. You usually, like I said, start with your pain. You you solve your pain and then you realize that there's a million other people who have cats or dogs and they have this problem too and you're like well maybe they would

like this idea that i have and you share that with them and uh you know really being a great entrepreneur is coming up with the service or product that that helps other people and the direct correlation of what you're paid back in is in uh usually direct relation to the need or demand for that service and the um the scarcity of it so if you're first to market etc etc uh so you guys you guys start with these door you guys your main product right, is a cat door or pet door for the animals. You make it for pets. Do you make them for dogs yet or just cats right now? Small dogs, spangled size, but not the larger dogs yet.

So I'm not going to be able to crawl through one yet? Not yet, no. I'm afraid. That's probably in research and development, I'm sure. And when you say the microchip allows them to come in and out, I've seen ones where they wear a little bell on their collar, and I'm like, well, if I really want to rob someone's house, I just take the collar off and wave it and send someone in to open the door and get me a skinny accomplice.

And wham, bam, thank thank you ma'am i'm in i'm in the house robbing it and thanks to fluffy uh you're uh now light on all your jewelry um the uh and so i've always wondered about those products i'm like somebody could just take the thing off and just you know go through the door uh does it have to be your microchip or do you work with all the microchips that are on the market? It works with all the microchips that are on the market. That is freaking awesome. That is awesome.

I was like, oh man, so if I get your product, I might have to go. That is awesome that you got it to where it works for them. Is that a real big pain? I don't want to say pain, but is that a real big challenge to work with all these different makers of some of these different chips and get the code right? Did it pain to, I don't want to say pain, but is that a real big challenge to work with, you know, all these different makers of some of these different chips and get a, you know, to get the code right?

So, I mean, there's a global standard for microchips. But historically there's been four different types of microchips in the U.S. So actually this global standard basically took the rest of the world first. And there was still a number of different formats that were vying for supremacy in the U.S. So really, we still needed to make it work for all of these four different types of microchip. So it took a little bit longer, but it's an absolute requirement. You've got to know that, you know, you buy the product. The setup is easy. You press a button.

It then learns your pet's ID code. It doesn't matter what type of microchip it is, and then there's no confusion. Otherwise, you're into checking the number, checking the number with your vet or with your microchip provider, and it takes away from that ease, which is critical, I think, to the success of anything. And so the dog or cat can just come right up

to the door it senses their it senses their microchip and walks in and there's people doing this to themselves they're putting chips and nfids into their bodies um they're body hacking their systems so you may have a future business that like i say letting people into their fridges if they're on a diet like don't let me have a little bit between eight and five or whatever uh you know or maybe there's a segment of the of the fridge that has all the high fat high fruit you know uh the pizza is in this pizza section you can't get in there and you're waving your hand in front of it. Let me in. I'm really hungry. Yeah. Maybe in the future. There's definitely a thing for that.

I know there's probably some wives that would buy that product for their husbands. Put a collar on them. Make sure that anyway. The fun bit is the next stage beyond. So I guess the first set of products is very much find a problem, solve it,

standalone product that actually solves that problem. But then the next stage, which is where so many of the cool new consumer products are coming from is connectivity. Connectivity with pet care is is a really

really great application of internet of things it's not a gadget it's a really important application where you can help and care for your pet better when you're not there you can monitor so i think this was our sort of key next stage of the business which was okay well actually it's not just doing one thing which improves the life of the pet in one way, okay, well, actually, it's not just doing one thing which improves the life of the pet in one way. It's a monitoring tool for the pet. Now, one thing you may not be aware of is that some microchips also have the ability to take the temperature of the pet. Oh, my gosh. They've got a built-in thermometer. So every time you take a reading of a pet's microchip number, you get the temperature for free.

So actually, every time a pet is feeding from a microchip-operated pet feeder, you can have a real-time measure of what the temperature of that pet is. And that's then a health monitoring tool. So really what started life as being okay i want to stop other cats coming into my house or peeing in the kitchen has actually come full circle to these are tools to monitor a pet's life and in some cases actually to monitor the physiological you know well-being of the pet which is is temperature over time. Yeah, especially if they're hot or overheated. This has been a great product to have.

