Terri talks with Theresa Piasta, CEO and Founder of Puppy Mama about how she decided to take her experience improving her health through canine therapy to build a business around finding ways for women to live their lives more fully with their pups.
Terri talks to Theresa Piasta, CEO and Founder of Puppy Mama about how she decided to take her experience improving her health through canine therapy to build a business around finding ways for women to live their lives more fully with their pups. This includes both through accessories and apparel for their dogs and finding pet-friendly places for them to take their dogs with them whether it be for travel, dining, or other daily activities.
Who is Theresa Piasta?
Theresa Piasta is the Founder of Puppy Mama - a pet-tech company leveraging technology to enhance the lives of dog moms around the world. The Puppy Mama online store is bringing style to dog moms everywhere! And, the Puppy Mama web application gives dog moms a safe place to share, connect with one another, effortlessly schedule fun meet ups with their friends, and rate businesses, travel services, and hotels to advocate for a more dog-friendly world.
Before Puppy Mama, Theresa was a Vice President at JPMorgan, and served as an Army Captain in a Field Artillery Brigade. During her 14-month Iraq deployment in 2008, Theresa led a large team to defend thousands on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delta near the Iranian border. She was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for her service.
Theresa attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business Ignite program and received a B.A. in Economics from Wellesley College. She also studied military science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a ROTC scholarship recipient and was a collegiate soccer player for two seasons during her time at Wellesley College.
Show Highlights
- Terri and Theresa talk about meeting at The Guild’s Serendipity event this past fall
- Theresa talks about what Puppy Mama, her dog Waffles, and how she came up with the idea for Puppy Mama
- Terri asks about the size of the market for pet care and more specifically about how big the market is for Puppy Mama with the two different focus areas for Puppy Mama
- Big businesses like Disney are recognizing the needs of their customers and have opened up some of their facilities to pets and pet owners in order to attract them to their businesses.
- Theresa talks about the difficulties associated with being a female founder with a startup targeting the female consumer market
- If Theresa could wave a magic wand, she would make it so that people would treat each other like dogs treat each other and create positive human interactions
Terri’s Key Takeaway
Female founders with startups targeting a female audience continue to find challenges in raising capital from male investors who often need to be educated on the size of the market opportunity and that the opportunity actually exists.
References in the Podcast
- The Guild’s Serendipity un-conference: https://www.guildserendipity.com/
- Puppy Mama: https://www.puppymama.com/
- Disney: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2017/10/dogs-welcome-at-select-walt-disney-world-hotels-starting-oct-15/
- Slush: http://www.slush.org/
- YouTube video of Terri’s panel at Slush on shifting demographics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP-1LQ3838s&t=27s
Contact
Theresa can be reached at woof@puppymama.com
Waffles can be reached at waffles@puppymama.com
Instagram: @puppy.mama
Puppy Mama application; https://app.puppymama.com/auth
You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.
Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.
To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.