The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Sure Petcare CES Show 2022 Interview

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Surepetcare.com See them virtually at CES Show 2022 at their website

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com.

Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you coming in. Oh, my gosh. It's the front row of all the CES 2021 CES show, Consumer Electronics Show? Consumer Electronics whatever. Anyway, it is. We cover it every year for years and years now. Like a decade, I think, now.

You're going to be seeing a lot of interviews we're going to be doing, especially over the next three to four days of all the great booths, all the great exhibits at CES, all the latest technology, all the coolest gadgets, toys, bells, whistles. You're going to be seeing it all. So be sure to stay tuned. Watch for all the different things we do. Go to YouTube.com, Fortress Christmas.

You'll see all the videos we're uploading there, some of the live stuff we'll be doing from the floor and in our hazmat suits for to block the virus, but also go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss, see everything we're reading and reviewing my book over there, of course on Amazon, and also go to all the groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, as well. You can see our massive group on LinkedIn. And then also you can see the CES show, uh Show Facebook group that we run on Facebook. Just search for CES 2022.

I think it is for CES Show 2022. Today we have some folks on. They're technically virtually at CES Show 2022. And we've had their CEO on, I think, in 2019, Nick Hill, the CEO, was on. And we reviewed a number of their products you can see on the Chris Voss Show. We even used their Animo products still on my Freya, my one dog. She uses it so we can monitor how she's doing it. We have two guests on the show from Shure Pet Care.

We have Piers Hampson and Judith Bank. Piers is the head of product at Shure Pet Care, globally responsible for the company's product vision and strategy. Piers joined the head of product at Shure Pet Care, globally responsible for the company's product vision and strategy. Piers joined Shure Pet Care in 2013 and has led the development of the company's connected product range. Judith Bank is head of marketing at Shure Pet Care, the pet technology specialist, having joined the company in April 2009 as the second employee. Wow. And she's responsible for strategy development, strategy partnerships, and communication to

consumer, retail, and veterinary audiences across 35 countries. Prior to Sure Pet Care, Judith held senior level marketing positions at NXT, PLC, and PaceCycle. Welcome to the show, both of you. How are you? Hi, Chris. Yeah, we're very well, thanks. And thankscle. Welcome to the show, both of you. How are you? Hi, Chris. Yeah, we're very well, thanks. And thanks for having us. It's good to be here, albeit virtually today. There you go. Pierce, welcome to the show as well. Thank you very much. Good to be here. All right. I'm going to have you calm down just a little bit,

Pierce. Just calm down. Are you guys excited? It's CES 2022. We didn't even get one last year. Oh, my gosh. We are excited, Chris, although obviously as we're coming to you virtually, not quite as excited as we would be as if we were in Vegas, which is a great thing this year. That's true. A lot of companies flip from being booth interviewed to virtual, and some people I do safer.

It might be better, too, because evidently we have some winter storms that are really screwing up flights here in America. I'm wondering how many people are actually going to get to the show because the flights and stuff. It's going to be an interesting show. So there you go. So give us your.com

where people can find you guys on the interwebs and give us a brief overview of who Sure Pet Care is. Sure. Okay. First of all, I'll start with our website. It's surepetcare.com. That's S-U-R-E, sure? Sure. Okay. First of all, I'll start with our website. It's surepetcare.com. That's S-U-R-E, surepetcare.com. And we are, as you mentioned in the intro, a pet technology company. We have been in this space for about 12 years now. We started off developing microchipping

products for pets, and we've now expanded into an ecosystem of connected pet products. So products for cats and dogs that via smartphone apps and in-home and wearable devices you as a pet parent are able to monitor your pets day-to-day behaviors, activities, routines. As all pet parents love their pets dearly they want to know and understand more about them, maybe see how they're doing when they're apart during the day, or maybe just understand some of their longer-term behaviors and routines. And these products that we develop enable you to have a much better understanding of your pet and therefore, as a result, become hopefully a better pet parent and certainly empowered to understand more about your pet than you would otherwise perhaps have done.

