Today is the official 11-year anniversary of Evermore’s incorporation. Turning 10 last year felt like a major milestone, but these ladies go up to 11… and beyond. Last year for our tenth anniversary, the East Coast half of the company (aka Hanna and Erin) flew out to meet Alison at the kitchen in California, so we could all attend the employee appreciation brunch we host there every year. We were planning to make this pilgrimage an annual tradition, but as you know, 2020 had other plans.
While we have accomplished a lot over the past 11 years, we are also very much defined by the steps we didn’t take, the opportunities we didn’t chase, and the things we got wrong. So, in the spirit of foiled plans, we thought we’d share some of our favorite failures, and how over time, many of them turned out to be our keys to success.
Plan? What Plan?
This failure wasn’t so much a failure of plan as a failure to plan. Evermore started under such strange circumstances (you can read the full story here), and we leapt in wholeheartedly, with total naivete. Upon embarking, more savvy business people would have set in place clear benchmarks and cut their losses early on; instead, we plodded away with perfect faith that one day things would work out. We had (and still have) such an unwavering belief in the quality and value of our food that we were positive the world would catch on, despite having no idea how to make that happen.
Ignorance Is Not Bliss
Once we did develop a clue that we were clueless, we decided that we needed investors and advisors, to financially ensure the growth of the company and provide us with the expertise we lacked. We got as far as starting to sign contracts before finally listening to the muffled screams of our inner voices. We wanted to make the best dog food ever—not profits for people with no attachment to our mission or product. We scuttled the deal and our chances at significant early financing. Along those lines, we never pursued going on Shark Tank, despite every friend and stranger urging us to do so. Another younger company in our category took that chum. We have no regrets. Over the years we have clawed our way to self-sufficiency. We were initially fortunate to have friends-and-family loans, and through careful money management, have always done a lot with a little. When we couldn’t afford graphic and web design services, we learned enough to do almost everything ourselves (rest assured we never tried doing our own lab testing). Out of necessity, we have always worked from home, long before doing so was a norm. That said, we have failed to strike it rich.
Old Ways in a New World
When we started out, there were very few online direct-to-consumer perishable food brands (Omaha Steaks, anyone?). While we had the courage to make a brand new type of product, we didn’t have the vision to figure out the best way to get it to customers. So, we followed the known path and launched as a wholesale brand, relying on orders from retailers. We managed to jump into distribution very early on because our passion for Evermore was infectious and what we offered was novel and different. However, it’s one thing for a two-person, unfunded business to win over an executive or retailer in a meeting, it’s another to build brand awareness and drive sales in over 100 stores,
along an entire coast, with no budget, and an additional slice of one’s revenue going to a distributor. We ran ourselves ragged running sampling events trying to support sales. For a variety of reasons, it just didn’t work. In late 2015, we took a leap of faith and decided to pull out of distribution. We shifted our focus to direct-to-consumer online sales, while continuing to support retailers within physical proximity to either of us. This transition was difficult and the overall lesson was expensive, but in the end, it saved our company and positioned us to weather the storms of 2020.
Kissing Frogs
The second most important relationship we have as a company—after the one we have with each other—is with our production facility. When we started this wild ride 11 years ago—and even up to five years ago—we were considered to be an unusual type of dog food (fresh but not raw! cooked but not canned! human-edible?!?), and most USDA-inspected kitchens that could make our food didn’t like the optics of making dog food. We endured a lot of awkward dates (meetings) and had to kiss more than a handful of frogs (kitchens) before we found “the one.” While the quality of the food we made in any of our previous kitchens was never in question, they were just not marriage material. We have now been with our current kitchen for more than five years and view them as true partners. They are good people, and they are transparent and as committed to the integrity of our products as we are. As they say in love, eighth time's a charm. ;)
This year has been by no means easy, but it could have been much more difficult if we hadn’t learned so many lessons the hard way. Having failed forward for more than a decade allowed us to be well-positioned to handle the challenges the pandemic has presented, and for this we are grateful. Twelve years ago we were strangers. Neither of us could have ever imagined that we’d be at the helm of a dog food company at all, let alone with each other, for eleven years. Now, we can’t imagine doing anything else, with anyone else.