Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jacklyne Volpe. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jacklyne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
Growing up in a family that fostered a love for nature and animals, I never really knew how disconnected our society truly is from the natural world around us, which is ironic considering everything we need, want, and have comes directly from Mother Nature or as we like to call her, Gaia. Because of this disconnect, we dismiss or don’t consider the impact these wants and needs have on our planet and environment, and often times we forget that what we need, including healing, can come directly from nature. Our goal and mission at Gaia Provides is to reconnect people to nature through their pets, through education and by responsibly creating products of the earth that provide a quality, holistic compliment to your pet’s health and wellness regiment. I am forever grateful to my parents, aunt, and grandparents for raising me in a home of love, and one that honors and appreciates nature and all its creatures. I believe the passion behind the mission of Gaia Provides is a direct effect of growing up with the opportunity to be emersed and connect to our natural world and understanding the relationship we play within it.
Jacklyne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
If I could pick just one word for self-description it would be, resilient. And if you know me, it’s not to “toot my own horn”, it’s just a matter of fact – when a person slugs through a lot of crap in life and just keeps moving, it’s simply resilience. However, I suppose resilience is what I would credit most my achievements to, because one thing I have learned in life and business is that being successful, or achieving something, is really just the ability to slug through ALOT of crap and keep moving until you make it through to the other side. In reality, like most people, I owe the credit to my dysfunctional but loving family and the challenges I faced growing up.
I grew up in a monetarily poor home, but where we lacked for material items, we made up for in the love and familial bonds. My childhood while loving, was not easy. The crack epidemic affected many people and for many years after… regardless, my parents did their best to make sure we had opportunities to learn and grow beyond any they may have had growing up. We went to a private parochial school because my parents thought we would have a better education that way. A lot of that educational cost was borrowed, and what wasn’t, was paid in trade for janitorial services at the school. Nothing humiliating about that I suppose. Poor kids going to a rich school, with poor parents cleaning up after all those kids at that rich school. I could see where their intentions were noble, but you can easily see from the outside in that the stark dynamics could come with negative implications. I tell you this about myself because it’s more a testament to the beliefs of my parents, who maybe being high gave them all those high hopes and dreams for us at the time; but either way their support and belief that we could do and achieve anything regardless of growing up poor, was quite remarkable.
Aside from trying to ensure a good education, my father was guilty of fostering my entrepreneurial tendencies. ANY new business scheme I came up with – lemonade stand, pedaling homemade gift cards and crafts, door to door recycling collection, go-kart racing, custom women’s apparel (and the list goes on), this man fully supported! It wasn’t the ideals he supported – it was me, he believed that if I wanted to do something, no matter what it was, I could be successful, so he always went all in. In the end it instilled a sense of perhaps overconfidence in my abilities to do and achieve whatever I set out to do, a personal trait I actual am quite fond of and one I believe every successful entrepreneur should have. But it wasn’t just confidence my parents passed on to me that would equate to success. It was their ideologies surrounding what success is, what it means to succeed, and the path there. It was understanding that failure happens, accept this failure, but learn from it and move forward regardless of it. While I carry with me a strong sense of self confidence, I also understand, from seeing the many failures (and successes) of my parents, that success can be measured beyond monetary boundaries and is born out of failure and your ability to deal with those failures and adapt – this is what makes you resilient and ultimately successful.
It was really no surprise that I would end up following a path of entrepreneurialism in my adult life, what really topped it off, was getting to pursue something (an industry) I was so passionate about. What wasn’t to love, the best of both worlds – pets & plants – and the dream of owning a business. It was Nature, my first love, that really spurred my journey and eventually led me to found Gaia Provides (I mean it’s even in the name!).
Plant and herbal medicine had always had a place in my life, so it was not uncommon for me to also utilize these natural remedies for my pets. But it wasn’t until about 2014, that I really dove all in.
It sucks, getting old that is… all the things we can no longer do, our faculties escaping us as we digress back into an almost childlike state of helplessness. It was back in 2014, I had an old dog at the time, Mama Whyte. She had been with me through some pretty rough patches in life and it was agonizing to watch her go through the aging process. Sure, she wasn’t a person, but I could only imagine what it was like for her as I tried to picture myself with the struggles of aging – trying to get an achy body moving in the morning, losing balance walking down the hall, the thought of standing being a chore. It was cringe worthy, heartbreaking, something to not look forward to. Don’t get me wrong, we were already doing supplements, regular vet visits, pain meds and all the traditional stuff you could think of, but her quality of life just wasn’t there. It was then, that I made it my mission to find her some semblance of relief and make her journey (no matter how long or short) a little more peaceful.
It wasn’t long after that I started to investigate using hemp for her discomfort. It was limited, mostly people products at the time, but it worked! It came with pros and cons, because we were using a product designed for people there were certain extracts in it that caused issues for my dog. She had elevated liver enzymes, but if we removed it from her regiment, she had ZERO mobility. It was really a conundrum. So as anyone knows, all the best business ideas come out of necessity and boy did we have a need for a pet appropriate hemp product! Not too long after my partner and I founded Gaia Provides, we are a small batch manufacturer, specializing in canine, feline and equine appropriate Hemp CBD products. As a small batch company, we can directly assure quality, control our own recipes, and build out our product line as we identify the needs of our customers, and the best part of it all is the pets and families we get to help along the way.
As pet parents who struggled to find something that would aid our pets, we empathize with our customers. For us it’s not just about the product, it’s about creating a company that can be better – do more, give more, support more, and really make an impact in our community, no matter how small or large. At Gaia Provides our success is not only a measurement of our product, but what we can give back to the community around us, the time and peace of mind we can offer pet parents, and the relief we can offer pets.
