july-august 2013 - dog fashion...many dog owners their furry friends deserve the highest level of...

July-August 2013 CONTENTS

www.exceptionalmag.com

Cover Design by Jeff Hayes

Extraordinary Profiles

42 Domenico Ponti & Elena Volnova —Taking Canine Fashions to a New Level

Inspiration

50 Come On, It’s Not Over, You Have Another Good One Left

52 Financially Speaking: We Must Leave a Legacy

The Lighter Side 55 Enough or Too Much?

56 Puzzles and Funnies

57 Recipes

59 Profile Resources

60 Writers and Contributors

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;

this is knowledge. this is knowledge. this is knowledge.

ConfuciusConfuciusConfucius

Domenico Ponti & Elena VolnovaDomenico Ponti & Elena VolnovaDomenico Ponti & Elena Volnova

Taking Canine Fashions to a New Level Taking Canine Fashions to a New Level Taking Canine Fashions to a New Level


Let’s face it, the four-legged pooch has become a part of the family in millions of homes across the country and the world. In the eyes of many dog owners their furry friends deserve the highest level of pampering. Dog Fashion Spa, a New York based startup, is poised to take the pet industry by storm. They have developed a signature collection of spa products that dog-lovers have been awaiting, including fragrances and products for fur and paw care, as well as exquisite gift sets for dogs. After investing about two years of research and development into their line of products, these two enthusiastic owners have not only unleashed a set of unique products, but they are creating an amazing online community of dog owners who believe in providing quality of life for their pets. As the ingenuity behind Dog Fashion Spa, co-owners Elena Volnova and Domenico Ponti have established their unique set of footprints with their luxury line of pooch products. The founder of Exceptional People Magazine was thrilled to speak with Volnova and Ponti about their new venture and how they’re developing the company to become a leader in the industry of luxury pet product suppliers. Their goal is to not only build a line of great products, but it’s also about developing a solid company with high growth potential. Monica: Can each of you talk about Dog Fashion Spa, who it’s for and how it went from dream to reality. How did you start?

Elena: I think it started at a New York City restaurant about two or three years ago when we just came up with the idea. We love dogs. We understand retail very well. I think we actually wanted to start with a clothing line for dogs but we ended up launching our first line which is a spa

line for dogs. Then, we spent the next two years doing research, developing formulas, creating designs for packaging, working on our strategy, working with groomers, high-end boutiques, understanding their needs and the needs of the luxury consumer, dog-lover and dog parents. And, here we are. Monica: Domenico, how did the two of you actually develop a partnership together? Domenico: We both were in retail together. We worked for the same corporate giant. One day we both looked at each other and said, “We work 17 hours a day for Corporate America. Why can’t we take this idea and run away with it and work 17 or 20 hours a day for ourselves instead and accomplish what we want?” There’s certainly a whole lot more respect, a whole lot more appreciation for things when it’s your own. Elena: For me personally, I was looking for more meaning and purpose in life and in work. Selling dresses in retail just didn’t cut it. Developing great products for dogs and dog parents seemed like it could help me accomplish both goals. This is very meaningful to me personally. Domenico: Elena says that because she has a Masters degree in Positive Psychology.

July-August 2013 | Exceptional People Magazine | 43


Monica: The two of you obviously have a great partnership which you have developed over time. In order to have that type of relationship, you have to have a special synergy and have similar work ethics as well as backgrounds in order to be able to successfully work together. What are some important factors that should be considered when seeking a business partner? Domenico: I have to tell you, it was almost natural. I don’t want to sound cliché. I'm an architect by trade. I design retail space. Certainly, what I bring to the table, and I don’t want to stereotype it by being Italian, but I understand style. Maybe it helps me. Elena has so many years of experience in running the back of the house and making sure that things get delivered on time and making sure that things are executed. I'm certainly not the executor. I'm the creative guy. Elena: I look at it from a different perspective. I believe we both have powerful stories. We believe in the American dream. I was born in Moscow, in Russia. I came to this country after getting my first MBA. We built ourselves from the ground up. Domenico came here a long time ago. He was born in Sicily, Italy. We really do represent that American dream. We work very hard. We love this country. We love dogs and the bond between Americans and their four-legged friends.

We do have very different strengths like Domenico said. One thing that definitely unites us is our passion. We’re both very passionate about what we do. We have very high ethics. Everybody can claim it but we really do treat every single person with respect. We’re building a culture, a company culture that stands for positive relationships, flourishing at work and at home. We’re building an amazing team around us. We’re proud of it. It’s not all about us. Monica: Speaking of company culture, how are you using your Master’s degree in Psychology to help develop that? Elena: I just came back from Los Angeles from attending a Third World Congress on Positive Psychology where 1,200 people from all over the world got together to review the latest research and applications of Positive Psychology to all kind of industries including company culture. To be brief, we really concentrate on what’s right with people and on their strengths instead of their weaknesses. We just believe that every person is very unique. You have to develop them. People need to be motivated. We identify their strengths. When you show people that you respect them, you give them freedom. We don’t have a vacation policy in our company. People are entitled to take as many days as they want to, when they want to.

