We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelly Newman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kelly, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
The name Luv the Paw comes from our hearts. We do not have human children, so our pets are spoiled beyond belief! We love pets and found a name that is short and sweet. Luv the Paw! Our name was born from this love and as we were formulating our business plan it had to be more than making money. That’s when we knew giving back to pet-related charities and rescues would be the driving force behind our company. We can create designs that will make people laugh (we all need to laugh these days), put those designs on quality t-shirts that are comfortable, and give back a portion of profits to pet-related charities. The more sales we have, the more we can give back! If you want to laugh and love, we have what you are looking for.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We work day-to-day just like you and simply love our pets. Life can be stressful and time with our four-legged family member helps it melt away.
So we thought…let’s find something that we love to do and work hard at it. We love animals and well…we LOVE BEER. Most importantly, we love to laugh and have fun. And, we’re always on the hunt for cool-looking, funny graphic t-shirts and products that share our love for pets and our favorite adult beverage.
We started this company in the summer of 2020 with our goal to provide quality products with fun sayings for pet-lovers, fun-seekers and anyone that just enjoys the good life. Our graphic tees are conversation starters and we’ve been known to make new friends just from wearing our tees.
Most importantly, giving back is close to our hearts. We proudly give 10% of our net profits to pet-related charities, shelters and causes that take care of our furry friends. That’s why we named our company Luv the Paw.
Whether life is great, or you are having a ruff day, our fur-babies are always there for us…so love them back, make their day and Luv the Paw!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson we had to unlearn is taking advice from people that have no experience in what you are doing. It’s easy to get caught up in the opinions of trusted people close to you. Most advice they give will tell you why it won’t work. If you stay focused on the direction of your business, it will grow. You can make a rash decision and change your course based on their opinions, or you can stay true to why you started your company and just politely listen. If someone is not successful in your business, it is just an opinion. At the same time, when you converse with someone that has successfully done what you are doing, become a sponge. They will tell you about their failures, because we all have many, but they will explain how they overcame. That is the most important thing. Keeping your focus on the growth of your business. Politely ignore distracting comments and opinions of people that give you 10 reasons why it won’t work. Focus on why you know it will work.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Losing your job during Covid will make you look at pivoting. A lot of us did. We started this company in 2020 not out of necessity, but we have wanted to have this business for a long time. We started by utilizing second-party fulfillment companies to produce and ship our products. We quickly learned that quality control was out of our hands. We decided after the first few months that if our products would be a true reflection of our brand, we needed to have control of production and shipping, including upgraded packaging. Sometimes life pushes you in a great direction at the right time. We are now enjoying the journey of building Luv the Paw and learning along the way. We love creating quality shirt designs that make people laugh while at the same time taking care of our pets!
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Image Credits
Please credit the Newman image to WendyJo Photography