Anja Skodda: Learning and trying new things and getting better. It's always really an intention. I love to learn new stuff.

James Lacey: Our guest today is Anja Skoda, CEO of HappyBond, whose journey began when she helped her own dog, Tony, recover from arthritis. Anja created HappyBond to help pets live longer, healthier lives. Join us to learn how she's redefining wellness for pets with HappyBond.

Anja Skodda: Well, as the name says, it's a HappyBond, and this one is between you and your pets. We are aiming to extend the health span to have them live longer and have more time to spend with them in a healthy way. Even if your dog gets older, but maybe get sick, so we're trying to avoid that and make that time of being healthy and not suffering from any disease much longer. 

So we, getting back to those 15, 16 years that you can spend with your pet. Originally, I’m a scientist, a biotech engineer. So I worked in, tissue engineering for cartilage at the time, rheumatoid arthritis research, and had a bulldog Tony, who was everything. He's before my daughter was born. He's like this child and he was about eight years old. He loved to skateboard as a lazy breed, but he really loved skateboarding and he got arthritis in his shoulder and I wasn't able to skateboard. He got really depressed. So being in that field of research and arthritis, I created a supplement for him, to bring him back within a week, which was surprising.

And it was kind of the start and kickoff on the journey when I saw other dogs getting better and how happy people were to see their dogs being active again and even standing up. And to that point that, it just changed their life, that's what I thought, I really want to do that. I want to help people to enjoy that time with their pets and help dogs, cats, potentially dog, horses in the future, to just be able to move without issues and without pain.

James Lacey: Yeah, that's a powerful gift to be able to give. What would you say to somebody that's in the position of experiencing a solution to a problem that they've been walking to, similar to yourself and then having to actually convert that into a business or a brand or a product. I feel like that is a huge gap in a lot of people's minds and they go, ah, I should do this, this is working, but how do I go from step zero to step a hundred? What would you say to that person to encourage them?

Anja Skodda: I was fortunate, I had another product before that happened that I also brought from idealization to commercialization. In the beverage space, which was very different, but I would say, you have the idea, and most of the time it comes from a problem that you're facing yourself, like me, but many founders have that thing like, oh, this should be better.

I'm facing this issue. Why can I not solve that? But to make it a product that you bring out, I think it's baby steps, right? You prototype it at home. You're trying it out on small scale. If you can, do something in the food space, you can mix it together in the beverage space, before you actually go into the next step of branding, building a brand, finding a name, finding the packaging.

And then the next is really bringing it in scale and producing it somewhere. I think there are many baby steps to get to the point where you actually hand off the project and say, and now someone is producing it for me and I just get the finished product here it is, and now I can sell it, to be really, finished good product to have it, bring it onto the shelf.

I think it's a long process, but it's actually not that complicated and it's, very much, universal. It doesn't really matter what product you have, if it's clothes, food, or there's just different, restrictions, different authorities to deal with, and different manufacturing parties.

But if you want to bring out yoga pants, you will have to manufacture them somewhere to and build a brand and find a name and the trademark. So for me, it was since I'm coming from the science background, I'm also very much into protecting my IP. So we started early on doing trademarks patents. So we now have two granted US patents or maybe three by now and, one pending.

So there's a lot you can do. And I think that's one thing that I really, I was really fortunate to meet, an attorney in the IP space very early on. That is working with startups that doesn't have to have a big retainer or upfront payment. And who very early on told me like, you should do this and taught me the right direction.

“Do you want to do like a, how to protect you? Is it a patent? Is it a trade secret?” There's so many ways of protecting your IP. And if to have someone that can help you through that, I think that's one important step to get a product to market.

James Lacey: Yeah, it's interesting to hear the importance of what people call, I think, building a moat or, building a level of protection to your brand or business.

That is something I've heard before. How does somebody limited capital, as they're just getting going or even as you scale, is that like a constant thing that you're having to update as you grow and as you innovate, and also an increased cost as you grow. Yeah, what would you say, from both levels to that person that's perhaps limited capital, how they can go about that?

“I can't afford an attorney. How am I going to build these patents or file these trademarks?” All the way up to, perhaps somebody that's needing to constantly innovate and add to them.

Anja Skodda: I would say I was always, having no capital. We're used to that and I think many founders are, and especially when you start, investors want to see revenue.

They don't want to many times are not really sold on the idea. If you're not very early pre-revenue, it's always sometimes better than getting to the revenue but raising money. But I would say that's what I mean, you need to find an attorney that is actually startup-friendly.