44 | Exceptional People Magazine | July-August 2013


Monica: That’s the first time I've heard of that. Elena: We don’t watch the clock. If we need to watch the clock, then we have the wrong people. Domenico can talk to you about that. Domenico: I’m a lousy babysitter. People know what their jobs are. We are all adults. If you treat people like adults, I think you get that back. As Elena said, we don’t have vacation policy. Everyone knows what their job is. If three weeks prior to you going on vacation, you have to work 15 hours a day, that’s what you have to do to get your job done, get it done. Then, you manage yourself. We are not going to manage you. We’ll give you your responsibilities. This is what we expect to get done from you. We’re not going to call you. Elena: I will give you an example. Our community manager right now is somewhere by the lake. She does have internet. Because we’re all passionate about our work and we know we can't just separate. The truth is most of the time we do travel. We make sure our internet access is there. We do find ways to have fun and work at the same time. Monica: The model that you have is quite different than corporate America. Domenico: That was the whole idea behind building Dog Fashion Spa. Monica: I would imagine that helps to certainly reduce turnover rate? Elena: You build loyalty to the extent that people will support you in good times and in bad times. Monica: I've worked in Corporate America for many years as well. That level of loyalty that used to be there years ago is no longer there. Domenico: It’s not. There's no respect on both sides of the fence for that matter. Monica: You both have backgrounds in finance. I’ve spoken with hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs. What I found is that most of them are financially limited. They don’t know how to get the funding needed to run their businesses. A business has many components. Most of those components require money in order to keep the business running smoothly.

From a funding standpoint, how did you get Dog Fashion started? Elena: It was a combination. We’d started putting whatever we could into it. We’re now also open to and looking at different options to bring on investors. We are considering bringing an investor on board. We think it’s the right time. In the very beginning, we did not want anybody to be a part of our strategy. The moment you start bringing investors in, then it becomes too many voices. We’re considering investors now. People are reaching out to us. We’re excited that people are reaching out. We believe people are reaching out because of what we’ve built thus far. In the beginning we intentionally kept it limited. Monica: I think that’s probably important. When you are approaching investors in the very beginning of your business, and I think it depends on who you're approaching, but I think there's a good chance that you may not own your business at that point. They will want to own it because they are financing a huge portion of the business. So in essence, you would be working for them. Domenico: Amen. We don’t want that to happen. We are going to look for investors that can bring something to the table. We are looking for investors that are partial to the industry or partial to the ecommerce world. Monica: Yes, absolutely. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners who run pet or dog-related businesses. Other than the fact that you provide



luxury products and services, what other unique value do you offer? Elena: Simple idea, if you go back to our philosophy, it’s quality life for dogs. We believe that dogs deserve the highest level of care when it comes to everything; whether it’s nutrition, veterinarian care or grooming. Almost more than half of dog owners sleep with their dogs in their beds. We still believe that dogs are not being groomed and taken care of to the extent that they should be. What we’re doing is creating an amazing online community. That’s why we have a community manager who just started reaching out and creating a circle of dog parents that believe in our philosophy of quality life for dogs. We’re not for everybody. Not every dog owner will believe in our values. Those that do, we will provide them support. Monica: Are most of your clients or customers, boutiques or do you actually approach the individual dog owner? Elena: Individual customers can buy our products online. We do have a business to business side of our enterprise where we work with high-end boutiques that carry our products, high-end groomers that represent our product and sell it. This way they generate additional revenue. It’s like-minded individuals, again, most of them are in urban areas. It’s businesses that have the same target market. People are welcome to go to our website, www.dogfashionspa.com and buy products. Domenico’s background is creating amazing retail spaces. I won’t be surprised if one day you’ll hear that there’s a Dog Fashion store opening up. Right now, we’re just online. Monica: Domenic, you have an extraordinary set of leadership and team building skills. Talk about the importance of incorporating team building and how you can greatly enhance and grow your business. Domenico: It’s going back to what we were talking about before. You work with people so many hours of the day. Basically they become an extension of your family. We spend more time with other individuals than we do really with our own family. To me, it’s having activities together as a team, doing things together that are not necessarily always work-related. Monica: Also from a work perspective, do you allow each of your team members, whether they’re employees