I had a dog that had cancer and we put her through hospice care for about a year and a half and monitoring her activity and movements. I think we put some sort of IOT device that was on her collar that I could monitor

her exercise and how often she was moving around. And that was kind of real important. Knowing when she was up and moving was usually a time I wanted to check on her, even if I was asleep, because sometimes at the very end, we'd have blood. You need to know what she was, what going on with her um and why she was moving around because she was pretty old and and uh and uh so you just need to check on her and know what's going so it's pretty it's cool that they have the technology that's out there temperature would have been a thing we would have wanted to know she was in hospice care as well and people love checking in on these i mean when i go out even like to the store, I check my pet cam monitors.

I think we've got a feeder here that flicks treats. Their grandmother dials in and flicks treats at them. And so having these feeder type things are really important. I know cat owners are known for having sometimes that big fat cat that they got to put a diet and you know you just can't be home a lot but if you're a pet owner you're obsessed with your pet at least I hope you are but most pet owners I know they're they're constantly checking in you know here's my pet today in fact I've gone places and said look here's what my dog's doing people are just like you're weird To see what was going on at home

You know sometimes I've had to call a neighbor or friend or say hey Can you run over my house the things are going off the rails over there? and It's because I can tune in and see what's going on with my pet. And, you know, we live in Las Vegas, too, so we've got to make sure the pets don't get locked outside or stuck outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Because they can die in the heat during the summer. A lot of pets die because they get left in the backyard and they can't get in.

And so these pet doors are just so important for people to have to get them in and out yeah no I think you have the level of care for pets over the last like 10 15 years you know the humanization of pets pets now if you ask people is a pet a member of your family you will get the answer most definitely yes now going back 15 20 years you know you wouldn't get that same answer people talk about being pet owners then rather than pet parents now so yeah it's a it's a global trend and uh you know it's it's really just driven by our love of the animals and uh i'm wanting the best for them well i often say the more i watch politics and the more I get to know people the more I love my dogs

so I'm becoming one of those I'm a dog person in fact if you look closely enough I'm covered in husky hair which is part of the the whole yeah you know what's interesting is I used to

this is one of the reasons I wear a white hat people are like what's the is that an advertisement, this is one of the reasons I wear a white hat. People are like, is that an advertisement on the hat? I'm like, no, it's just white, and so you can't see the dog hair from the Huskies on it. That's why I like this hat. But it's really cool that you guys are making these different products out there. And I imagine the world is the thing. Being able to play with dogs, being able to feed your pets, being able to have them come in and out. I've had a pet door for years, but it's always been kind of one of those juky ones that you just put into the sliding glass and you slide it.

And like, oh, yeah, you can make it, you know, I've got a little door dolly that holds it shut. But anybody can crawl through this thing because it's a pretty large door, given how large Huskies. And I look at it all the time. I'm like, it doesn't take much for someone to crawl through that door. And then with my door, it's just the cheap one that is at your guys', obviously. And so when the wind blows, it flaps. And so the problem I'm having right now is my house is freezing from the wind

uh here in vegas blowing the cold air in and i'm having my heater bills going through the roof now so there is an economy here saving money cutting cost and saving costs because with your guys's door it's probably not flapping in the wind right yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean for what I'm gonna pay for your product is probably the amount I'm gonna I'm gonna pay double or triple for the energy cost of heating and cooling with this door constantly I'm definitely looking forward to reviewing this on the Chris Voss show we're really excited about now the next stage of the products that we're launching, which is really around activity monitoring and

behavior monitoring for dogs, so a wearable for dogs. And this has come from, I guess, the next stage of development of the company, where in 2015, we were acquired by a company called Antalic, which is the leader in animal monitoring but very much with the focus originally on livestock. So the activity monitoring technology that we've applied has actually come from the dairy industry, from dairy cows and through activity monitoring of dairy cows and this has been on millions of dairy cows, this is through activity monitoring of dairy cows and detection of rumination, of heat stress, of a whole load of different parameters that are actually around health and well-being, then it's really been one of the key drivers in the dairy industry over the last, say, five years.