There you go. Piers, you want to throw anything in here? What can you say to that? It's a full-on tech barrage of pet stuff when you come to Show Pet. A full barrage of pet stuff. That should just be your motto. The full barrage of pet stuff. I might be losing that one, Piers. There you go. No, I mentioned before, we reviewed on the Foss show, the Animo a couple of years ago. We still use it on one dog. She's older. I think she had one seizure that we were concerned

about, but I think it was a fluke. And I'm concerned, especially with her being older, just monitoring what she's doing. And the beautiful thing to my understanding about your products is with the monitoring, you can see if there's some sort of aberration or a change in the dog's behavior that maybe shows it might be under some stress or might have some health issues. And maybe you can get a jump on this before you really notice them. That's absolutely right. And that's the core of all our products is understanding the day-to-day normal for your pet. Every pet is unique. Every pet has different behaviours and routines, but our products help you to understand and know your pet's individual nature better through monitoring. And it does then help you to perhaps pick up those changes. They might be subtle changes to start with. They might be changes that without a monitoring device would

take you longer to pick up on, particularly in the midst of busy day-to-day lives. You may not notice those subtle changes to start with and noticing them later can potentially have consequences from a health perspective. So really, it's exactly as you've said, is to understand the normals for your pet and actually how they change as your pet ages, as your pet goes through life as well. So that's absolutely what we're about. Yeah. And you guys make products for both cats and dogs. We reviewed your pet doors where they have, and what's cool about them is they,

raccoons or some sort of other animal can't get in because it's got to coded with the thing around there. That's like a microchip, right? It's coded in there. You guys make feeders that do the same similar thing. And you guys got a new product that you're featuring at CES. Tell us about that. We do.

This year, we are really pleased to introduce Falakwa Connect. That's the newest in our connected product range. It is a connected water bowl for cats. So you mentioned we've already got a number of other connected products. This is joining that ecosystem of products that we have specifically for it connects into the same app. So if you already have the Sure Pet Care app to perhaps monitor your pet's feeding behavior, for example, or to control their access through the pet door, then this just connects into the same app and enables you to then monitor a number of different sort of behavioral elements in one place. And it delivers fresh water too? It does, yes. So it's in lieu of a standard water bowl or perhaps a water fountain

that your cat may already have, but it has the added benefit of monitoring your cat's water intake as well. And I guess it's common sense to think, obviously it's important to know how much your cat is drinking, make sure that they're drinking enough fresh water. But again, I think it's something that in the midst of our day-to to day lives, we're not really paying attention to how much our cats are drinking. We know when we've asked cat owners, do you know how much your cat is drinking? Most of the time they have no clue. I just put a bowl of water down. Isn't that enough? But in actual fact, those changes in drinking behaviour that can occur as a particularly as a cat age ages can be early indicators of the onset of certain health conditions,

including diabetes, kidney disease and so on. We know that cats are very good at masking signs of illness. And so often by the time a pet parent notices these changes, the cat could well be quite advanced in a certain illness such as diabetes or kidney disease, for example. So we're really hoping that by adding this water monitoring element to our ecosystem, it's going to provide pet owners with that earlier warning if it's needed. And even if it's not needed, then it's just a really great water bowl and certainly one that we've designed to be very cat friendly

so that your feline friend should really enjoy drinking from it as well. There you go. You got to make those cats happy because they can be finicky. My dogs don't care about anything. They're just whatever. But yeah, cats are finicky. But I learned this with my dog and it turns out when animals start developing cancer, it increases the, I forget what it is in their blood, but increases, oh, it's the bone stuff.

Anyway, it increases the stuff in their blood that they start drinking a lot of water to try and offset the amount of stuff that's being put into their blood. I think it's calcium. And the calcium is designed to kill the livers and kidneys and the organs. And so usually when I've talked to people or give them advice on how we extended the life of my dog that got cancer, that's usually one of the first signs that there's cancer in the animal. And so, yeah, if you have an animal that starts drinking like a fish and they just cannot, they're just deep drinking and drinking, it can be an early sign of that. And like you said, other things. You guys won something at CES already. Tell us what that is. Yeah, we're delighted that the product has been selected as an honoree in the smart home category

this year for the CES Innovations Awards. We're really thrilled. Last time we were actually at the event itself two years ago before COVID, we won the same award for our feeder, which is in the same range. So it's great to get the double on that. Yeah, being able to monitor the animals, and that's what's great. You guys have a whole host of different products that people can do. What are some of the insights that the app will tell people about so it will in fact i feel as if i'm doing a lot of talking peers perhaps you want to step in as you design the thing why don't you so the app so we've got one app that you connect all the same products to so the the feeder the pet doors and full aqua connect and that then puts all of the data for each pet onto a dashboard where you can