Many of them say, “Oh yeah, I would love to help you. Our retainer is 5k and we will use that for the hours”, but who has that laying around when you just start your business to really put that on an attorney for what you might as well want to spend that in product development. This group I've been working with for a long time now, they don't take an upfront fee and they split the payments if it has to be in 24 months.

So that's why we've been able to get all these patents within a couple of years. Because it takes time and there's a lot of follow up and answering the patents and register that. And so you need someone that can do it, but I would say we paid over time a certain amount, but it was really not painful for the company because it was so little in steps.

That is something that I was very happy that we found him and his company and he’s specializing in startups. So also talking to someone that maybe there is nothing to protect. It's not right for every company to protect your IP, but a trademark for your name and brand, definitely. I think that is the minimum you should do.

And that's not that expensive, depending on if you want it worldwide, maybe that could get pricey, but just in the area you're playing with, you should definitely do that. Find the right website, all these little pieces that you're not necessarily thinking of when you have an idea with a product, you think Oh, the most important is I have to bring the product out and make it perfect, but everything around it is as important.

Like you need the good name, catchy packaging, the story, it has to be sold at least. And, that's how you get your customers, but all that depends, I always say a brand guideline is something that startups do very late in the journey, which actually it should be done very early. Because it got placed through the scenario of what's your vision, your mission, what do you want to achieve?

How does it look? What are your colors? What is the voice, the tone of your company? It's something that is, I think, costly and many startups don't do it until they're in a later stage.

James Lacey: That's interesting. I was actually given a comment on how beautiful your website is. And yeah, and so it's, interesting that you even reference the importance of brand guidelines because clearly just purely a cold approach to me looking at HappyBonds website, I've experienced what you put into practice. 

And so I have, yeah, I've actually heard a couple of people say that, over the past few years, but it's not often. And yeah, I think it makes a difference, especially to people that just come across it very organically. And so when you stand out and when you have clarity of brand and clarity of identity, I think it just sets you apart from the crowd.

Anja Skodda: Yeah. I always think like it's a design thing and it has to, you have to like it too. But what is more important is that it's catchy enough to remember. I'm always thinking about the Nike swoosh, like people know. 

Of course they had to come up with it at some point. It wasn't there from the beginning and it's something people remember and the tagline and they go through with their branding.

I mean, that's like a big company, but there are a lot of startup brands too, that are really great with that. And it's the recognition. If you don't have a good name or a good recognition of a label or logo, it's much harder because the marketing people see things five seconds and then the next, so it has to be something that gets, that's sticky.

James Lacey: That's sticky, I like that. That's a good use of that word. I haven't heard that in that context before. What inspires you or, motivates you as a founder, either in context with HappyBond or just generally as a businesswoman?

Anja Skodda: With HappyBond, it's definitely my passion for pets. I just love animals, dogs, cats, horses, that's my dream goal in life to just live on a farm. We see many people do have horses and dogs and rescue them and, help them have a better life. That's a big passion to see the stories of our customers, how great their dogs are doing on our food, on the collagen. So, that is one, big driver for me to continue, even if it gets hard. 

But then you get this one message, “My God, my dog loves this food, I'm so happy. I found you. Thank you for doing this.” And you're like, okay, you continue. So sometimes it just takes that little to just, get out of this, “Oh, it's so hard” because it is not easy, right? Entrepreneurship is not what people think. Oh, you have free time and you can do whatever you want and build a million-dollar business and sell it.

That's the short version, but there's a long path, and not everyone succeeds. There has to be a lot of failures in between to get to where you want to be. And then as a businesswoman, for me, learning and like trying new things and getting better and stuff, it's always really an intention.

I love to learn new stuff. I was really interested in marketing, which on my science education, I didn't really do, but I always thought. Science is sold so complicated, right? When I talked to people, when I worked in this tissue engineering space, the conversation was one minute and then they left. It's okay, not interesting.

It's too much. So how do you package this into something that can be interesting and that people want to talk about? And it's easy package. And it wasn't easy for me in the beginning to explain the collagen product in a consumer way, instead of the science way. So that learning process and learning marketing, and understand what marketing can do and how big that word marketing, there's so many different pieces to it.

I think that was, I was very intrigued to learn more and I'm going a lot to marketing conferences and summits to learn and was fortunate to work with some really good people and have advisors that are from that space. But I think that's something that, because I didn't have that in my education that I really was intrigued to learn.

So as a businesswoman, I love to learn and to meet new people, network, help other founders, I'm really enjoying that, connecting people wherever I can help. That's something that brings me joy and hope to see someone succeed and have an easier time when you start off and you don't have a network.

