We recently connected with Carla Alvarado and have shared our conversation below.

Carla, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I was a kid, my family used to have a farm called Urbana. Even though my family does not own the farm anymore, that place is still very special and important for me because was in that farm that I learned how to love and respect animals and their environment. My great grand mother taught me how to take care of all types of animals such as cows, porks, horses, chickens, cats and of course dogs. I uses to spend all my summers surrounded by nature, animals and farm work, which made me develop a pretty strong connection with animals of all kind. I felt that I could communicate with them, and I still feel that.

So when I became a dog mother, and I decided to start my Pet Boutique the name was already there. Called my business after the family farm was the greatest tribute that I could do to that special place where this great love, respect and connection with animals began. I know that my great grand mother from heaven is proud that I took the name and somehow I kept the farm alive.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Im originally from Caracas, Venezuela. After high school I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study my Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising and Graphic Design at the Universidad de Palermo. I always knew that I want to be a business owner, so after I graduated, I came back to Caracas and I decided to start my own digital agency. Running this business gave me the opportunity to develop brands for many companies based in different part of the world, so I earned vast experience in entrepreneurship and starting a business from scratch.

Then, in 2017, my husband decided to adopt a dog and consequently I became a dog mom. As a designer and fashion enthusiast I was looking for a cute dog collar for my new baby, but I couldn’t find a stylish one in Caracas. So I asked google and many brands came to the light, but no one of them were owned by latin entrepreneurs or oriented to the Latin market. Here is when I realized that there was a business opportunity in my hands, and with all my experience in entrepreneurships and digital marketing plus my deeply love for animals, it made the whole sense starting a new business.

I discussed the idea of starting an online pet boutique with my mom and my husband and they immediately said yes. At the beginning, we thought creating pet products would be an easy task, but we were totally wrong. We had a lot of trouble with sizes and materials. Besides, it wasn’t easy to find the right place where to produce our designs… We traveled and investigated a lot, and we lost a lot of money trying different options. At the end, the most important thing is not giving up. We finally found the right place and people to work with and that changed everything.

By the end of 2017, my husband and I moved here to the US, so we had to put behind the launch of our pet boutique for a little bit. In the meantime, we were working in registering the company and the brand in the US and finding the right providers. By the end of 2018 we officially launched the brand on Instagram and our first collection to try the products with this new market. When we realized the products were a total success we launched a new collection and our website by the end of 2019. Also, my mom moved here to the US around this time, so the team was together again.

Then, in 2020 Covid 19 came. We had scheduled our first trade show and of course it was cancelled due to the pandemic. We were heart broken. However it wasn’t that bad. The pandemic gave us the opportunity to grow online. We had the time to being in front of the computer learning about new digital marketing strategies and developing a community, so we started to get more and more online orders through our website. By the end of 2020 we started to participate in Trunk Shows and Pop Ups, which allow us to continue grow our community and to put our brand out there.

Nowadays, we have launched 5 collections and we sell more than 70 different products. Our brand enjoys strong recognition in the small business community in South Florida. Our goal is expanding the business to new markets, continuing growing online and introducing the business to wholesale sales.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

From the beginning, our business uses personal funding to grow, since we are still learning about the industry. Urbana Pet Boutique is our first business in the pet industry so we want to learn all that we can now, that we are still small, to minimize risks when we decide to go big.

We are still trying out providers, products, digital and off-line marketing strategies and so on to be ready for the big step of asking for a loan and finding investors. We want to build a strong base in our company by ourselves and with our money, before introducing the business to someone else.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Right now we sell our products exclusively in our website and through instagram/facebook. However, we are working to start to sell in Amazon.

Amazon is a great platform for any entrepreneur that sells online, it is literally the biggest store in the world. However, is not as simple as “ok I want to sell in Amazon”. The platform has its learning curve, and it takes time to become a good amazon seller, and also we recommend building a good product stock before venturing in this new world.

This year we feel that we finally have a pretty decent stock to start to selling in Amazon, so our goal is introducing the brand in this platform at the beginning of 2023.

Contact Info:

• Website: urbanapet.com
• Instagram: @urbanapet
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urbanapetshop
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq2nxta3QHxdwwdw2dk2GCA

Image Credits
Carla Alvarado (Im the photographer of all the photos that I uploaded)