see the amount of time they spent outside, the amount of food they've eaten and the amount of water they've drunk. In terms of the insights that you get, you can get a breakdown of what they've done each day, week, month, and even longer than that over the last few years, obviously, once you're running the products. And the types of things that you can see are the amount of time that they've spent eating, the number of times that they've gone to the products. And the types of things that you can see are the amount of time that they've spent eating, the number of times that they've gone to the feeder. And then the same with falakwa, you can see how much water they're drinking

at each time they go to the product and then the totals for each day. So earlier, Chris, you were mentioning about increased drinking. One of the great things in the application is it's broken down by pet because the product's able to identify which pet has gone to it.

It can attribute the water consumption to that specific pet. Because the product's able to identify which pet has gone to it, it can attribute the water consumption to that specific pet. So rather than you just knowing that your bowl's becoming empty and not knowing which one of your cats is drinking all the water, now which one's drinking all the water. And that's really the thing. 24-7 monitoring gives you the insight as the pet owner. So they wear a microchip on their collar and that's how the bull knows? So we've got two ways of identifying the animal. You can wear a collar tag. So that's on the, like a little RFID collar tag that comes with a number of our products,

or you can get them on our website. The other way and the way that we really encourage people to do it is using the microchip that's implanted in the back of the animal's neck by the veterinarian. Yes. Yeah. That's exactly how we suggest people do this. So that's the basis of all of our technologies, that we take that veterinary implanted microchip, you pair it with the device set up, and that's what tells you which animal is there.

And obviously, that's completely unique to each animal. So there's no chance of getting that wrong. That's brilliant, because that was one of the things that masked my one dog who had developed cancer. That's what masked me from really seeing what the problem was because I was like, the water's gone. We're going through a lot of water lately. But there's two of them. So you're like, I don't know which one's having the problem.

And then I started watching and I'm like, she really drinks like a fish. And yeah, if you have multiple animals, it's hard to tell which one's the one, but that's brilliant. And then of course the app works across all of your products. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is pretty awesome. And you guys have already won the award at the show, which is pretty nice. What are some of the, what are some of the other things people can find on the app? You basically have your own ecosystem of different things that people can do with your app. So I think in addition to the monitoring and some of the key insights that Piers has talked about that you can see from the app, you can also control the products from the app as well. For example, the doors, you're able to lock and unlock them. You're able to set curfews so you can specify which time you know your pets can come and go from

the home you can there are all sorts of other additional things like that that you can control as well as monitor but i think taking the three together as well i think particularly feeding and drinking that the power of the ecosystem is when you use those two together you'll get a really a complete picture then when you're looking at both feeding and drinking for individual pets there you go and you also and i think it's one of the things that our customers really love is the notifications when the cats had their dinner when they've come back in at night it's so you can choose which ones you get and then you can be connected with your pet regardless of which business meeting you're in you can see that they've got home safe. If there's a snowstorm coming

and they decided to come home early, you can tell that. Yeah, that's another great feature that people really enjoy. And speaking from personal experience, I have a cat that has Oscar-winning acting skills that can pretend she hasn't been fed for hours when actually my husband fed her an hour ago

and she's just cleaned the bowl. I can now check in the app and be sure. They're like kids. They like to work with parents right yeah that's funny i i need one of those for my treat payouts to my dogs because every time i go in the kitchen they come in they're like treat time and i'm like but no i'm just in the kitchen and i there are some times where i've been like i'm pretty sure they're living off the treats i'm giving them because I'm giving way too many treats. All animals have developed those wonderful eyes of, you haven't fed me today, have you? It's like genetically bred in for years.

The puppy dog eyes, you can't beat that. So you guys sell the Fel Aqua just as its own or with an internet hub, looks like, according to the website. Yes, that's right. It does come with a hub, and the hub is required to obviously pair the device to the app. But the good news is it's just one hub per household that you can then use to connect all of those products that we talked about. So if you want to have a door, a feeder, and a falakwa, for example, you can connect them all through the same. There you go.