Since I moved here, I didn't study here, so I didn't have a network when I moved here. And I think LA or in general, the US is very open to help you and help startups connect. And there's not this bias of, oh, I don't connect these people unless I'm involved. That's very much the case in Europe, from what I experienced. I feel here, it's a much more open environment to help each other.

James Lacey: Hey, I entirely agree that. Yeah, touching on what motivates you as a businesswoman a little bit. It was interesting to hear what you said. A lot of the time you hear people say, stay in your own lane or, what you're good at and just like delegate, delegate, delegate.

And of course that is important, but hearing you, it's interesting hearing you say the draw to learn marketing and to become good at it and to grow and in these different areas and then have network and work with different people. It also reminds me of like accountants saying you should still understand your books and just not hand it off.

And so is there anything you'd add onto that as far as the balance between stay what you're gifted in, or, what your passion is, or yeah, or adding into it. No, I need to grow in this area. I need to learn this. I also need to be able to implement in this side of the business as well.

Anja Skodda: Well don't get me wrong, I do understand that you stay in your lane, but there's a time in a founder's life, especially in the beginning where you wear every hat. It's not like I can just snap and have a CMO and a, CFO that just take care of the stuff that I don't, I'm not as good as. So I think you should learn every piece of the business.

It doesn't mean that you're the best at it, but you understand the basics. So as you say, you should understand your numbers and your accounting because an investor will ask you that you cannot just say, Oh, just talk to my accountant. No, you’re the CEO, you’re running this company, you have to understand your numbers as well as I need to understand if my CMO comes and said, Oh, this is the marketing strategy.

We're going to run. I, at least I want to have an opinion and understand that this is the right way so I can relate to it. So I'm not saying, you should educate yourself in being the pro in every corner that probably won't happen, and everyone has different talents, but until you get there and even when you get there, you want to be able to understand the talent you hired and you want to understand what they’re doing. And so I feel like at least a general overview of every part of the business you need to have.

I always say, if you start working for us, you have to be able to fulfill the orders too. You need to see what goes into this package because if a customer calls, you got to answer the customer call and they, you don't even know what's in the package. Like you need to understand the whole journey of the product and ideally even see the manufacturing plant. And, we even make them eat our food.

James Lacey: Wow.

Anja Skodda: It's human-grade though. Don't worry.

James Lacey: I was going to say eat the dog food.

That's part of the application process. That's wow. I love that because it gives people, how can people communicate your brand genuinely and with accuracy as well, without knowing it, inside and out or from A to Z or A to Z as they say here. Yeah, so I think that's brilliant.

Is there any, suggestions or anything that you've learned over time as far as daily routine goes that helps you stay focused on the business or just to keep going? I know because it's a long journey and I think a lot of people can get very tired and worrisome. Yeah, any suggestions or things you put along the way?

Anja Skodda: I'm fortunate enough to walk my dogs every morning to kick off the day. And that's, it's like an oxytocin boost, because you spend time with your pets, and be out in air and exercise. I'm a big fan of exercising, so I probably, I try to do that at least an hour a day somehow, if the minimum is walking, that's it, but if possible more. That keeps me balanced and lowers distress level, and plan your day, right?

It should always be a little time for yourself. And if you are getting stuck and it gets boring, just put in a day for you and just be creative. Like I always love to, when we used to live in Europe, you could just go to Paris for a day, which is very cheap when you live there and just stroll around.

But even here, go somewhere where you can maybe get, out and get different things, different environment and more influenced by other things. I think that always helped me. But yeah, I probably walk my dogs and spend time with them to really stay balanced and spend time with my family.

I think there should be boundaries too on the weekends, which I wasn't very good in the beginning. I would work crazy hours and in the end, it's not really good for you. And, it comes and haunts you in the end. So I feel like keeping boundaries and the weekend to family and friends and do something fun and try to limit your work and work calls on the weekend.

I know sometimes, there's this investor that is only in town on Sunday and you got to meet them. And I know I've been there many times, but try. I think it should be at least in the books that no Friday at whatever, three, four, five, I'm off and I'm back on maybe Sunday afternoon. I love to see my meetings for the week and get some stuff out of the way, Sunday evening, but most of the time, Monday and that's a fresh week start. 

So I think that keeping those breaks and that, balance, work-life-balance that everyone talks about is different for every, anyone, right? You cannot, maybe some people don't have dogs. They don't like to have a pet, but then spend time with friends, go running, do something for yourself, at least once a day. I think that's important.

James Lacey: I love that. I think that's great advice. Is there a mistake that you've experienced in your business or businesses and what have you learned?