We are really proud of the network and partnerships we have built. As part of our rebranding and expansion efforts for Gaia Provides, in 2020 we launched our “Pet Chews for a Cause” campaign and had the honor of making some amazing community partners – of whom we still support to this day! In fact, 1% of all annual proceeds goes directly to our partner rescue groups. In addition to this we also provide product sponsorship for rescue dogs with behavioural or medical needs, as many could benefit from the use of Hemp CBD. We hope you will also check out and support our partner animal rescue groups and help bring awareness to what these organizations are doing because it really does take a village, and we know we can always go farther together. Be sure to check out Hope of Deliverance Rescue, which works to save at risk dogs throughout Southern Arizona and New York; Hounds and Heroes, which works to save at risk dogs and pair them with Veterans, they also provide resources to offer therapy and service dog training for any dog they rescue, really some amazing stuff; and last but not least, Lend-A-Bone, which is really a labor of love and selflessness, as this group rescues dogs from the euthanasia list and at risk dogs along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Resilience… oh where to start. As any entrepreneur will tell you, resilience is a key trait you must have to make it in business, but I believe it is even more necessary in certain industries that may pose extra challenges, such as the cannabis & hemp space.
In an industry where it’s pay to play and the battle continues between Giant MSOs (multi state operators) & the small farmer/business owner, the forefront for the pioneers in cannabis is losing ground; being pushed out by large operators. So, for me the journey of resilience really boils down to standing our ground and finding our niche in this industry without compromise. Keeping at our roots and maintaining a brand and product that represents more than a money grab and ambitions of corporate takeovers, but rather one of quality, equity, access and affordability. The journey of navigating the regulations and laws and staying in compliance while being able to deliver a clear and understandable message to pet parents, I think is a testament to the resilience of myself, my teams, and our brand. Let me give you an example … while my company, Gaia Provides, manufactures pet specific products, believe it or not, we are not always welcomed or allowed in all pet spaces that you would see traditional brands in. The hemp component complicates the matter, we are restricted on where and how we advertise, what we can or cannot say, and more importantly the verbiage used to convey our message. In some cases, we cannot even promote educational blogs, meaning those searching for the information may or may not find it. To compound the issue pet owners are at a loss – swimming in a sea of products with little to no guidance. For example, in some states your veterinarian may not even be able to discuss cannabis or hemp use for your pet in fear of jeopardizing their license. So, what that leaves us with is a bunch of people taking to the internet, searching for information that they may or may not even be able to access, and trying to administer a compound to their pet with the guidance of Dr. Google. So, we get varying stories about CBD and what it can do for a pet, some people have no results, others great results, and again this is because of the sea of loosely regulated products and lack of access to information.
For me personally, it has always been about education and quality. If we can create a quality product and provide proper education for people then we can, in some small way, combat the misinformation and lack of information out there. Because of the barriers for us to simply educate we have had to become savvy in how we promote and advertise, in order for pet owners to be able to find the information. Take social media for example, while you may see an occasional CBD ad, we technically cannot run sponsored ads, so our social media is very organic, this is where were have taken to using influencers to reach pet owners. And as much as we would love to use our beloved hashtags like #PetCBD #DoggieCBD, these types of blatant promotions will get an ad blocked and an account banned. This is something that many other industries do not have to contend with, so it is difficult and frustrating at times, but at Gaia Provides we are resilient, we do preserve, and we continue to find a way to move forward, honoring our roots.
Owing a business can be a humbling experience and some industries more than others, I believe a high level of resilience is needed to get you through the lows. One thing I can say, the cannabis industry has brought me some humility, and as of now, thankfully hasn’t diminished or broken my entrepreneurial spirit, even with the immense challenges that have come with working in this industry.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
When I started Gaia Provides, I really had no idea about manufacturing, at least not in the sense of pet consumables. However, I did bring a science and research background with me. While obtaining my Environmental Science degree and Graduate degree at the University of Arizona, I had the opportunity to work on some large National Science Foundation projects as a Research Assistant. This gave me immense technical training and background in methodologies and creating repeatable ones, which I found useful for creating SOPs and other operating documents needed for manufacturing. I was also honored to have the chance to perform in-field water research in Namibia, Africa. So, I did have some experience and exposure to lab work and techniques before starting the journey with Gaia Provides. I found this most helpful since a major component of our process is quality control and assurance, which includes sending our products for testing to ISO certified labs.
Gaia Provides is a small batch manufacturer, and that was very purposeful for quality control reasons. I’ve been asked many times from mentors and in startup incubators that I have participated in, “why don’t you outsource manufacturing?” My response to this is simple, because we are a manufacturer, that is the basis that Gaia Provides was built on, we are not simple a brand or a white labeled product looking to be a retailer. We have chosen to be a manufacture, so we don’t white label, we make all our products in house and while that may be more challenging for a small business, we believe that allows us to offer the highest quality product to our customers as possible. It also allows us to maintain control over production and our recipes which I think often times these trade-offs are not thoroughly considered. With all that said I have learned so much about manufacturing and especially as it pertains to a consumable. There were trials and errors with recipes, shelf-life fails and successes, packaging and brand overhauls to name a few, all in the sake of gmp (good manufacturing practices, and yes that was something we learned along the way!) But we have come along way, we still have some road to go, and are always open to learning and optimizing our products and processes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gaiaprovides.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaiaprovides/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GaiaProvidesLLC/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gaia-provides-llc
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaiaprovides
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gaiaprovides6129
Image Credits
Gaia Provides