Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in animal care but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Anisa Musmary, co-founder of Wanderruff, located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Wanderruff is a sustainable pet accessories brand. We make dog collars, harnesses, and leashes out of recycled water bottles for the wagging adventurer — merging comfort and consciousness.

At Wanderruff, we want to play our part in preserving this beautiful planet we call home. Dogs would agree that we should do our best to treat those mountains, parks, and beaches they love a little bit better. So, we set out to create the best quality dog essentials that use recycled consumer plastics and sustainable materials wherever we can. As well as having them shipped in eco-conscious packaging and donating 1% of turnover to causes that support our planet. Good dogs, doing good.

Tell us about yourself

I love entrepreneurship. It's always come naturally to me to constantly be thinking of new business ideas and identifying gaps in the market. I'm lucky to have made a good few of those ideas come to life.

In the past couple of years, I have been working with my partner in business (and life) on our other business, a branding studio called Loki Creative. Working with clients on their projects is always an amazing process, but we felt like working on our own product brand could be a really fun experience, so we started to think of ideas...and then the pandemic hit.

We were one of those people who decided to get a puppy during the pandemic, and we found the pet market really lacking in sustainable options and products that were aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. That's how the idea for Wanderruff came about. We wanted to create a dog brand that was more in line with the ethical fashion brands we love, where sustainability is at its core but the product and styling also looks elevated and design-forward. So, while people were learning to bake sourdough, my pandemic hobby became working on Wanderruff.
When we get feedback from our customers about the quality of our product and how much they love it, it drives us forward to keep going and get more people to hear about Wanderruff. We donate a percentage of our income to our nonprofit partners 1% for the planet, so that really motivates us to move forward so we can do more with them. So much about living more sustainability is making small changes or swops in your life that can help make a big difference to the planet. I hope that Wanderruff is that change for a lot of dog owners.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Building a brand that people feel connected to and love. This is just the beginning of our little Wanderruff community, but I'm excited to inspire and be inspired by our customers. Even recently, we ran a campaign to get people moving away from purchasing plastic-based Halloween costumes for their pets that ultimately end up in a landfill. As a result, we were sent some amazing photos from our community of their dogs in homemade costumes made from recycled materials or things around the house. If everyone can make small changes like this, it will make such a difference.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

There is never enough time! Starting a new business is such a great investment of your time and while you would love to have everything running perfectly, it is never going to be that way. When you are your CEO, Social Media Manager, Fulfillment Specialist, Accountant, and Head of Customer Service there will never be enough hours in the day to do what you would like to do.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Just make a start. It's so easy to want to hold off until you have enough time, are in the right place, or have certain skills you need, but wanting to do everything perfectly is going to paralyze you from even starting. Do what you can. Do it imperfectly. Do it now.
  2. It's ok to fail. Owning a business is hard. Things will go wrong on a regular basis, and it will be debilitating. But after a few failures, you learn to pick yourself up and brush yourself off quickly. Things not going the way I hoped doesn't affect me nearly as much as it used to do now.
  3. Find a community and ask for help! Entrepreneurship can be a lonely business, but I think the best thing about it is entrepreneurs have all been there so are very open to giving advice or being a sounding board. There are lots of non-profit business resource organizations you can reach out to, I have always had great mentors throughout my career, and if I resonate with another business, I often reach out to see if they want to meet and chat about what they've been up to.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Be the person your dog thinks you are. As you build something for yourself, think of ways that you can give back to your community and the planet.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.wanderruff.co/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderruffsupplyco
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderruff.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wanderruff/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.