And the technology goes back a lot further than that. So what we've done over the last couple of years is we've taken that core technology and the algorithms and the sensitivity of those algorithms, and we've applied it into docs. So this is really what we're showcasing at CES, and we're really excited about this. There probably is a pretty interesting commercial feature of doing that. I imagine monitoring the temperature behavior and what's going on with were, you know, adding, like I say, NFID chips to their thing. They have it set up where they can walk into their homes. Just, you know, they just walk in and the lock opens.

There's lots of proximity Bluetooth stuff now and NFID that can do that. So the sky's probably the limit for the technology, where you can go beyond pet for this. Yeah, so on the farming side of where the technology came from, then it gives you benefits such as efficiency of farming and making sure that a sick cow is not a productive cow. But beyond that, far more importantly, it's about the well-being of the cow and the herd so individually to be able to have an early indicator of any sickness within

that herd allows you to treat that one cow rather than putting antibiotics into the whole herd of cows so for actually the sustainability and ethical farming it's actually a critical tool. And what you see is more and more with animal monitoring is this is a tool for basically modern, ethical, sustainable, traceable farming. Awesome. So I'm looking at your guys' website, surepetcare.com, and you guys got a whole message stuff here you got really cool doors people can insert these I guess into walls into doors that

go in and out of their house areas they want to be cut off like a mudroom for their animal to come in so they can get out of the weather and then you've got coming soon a microchip pet feeder connect. Is that going to be at CES? Yep, we'll be showing that at CES. And that allows you to selectively feed one pet over the other. But also every time a pet feeds from that, you can identify through the connected app when they're feeding, the frequency of feeding, and also how much they're feeding on each feed so ultimately when you're looking to track feeding patterns either first set of calorific intake or it's actually just monitoring the health and well being of a pet this is I'm looking over your website this is really brilliant

you guys have a feeder connect which is the new thing coming in we'll see a CS you guys have a feeder and it's kind a new thing coming out with CSCS. You guys have a feeder. And it's kind of like a – I'm not sure how to describe this to our folks on iTunes and Google Play that are listening on audio in your car. This is – it's kind of – it looks kind of like a half-cup box, and they're allowed to stick their face into it, and at that point they can get into like a sort of bowl or tray of food and I imagine that gives them entry to the

area so they can eat that based upon a microchip and I imagine you you set times through the app as to when they can access it does less it's more free feeder so the natural so this is very focused on cats and cats tend to graze feed so they're feeding multiple times in small amounts throughout the day and this allows them to do that instinctive feeding if they want to do it all in one go then they can do that actually more pets or more cats tend to feed between 10 and 15 times a day so actually they can go up to the feeder anytime they can feed and then it will monitor the amount that they beat them each time and then when

the lid closes it's actually a seal on the bowl that's actually under the under the lid so when you're when you've got food that could dry out particularly in hot weather then actually it's going to keep the food fresher for longer as well so it's kind of multiple things but it does but it's definitely a free feeder so you're not trying to actively restrict that so this is pretty cool it's it's compatible with all common microchips it's compatible with the sure flap rfid collar tag it's got a microchip or collar tag controlled access so if your dog is a microchip they can use your collar tags um This thing will service of the 32 pets Yeah, yeah, you can you can learn in up to 32 pets generally with the feeder people learning one

For the pet doors people would learn in every pet that they've got in the house There you go for the crazy pet lady in you Quite high numbers there. Years ago in our mortgage company, we did mortgages and we had this recurring customer. It was a good customer. And a funny story, she actually had, her and her husband were married and have been married for years, but they lived apart. Mainly the reason they lived apart was because she really loved cats and when

my appraiser would go to her home she's like when I look down in the basement the floor moves and it kind of is freaky looking cuz you're like why is the floor moving and it was all the cats that she was taking care of so yeah't it yeah there might have been some issue there but our appraiser always said that the house was still in good condition and that you know there wasn't sort of an out-of-control thing so I don't know how she did it but we always kind of give it a little bit that her husband lived in separate homes because of it but hey if you love animals and pets as long as you're you know being a good steward and custodian, there you go.

Stop pets from stealing each other's foods. That's important. I've had that happen. In fact, that happens to me a lot when I distribute treats to my dogs. You have the little one that tends to be able to be more agile and jump up there and take them. Monitor your pet's feeding habits. Keep flies off your food and lock in moisture. That's a really good technology point, actually, when you think about it.