Anja Skodda: I've done a lot of mistakes, you learn from it, from the wrong investors, to the wrong people hired. If you don't come from the experience of having a company before or don't have a co-founder, I think that's another thing that if I would do it again, maybe I would try to find a co-founder. It is nice to not have that problem that you don't have to have a conflict, but ideally this other person would help, right? And be there for you and complete you with other things that they're good at. I just never, it was never meant that I had a co-founder.

So I think that's something that I probably would enjoy. Also, if someone would ask me if I'm in the right space, I never intended to be like, Oh, I want to be in CPG and consumer packing 'cause if I would have known what comes with it, I probably would have founded a tech company. That would be much better, easier, but here we are.

So there's a, that's just not a way to go and yeah, otherwise I think hiring your team, it can be really, bringing your business down or up. We never really had the capital, which is one thing that I feel like, capital race is one thing that you really have to do from morning till evening and it never stops.

It's not, Oh, we raised our round and now we have to know, but then you're already thinking about the next round and having a team that can execute while you go out again to warm up that conversation for investors. I just never had that opportunity yet to get to that point. So I feel that I would have done different next time.

I probably would have not brought out too many products. Like I did, we have 15 SKUs and I think I should have stayed with six. It was just too much innovation. And, timing is another thing. The collagen, for example, was way too early on the market in a time when nobody really knew what collagen was.

It was the CBD boom, where everyone was like, Oh, that's the magic ingredient now that will cure everything. And collagen was neglected. Then HIP came very modern in the human space, and now it moves into the pet space. So I was very early with a lot of products, I invented.

So I feel like if I would have the cash, I probably would have waited two years to launch it. It's always, it's sometimes nicer to have someone to.. not be the first.

James Lacey:Yeah. Yes, very much so

Anja Skodda: So, on the food side, I jumped on a train that was already there. So there were others that were first bringing people from kibble dry food to fresh human-grade food. We just made it better. It is a shelf stable now with no preservatives and it's a sustainably packaged in a glass jar. So you don't have plastic anymore. You don't use a freezer, so that's the technology we have a patent pending on, but it just made the fresh human-grade frozen food better, more convenient, healthier, and sustainable.

But someone was first already that kind of paved the way and did a good job from educating people from kibble to a healthier food options.

James Lacey: It's a very interesting conversation point of somebody else already paving the way. Cause it really does take a lot to pioneer something. You're the one that's breaking through all the doors and the walls and then having to educate consumer or the market. 

Yeah, and very challenging to even fathom waiting to launch a product that, it works so that you've seen, but then having to just sit on something and say, I got to wait for the market to catch up. Is there anything you would say about the balance between leading a market change or as crazy as that sounds, or, waiting. I know you just touched on that, but, yeah, if somebody's in that place right now, they're like, man, I think this could maybe be hitting in two years, but I have the answer right now. Would you say to that person, wait, or keep going?

Anja Skodda: I always, I didn't wait. I always wanted to bring it to market. I would say if you have enough capital, go for it. The capital is the part because it just costs you more. It is great and I'm always, and don't get me wrong. Even though we have a product that kind of piggybacks on another path of wet food, we still have to educate and we still have a new category that we brought to life.

It's hard enough with that innovation. I'm just saying okay, you want to create a totally different mindset of people that is hard and that's costly and hopefully you're not the only one. Thank God they had other startups moving in the same direction. So it was a whole movement, but if it's something totally new, yes, everyone should always go for it, that's entrepreneurship and we want innovation more than anything. I just think it's hard to get, it's probably even harder to get capital and to have enough capital, to succeed. And it might take longer, but I would always go for it. And you never know, maybe you meet the right person the next day that funds the whole brand and it works out, but it can take longer.

And you have to think about people's mind. It takes time for them to understand something new and accept it.

James Lacey: Leadership can be a pretty lonely place at times. As you become a founder and as you grow in business and then also have the family. How do you stay sane or how do you stay connected to the outside world? I know you talk about walking with the dogs, so maybe that might be an answer. But yeah, on that journey of experiencing maybe some level of isolation being a founder, being a leader, are there any answers that you recommendations that you have for others of how to stay connected to others in the outside world.

Anja Skodda: I think it's really important to run ideas for others that are not in your business, that are like outside, but maybe aren't in businesses as well. So I've built a big network of female founders and female friends that are supporting in every age group, young, older, they've done a lot of stuff and they're very well connected and it gives you a different perspective when you talk to them.

