Maev founder Katie Spies on going from dog walker to pet food CEO

Maev is a startup that believes dogs should be eating as well as humans.

The company first hit the market in 2020 and has been steadily growing ever since. For its first year in business, it was faced with the problem of selling out of products. This led it to bulk up its manufacturing and raise a $9 million round of funding. Now, Maev founder and CEO Katie Spies says the company sees sales growth of about 15% month-over-month. She joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the company's growth and the overall premium pet food market.

Spies doesn't have a background in pet nutrition, but she did work as a dog walker to learn the ins and outs of what pet owners need.

"I spent a year as a dog product dog walker," Spies said. "And I was getting to know a lot of consumers and figuring out what their headaches were."

This time on the street with dozens of dogs helped Spies coalesce on a business plan for Maev; the company would sell human-grade dog food online. After two years of beta testing and figuring out the proper product line and formulas, Maev hit the market in late 2020.

It was a good time to launch a dog food brand. During the first year of the pandemic, one in four Americans got a dog, Spies said. "Pet ownership skyrocketed, and more and more people started purchasing pet products and grocery products online," she said. So Maev didn't so much have a problem finding customers. Instead, the problem was in making sure it could keep its supply chain going and get products to customers.

"The trouble was really just keeping inventory on the shelves in our facility and running a facility to continue producing product, despite Covid happening in the world," Spies said.

This meant that Maev had to go from working in a test kitchen in New York to expanding to a contract manufacturer who could handle its demand.

Now, Spies says the plan is to grow even more. While Maev is still only available online, Spies has her eyes on some new retail channels. "We started with just our own e-commerce site," Spies said, but "moving into [online] marketplaces is next on our list."