Yeah, I think once you have food that's open to the elements, particularly for cats where your gray is feeding and it's out throughout the deck, then whether it's insects or flies or even just drying out. And then once it dries out and oxidizes, it goes rancid. And then I think so many people are used to cats, you know, you put food down for cats, they might have a little bit, and then they'll just, you know, an awful lot of it will go to spoil.

You know, and this is a bigger deal than probably most people do. I used to have my dogs outside when I lived in Utah when I would leave for work. And so they had a pen for outside. They could come into the garage area if they needed to. And one winter, and, you know, they're snow dogs. They're huskies. So what I had was my neighbor had put down snail bait, had put down snail poison to kill the snails in his yard.

One of the snails ate the snail bait, came over to my dog's dog food, and died in the dog food. And I remember going out and clearing the snow that day off of the dog food and seeing a snail in there. I didn't really think about it because it was outside. I'm like, I don't think they're going to eat a snail. You know, I mean, I just really didn't think about it. Went to work that day, came home, and both my dogs are convulsing,

like a seizure state, and they're standing and convulsing. And I'm freaking out. I called the veterinarian they go your dogs either have got snail bait or some sort of their poison you bring them in as soon as possible so we raced them in you know they gave them all the shots got their heart rates calmed down but it literally can kill them they can their hearts will explode because they're just jacked up on like all this snail bait and uh it was very scary for 24 hours 48 hours in fact we wonder what sort of long-term damage happened and basically what happened was the snail got the snail poison from our neighbors

and came and got in the food and the dogs consumed it and voila bada boom there you go were the dogs fully recovered they fully recovered as far as I know. I mean, years later we had cancer and the one had seizures, but it was like five or six years later. So I don't know if there was damage caused from those things, but it was scary. Where I used to live in Utah, we even had a problem with raccoons coming into the pen and eating the dog's food.

I would open the door to go out and you see six raccoon babies just shoot up the fences. Um, and, uh, so there was a worry about rabies, of course, with them. And then of course them attacking our animals because they would, they would smell the food, they come for the food and they either fight them for the food or, or attack them for the food or or attack them for food um we you know i've had bugs in my food even in the house i mean the the the pet door that i have is like i said it's a cheap flappy one and uh i can get all sorts of i've had all sorts of of course creepy crawly spiders i'm sure a lot of people don't like that i've had all sorts of um uh different bugs

and stuff and you'll find them in the food. They come in from the food. They can smell it and they come for it and then your dogs are either consuming that or whatever and it's just crazy. So I really like this idea where it's covering the food, protecting it, keeping the flies off it of course

as well and of course dogs, they want to eat fresh food too. They don't want to eat crap food that's you know all dried out nasty yeah yeah so we anticipate we'll be doing some some feeders for dogs as well and I think where they where the power of all of this comes from would be the product range is is not only solving these individual problems we're talking about but when you think of these as part of an ecosystem of products that are monitoring your pet so whether it's levels of activity whether it's levels of shaking barking scratching which our

activity monitor can pick up or whether it's the temperature of the dogs with the microchip or how much they're eating, how much they're drinking. So all of this is data. We hear big data being sort of bandied around as a buzzword all the time. But it's data and through this data, then you actually have a really rich data set that can tell you an awful lot about your pet. So monitoring this through the lifetime of the pet is actually going to help you maintain their health and well-being whether that's you know as simple as their physical health or actually it's the levels of engagement and mental sort of well-being as well then we see that data and monitoring is actually key to the future of proactive pet care. And this is where the journey of the company has come to now,

from initially one product to multiple products solving problems to connectivity, to really being focused on gathering monitoring data on a pet, and then through the quality of the algorithms that you can put on those, combined with a battery input, actually it's an incredibly powerful tool for improving the lives of pets in general and that's awesome i mean that's what we're all trying to do we know that these pets live on average maybe 10 to 15 years at best if you're lucky keep your fingers crossed uh and certainly they get into just about

any everything and anything and of course they're outside in the elements, all sorts of scary stuff can happen. You know, I remember years ago I had a puppy who found a spider and they tend to play with spiders with their mouth and bite them and chew them and go, what is this? And because they interpret everything through their mouth and she bit into some poisonous spider and she came into me and she was passing out beside me and i couldn't keep her awake and i was like holy crap and and i realized she probably had been by something but i couldn't find where she'd been bitten she was bitten up in the gum line and this is probably a place where maybe the temperature sort of gauge in her microchip would have been important and it got alerted to you by your app. So that's really cool. Anything more we need to know about your company, what you guys are doing at CES? So I guess our focus at CES is really showing our animal activity monitor.