And then it looks like you guys also, according to the website, work with veterinarians to sell your products and market them at their clinics. That's always a good thing. Absolutely, we do. We also work very closely with veterinarians to develop the falacqua connect as well. So as you mentioned, we know that our feline friends can sometimes be a little fussy about what they take to and what they don't. A lot of work went into the cat friendly elements of the product design as well. And that was very much in conjunction with working with veterinary and animal behavior specialists. Yeah. You don't want you want the cat to be frightened by whatever.

And the product specifically designed in that way. So the bowl's very shallow, and the material that we've used and the colors that we've used allow the water to be very visible to the cat, whilst then the rest of the product with the reservoir for water is all clear and see-through, allowing them to see if anybody's coming near them. So you get kind of a benefit of the water that they're supposed to drink, very visible to them, and then they can also feel very secure and safe whilst drinking because they can see everything going on around them and make sure they're not going to, in their minds, they're obviously not going to be attacked in their own home. But in their minds, that's what cats are thinking is, am I safe to drink here? Am I safe to do these things? And we all know they like to hide up high. So when they're coming down to drink, it's important to feel safe and secure.

There you go. I was going to say i actually have the product here i realize we're talking and i can it's always somewhat difficult on a webcam but here we have the product so as pierce explained we've got this really nice shallow open bowl which is very inviting for cats they don't like anything that rubs too much on their whiskers as they drink so this is nice and shallow and open here and pierce talked you through all of the testing we did with the bowl material to make sure that it has that nice contact angle with the water makes it more visible to the cats

we've got this open area in the back here because they we know they don't like putting their heads into enclosed spaces we really have thoughts about every element. Somebody else joined in the conversation that day. I think you're Alexa. You'll notice that there was no cables coming out of the product either. So all of our products are battery powered, six months battery life at least, which means that you can place them anywhere in the home. So finding the right spot for your specific cat, then that makes that very easy and there's no trip hazards and things like that.

That's really important. I've been setting up cameras for this ES show, so I know where my dogs are up to. They're staying home for this trip. And yeah, running cables are such a pain in the butt to try and get them in the right place. So I really like that where it runs on batteries. There's never a power outlet where you need it, right? That's true. That's true. and of course you you wouldn't want the power to go out maybe if you're traveling and the power goes out and they can't get water so that's really important too the what anything else we want to touch on what you guys are doing or promoting during the show i think really this is the main product that we are promoting this

year at ces obviously we've been developing out this ecosystem as we said for four or five years so i can say we have some more exciting things coming very soon where we certainly have got a vision where you know ultimately we we will be monitoring you know any element that could potentially impact on a pet's health and well-being so we're covering off feeding and drinking but we certainly have many more plans coming there you you go. And it holds up to a liter of water. So that's pretty good too. That probably lasts a while with a cat. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's going to last for several days. We know lots of people like to go away perhaps overnight, leave their cats at home and obviously leave out enough food and water and

so on for a weekend. That's certainly, it will hold enough water for that, even if you've got more than one cat in the house as well. That's awesome. That's awesome. Guys, thanks for coming on the show. Give us your plugs, your dot-coms for people to look you guys up on the interwebs. Yeah, sure. If you'd like to find out more, please do visit our website.

It's surepetcare.com. That's S-U-R-E, petcare.com. And you'll be able to find out more about the Phylacro Connect. We've got some great videos on there that show the products in action and so on. So please do visit. There you go. Thanks for coming on the show, both of you. Thank you very much.

Great. Thanks so much, Chris. It's been great to talk to you. Great to talk to you. Guys, watch for this. If you have dogs or cats, it's a great place to go check out their products. Like I say, we've reviewed their pet doors. You can find those in the Chris Voss Show, our original interview with our CEO in 2019 on the Chris Voss Show.

And we'll probably be reviewing more of their products as the time goes by. Anyway, guys, that should give us a wrap here. Be sure to check out Sure Pet Care at CES 2022. Watch for all the different interviews we're going to have. I think there's about two or three more today. And all the interviews we're going to be doing during the show. So it's going to be really exciting. We'll be posting lots of pictures and broadcasts.

Go to all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, all those places that we play. Go to goodreads.com, 4Chess, Chris Foss for my books out on Amazon. And also go to youtube.com, 4Chess, Chris Foss, because you'll want to see all the cool videos that we're going to have from CES. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

And we'll see you guys next time.