And I try to at least once a week do like a girl's night out or something. Some of them and, run ideas by them and, just tell them and it's, sometimes it's not about the business question. It's more about how are you? Are you dealing with this? Are you okay? And they get your mind off it.

Like you when you have a business problem, you think the world is going to be ending for you and everything is really bad, but then you see your friends and you kind of, my God, it's just a business, there's a life outside of that. And, that you can do other things. So I feel that's important to get perspective, to build like a squad that will always cheer for you because they're not going to be disappointed.

They're not going to say, Oh my God, you didn't make it. They more like, how can we help and connect you to the right people.

James Lacey: Out of curiosity. is there anything right now that you guys are experiencing that is making it difficult to grow? Is there a roadblock to scaling to go to the next level? You're trying to reach something. what would you, yeah, what would you say to that?

Anja Skodda: We just had a big roadblock, which was our supply chain. It took us because we have a very specific product. As I said, it's shelf-stable. So it's a vacuum seal technology that not everyone can manufacture. And it was very hard for us to find a manufacturing partner.

One shut down last year that couldn't scale with us. And then we found the perfect one that shut down this April. So it's been we've been scaling. We worked a lot on getting people to buy our product. They love it. And if you then have a supply chain issue where we couldn't find a secondary one in that short timing, that kind of, throws a big roadblock into the business growth.

And it's out of your hand. On the other hand, it's not because yes, looking back, we should have had a second option from the start, but we couldn't find it. Now we move on with that and we found a new option and we are in production next week. But being out of stock for so long and, especially with dog food, we, thank God we have very good customers and we kept the conversation.

They love the product so much that they waiting. and even the stores, they said, this is their best seller. They’re just waiting for the new production, but hopefully we can have that fixed and, with that roadblock, obviously comes a capital shortage. If you're out of revenue for four, five months, it's, never good for a startup and raising money with no revenue is also not a good combination.

So we have been in a tough spot for six months. We had a, have a lead investor that, helped us out, but still, I'm hoping in two months we will have a different story to tell.

James Lacey: I'm sure you will. It'll be a big comeback. Just to wrap up, I think it'd be interesting to hear if faith plays a part in your decision-making at all.

I don't know if that means anything to you, whether it's faith inbGod or faith, in yourself. but yet, does faith play a part in, your decision-making as you're leading the business?

Anja Skodda: I do believe there's a bigger force out there. I wouldn't put a name on it for me, but, it definitely, I do look a lot at the universe and how the stars and constellations are, and I feel there's a big influence in life, but I also believe that you shouldn't just sit there and wait, like you have to act on it and there are certain times when you can do these things and shouldn't do that, just go with the flow on that.

But they definitely believe there's something guiding us. And, I wouldn't call it luck, but luck is definitely a part of success because if you meet the right person at the right time, everything can change. So I think, but I think you can also be responsible for that luck because if you sit at home, nobody's going to knock at your door, put yourself out there and tell people.

So I think there are two parts of that. And, I think just generally be a good person, try to help people and give back. That's one big thing for me that I've tried to love to do to give back. And, also maybe that's another, question, but I think you, mentioned with the businesswoman, I also, what also keeps me going is being a role model for my daughter.

I want her to see that, you can run a business, you can bring the money in and the family and be independent and still have a fun life. So I think she needs to see that, but that's one part. But faith, yeah, in a way.

James Lacey: Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've ever received?

Anja Skodda: We have a quote on our website from Pippi Longstocking that I love. It's, “I've never done that, I'll probably be really good at it.”, so that's, is Astrid Lindgren, it's a Swedish author. Yeah, I, only encourage every dog owner to look on the label. Of each food item you're giving your dog, really read it and whenever there's a word you don't understand, you shouldn't feed it.

So just make it simple. It will go back to what they used to eat and just, you will enhance their life if you do this and you will save money on veterinarian costs. So even if the food, the fresh food side is more expensive, I just think it's worth it, just for the longer life and the healthier pet, the more moments you can enjoy with them.

So that's one recommendation. And I hope that pet parents are waking up more and more on, what they were feeding their dogs before and got the industry put in this food, but they shouldn't do. And you can learn all about that, and we have a lot of educational content on HappyBond.com where you can go into healthspan for Mind Body Play where we have a lot of content and blogs and educational stuff to scroll through and text us if you have any other issues or any other questions with nutrition for your pet. We have a lot of experts on the team that are happy to help.

James Lacey: That's awesome. Thank you so much. And yeah, for your time, for your wisdom, honestly, this was super interesting and I learned a ton myself. And so I know a lot of other people will too. Yeah, thank you so much for being with us today. That is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast, and we will see you next time.

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