This is one of the first times we're showing this in public, and this is the repurposing of this established technology from the livestock industry. And really what it's bringing is a new level of accuracy and detail to activity monitoring for pets. So whether it's just purely your activity you're looking at, but also we're looking at things like shaking, barking, scratching, which can tell you a huge amount

about the health and wellbeing of a pet or sleep and sleep quality. So really we're showcasing this product in this technology and we're so yeah just very optimistic about what this can do with the industry in general the CES show the future so this is gonna be pretty cool those of you going to see us be sure to check them out. They're going to be the SANS Convention Center, booth 42367, the Sure Pet Care booth, if you want to Google it. Make sure you download the CS app. I think Gary Shapiro won't mean to plug that. So you want to use the app.

You can schedule. You can find stuff like the Pet Care booth, and you can schedule yourself. You know where it's at. You can schedule. You can find stuff like the Pet Care booth, and you can schedule yourself. You know where it's at. You can look at maps and find stuff. That's really an important thing with the – I'd recommend anybody going to CES is use the map system because there's several different buildings, several different hotels. They pretty much come here, and they take over a whole city and it's just amazing and even one of the things you have to be careful too like in south hall there's two levels so you can sometimes be walking around thinking well i'm right in front of it and

you're like oh it's above me or below me so watch out for that but you definitely want to get the ces app so you can take and do that as well be sure to to check out their website. Of course, if you're a pet owner and everything else, you can go to their website at surepetcare.com. And I got to tell you, I'm really impressed with the products here. I love the feeder ability and the monitoring ability of my pets. You know, hopefully in the future, I'll be able to do all sorts of things. If you could make something that lets me know my dog's tearing apart something I own. I'm out of the house. That would be great, which is hard because half the time they're chewing on like bones and chew toys that I give them when I am home. But I don't know. Somehow I just microchipped everything in the house that I don't want them to chew on.

Like one of my friends has got a husky and her dog loves to take her shoes out of the backyard and chew them up. Maybe you could, I don't know, create some sort of AI system in the far distant future where robotically it's like, that's the shoe. Do not allow that outside. Make that stand here and alert the owner the shoe is trying to go outside. I can say my puppy is actually bringing me toys to play with her right now she if I leave right now we're going to this phase where if I leave she takes a box or something usually it's nothing expensive but she

gets a box or or or whatever and she chews it up and she puts it right at the top of the stairs because she wants me to know that this is my punishment for leaving the house for 15 minutes to go to the store. So you figure out a product for that in the future way to monitor that. Like your dog's really into something and it's in an area that shouldn't be in. And, and that's the other thing she'll do.

She'll go into areas. So anyway, we'll look forward to seeing you guys at CS. We'll look forward to reviewing this on the chrisfossshow.com. So be sure to go to youtube.com for just Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification. So you see all the different videos we'll be doing. Probably do a live shot or a video interview while we're there.

And we'll kind of walk through some of the products. How does that sound? That sounds fantastic. That sounds fantastic. And so I appreciate our audience for tuning in. Be sure to go and refer your friends to go to iTunes, Google Play, go to Spotify, and also iHeartRadio. We're distributed.

And, of course, you can get us on any podcasting app in the world. You're going to be seeing daily, weekday podcasts from us, and we'll probably just be doing a crazy amount of media during, of course, the CS show. Be sure to follow us over there and all my social channels. You'll be seeing live videos and all the different, you know, it's just a media frenzy. In fact, usually after two to three weeks, a month after CES,

we're like still just publishing stuff. Like, here's another thing we saw at CES and it's just crazy. It's a great show and it's a lot of fun. Anyway, thanks to Nick. Appreciate you for coming by, Nick, and tell us about your company and your story.

Great entrepreneurial journey. Thanks for coming by. Thanks, Chris, I enjoyed it. All right. And my audience, we'll see you guys next time.