or contractors; do you allow them to utilize their specific skills in areas where you need those specific skills instead of asking them to do things that they are really not good at doing? Domenico: Absolutely. We are not going to do what Corporate America does which is promoting people into the areas that could lead them to failure. Elena: What happens in the corporate world unfortunately is when somebody is not good at their job, they try to get rid of you. They promote you. People are promoted to the highest level of their incompetence until they're stuck there. We’re definitely building something that’s totally different. Monica: There are also some common denominators that you look for when you’re putting together your team. What characteristics do you look for in people that you bring on board? Domenico: I’m probably the most non-judging person in the world. I look certainly at people’s strengths. If you were to look at some of the people that work for and with us, you may see everything from tattoos to body piercings. I overlook all those things. None of those things mean anything to me except what their strengths are and what they can bring to the team. Actually, the more diversified, the better for me. Elena: I don’t think we’re being one of those start-ups that are trying to be like Google and get the best candidate who has the highest grades and super smart kids. Nothing against them. We certainly do interview them. What we’re looking for however, I think, is a great story, a good heart and passion. They have to match with us, somebody with a good sense of humor, somebody who cares. If they don’t care, I can't teach that.



Monica: Sure, that is true. You have to have more than just a love for wanting to make money. You have to have other important characteristics that make up the whole person. Domenico: That brings you money, FYI. I believe that if you do the right things in life, good things will come to you. If you go with the goal of just making money, I think you'd fail. Monica: Domenico, you also have a background in branding. How are you incorporating your branding experience into Dog Fashion Spa? When people see the words Dog Fashion Spa or they go to your website and they see your brand, what do you want them to feel or immediately get from that? Domenico: I don’t know if you had a chance to see our website. You can tell how clean and sleek it is. We are not throwing 75 million dollars worth of technology at you and making you so overwhelmed that you don’t know what menus to choose from or where to go on our site. In reference to the branding, I always like to work on things that people don’t necessarily see or understand. I would say they just feel good on our site. We only use one font. We only use three main colors. That is consistent in our labels, our website, our paperwork, everything. They see consistency. It’s easy reading and it all flows together. To me, that is what branding is all about.

Monica: Looking back on all of your hard work and experiences to date, is there anything that you think should’ve done a little differently? Elena: I don’t know where to start. I wish that I would have quit my day job earlier. In the past two years it’s been a lot of hard work and long hours. It does take a while to do it. I also kept my day job. I was a General Manager in my last role, running a small company. At some point, you have to cut the umbilical cord and say, “I’m just jumping into this. I’m going to do it full time.” Probably looking backwards, I wish I had

just a little more courage to do that earlier; maybe six months earlier. Domenico: You have no idea how many 10:00PM conference calls we had. Elena: It can really burn people out. Whenever people talk about entrepreneurs…I see a lot of articles now talking about keeping your day job. Build a business on the side. The reality is that it’s very, very hard to do that. Monica: I know exactly what you’re speaking about. I did the same thing. It is extremely tough. Just as you said, you’re working full time. At the same time, your business is a full time venture as well. Elena: The other thing I think this is just learning. You grow into this thinking you know a lot. Then, you become very humble, very fast, realizing how many details especially in production and building your own brand. I think I’m very humble about what I’ve learned and what I'm still learning every day. Monica: How satisfied so far are the two of you with Dog Fashion Spa and where you are now? Domenico: Extremely excited. Words can’t say enough. Elena: Sometimes I say that we’re running with our back paws in front of our front paws. It’s probably developing


50 | Exceptional People Magazine | January-February 2013


faster than we can catch up. That’s why we are considering investors. We’re just getting very positive feedback from our target market. People really have been waiting for it. People are ready for bringing the quality of grooming for the pets to the next level. I really believe that we can build a community and educate them on positive relationships with their dogs and how to get happier and I'm very excited about it. Monica: In any business, in anything that you do and especially when you’re starting out new, there will be some major challenges and what most people see as failures. I always say that if you’re learning from them and you are able to take those lessons that you’ve learned and apply them correctly. Then you’re not really failing because you have gained an important experience and knowledge that will serve you well. Elena: We believe that we’re trying to build something that’s never been built before in the pet market when it comes to grooming. We don’t know one brand that does not discount its products. Everybody who distributes our product needs to sign a paper stating that our price will stay the same. We understand luxury for humans. I’m sure there will be tweaks that we’ll need to make. We’d like to blend the pet market and luxury market. We’re discovering it. There are no lessons there that anybody can teach. We don’t believe anybody has done it

successfully. There are some brands that call themselves luxury. We don’t believe they are. We are on this blind path. We need to do it first here before we can expand internationally. Monica: What words of wisdom would you like to send to your potential customers? Elena: Take care of your dog’s grooming needs as you do your own. Clean their eyes daily, wash and moisturize their paws, make sure they smell great. Allow your dog to experience quality life as you do yourself. �


july-august 2013 - dog fashion...many dog owners their furry friends deserve the highest level of...

Documents