S3 Ep11: GoDog: The Father and Son Behind the Pet Daycare Franchise
Ben Eberdt is a successful musician-turned-franchise owner. He and his dad, Jess, are taking over the dog daycare space. Find out how.
GoDog is a daycare and boarding service that offers pet parents state-of-the-art, fun, and hygienic care for their family members.
The Wolf gets into conversation with Co-Founder and President Ben, who talks about treating your band like a business, embedding customers into the GoDog ecosystem, and why finding the right investment partner is well worth holding out for.
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Episode Transcription
Ben Eberdt:
I mean, we’re not reinventing the wheel or coming up with a new business out of doing daycare, but what we do is make it hyper convenient and a really beautiful high-end environment. So it’s just trying to do it as well as we can. So that means just thoughtful indoor outdoor areas, different kind of bifurcation for the way that the dogs behave. Amenities like saltwater filtered pools, and I mean, it’s luxurious daycare for sure, but it’s built in a facility where you walk in and you’d feel comfortable letting your dog board there because it’s spacious, it’s really clean, it’s beautiful. It always smells fantastic. Our employees have the best tools in the industry to keep it clean. And then, yeah, I exactly, the force multipliers this social idea, because it’s just really fun and it’s fun to meet other pet parents and to let your dog run around Leash.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Welcome to Franchise Empires, where aspiring entrepreneurs learn exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond. I’m the wolf of franchises. Hey everyone, it’s The Wolf. Today on the show we have Ben Ebert. Ben is a former musician who after graduating college, spent the first 10 years touring the country with his electronic rock band called Savo. Ben played at some of the most well known music festivals such as Lala Pza and others, but he now finds himself as the co-founder and c e O of GoDog. GoDog is a modern dog daycare brand that despite it only having three locations has already caught the attention of private equity. In fact, Greg recently closed a 20 million investment from Level Five Capital as part of the agreement. Level five will also be building about 25 locations as a multi-unit Go dog franchisee. Ben’s journey to franchising is one of the more unique ones that I’ve ever covered, and you’ll love his insights on founding this brand and making a private equity transaction so early on in the process. Enjoy
Narrator:
The Wolf of Franchises is the CEO of Wolf Pack franchising, as well as a creator at Workweek Media. All opinions expressed by the Wolf and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Pack franchising or workweek. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf Workweek and Wolf Pack franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Let’s start with maybe, I mean, there’s a lot of daycare franchises out there, like dog daycare, franchises. How would you describe GoDog and what would you say are the things that make you different versus some of the other players already out there in the market?
Ben Eberdt:
Sure. Yeah, good question that a lot. First off, I think it’s fair to say that we weren’t really looking to become a franchise, and our guiding principle was always just doing things the right way. And that’s basically from the staffing to the building design to the location. And we can dive into more about what makes us special in those regards, but we’ve just been able to learn a lot about how to build a facility correctly such that it can be maintained in a way that always presents a clean, safe, welcoming environment. And I always say this to employees, investors, clients, and it’s true. It’s just if you walk into a GoDog specifically in Nashville, this is kind of our newest one that we’ve been able to build. It really speaks volumes when you walk through the lobby. You understand our vision and what separates us. And so yeah, it’s just a pleasant experience and you can just tell that we’ve kind of thought about everything very critically and then not scared to invest in building what we think is the best. So yeah, our facility kind of sells itself.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Beautiful. And so I know it was founded in 2018. Well, what were you doing before you got into dog daycare? And obviously now franchising, but yeah, what was kind of the run up professionally to this?
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, goDog as a brand was founded in 2018. That is correct. Although kind of tangentially, I’ve been watching the space for a lot longer than that. My father invested in a pet resort back in 2007, and it was always a very passive project for him. It was a good friend that he invested behind and ended up opening his own store as well. My father did, but he and I share entrepreneurial stories and he’s been a huge inspiration for me and during my career, which I’ll get into, but nonetheless, despite always kind of seeing the performance of these businesses, my question to him was like, man, gosh, why don’t you have 50 of these things? This is such a good return. It’s such a good investment. It seems to give you a lot of joy by being this kind of centerpiece of the community, taking care of people’s family members.
And he’s like, look, I would love to have 50 of these. He had his own businesses going on, and he’s later in his career, he is like, I don’t really have the time or the desire, but it, you’re right, we should. Okay. So tangential to that, I graduated college in 2008 from the University of Colorado in Boulder Business school there undergrad, but always was just super passionate about music and always had a band going on and took it very seriously. And then towards our senior year, our band Savoy started to gain a lot of momentum. And we had a couple of songs that went really big for us in the electronic rock scene, which was still kind of a burgeoning scene there. And so, yeah, definitely not a typical career path, but my band got really big and as a 22 year old graduate, I was like, Hey, let’s do this.
And Jess, my father, he said, look, I believe in you, you got to go for it. And we ended up getting signed to a prominent booking agency and having some number one hits some big electronic platforms and ended up growing the thing to a pretty large company, I guess, and went on tour for about 10 years, hundred and 70 shows a year if we weren’t playing with our live band, we were DJing clubs all over the place. Ended up selling out Red Rocks a couple times as headliners and playing everywhere from the biggest festivals from Lollapalooza that you could imagine to Soldier Field. And every year it was just like, look, we got to keep doing this. This is a wild ride. And it got to be an amazing experience. I, I always treated it very much like a business. It was something that I had immense pride over the brand, actually, the logos and the branding and all of the artwork that we produced for Savoy, it was my buddy from high school, Gabe and Heve was the one that designed the logo with me for GoDog.
And at times we had 50 employees when we were on tour and really just rocking it, but always loved the business side of things. As the older I got, I kind of noticed that I was working really hard selling art, which was subjective, which made me a little nervous. And that’s when, as I talked to Jess more and more about the vision for what GoDog could be, the notion of implementing the GoDog social, the membership based dog park and bar concept, we just got more and more excited about it. To the point where I had been living in New York City for about almost a decade. My wife and I are both from Durham. We both just wanted to move back for life reasons. And one day we literally just kind of made a decision at a coffee shop, Hey, let’s just move back. Let’s go. And so we did, and we moved back in March in 2018 and immediately founded GoDog with Jess. And man, it’s grown so fast since then. It’s been so rewarding. I’m still so proud of my music career. I’m glad I got it in my twenties and early thirties G, but GoDog got me incredibly busy now. And like I said, the trajectory of the growth has just been fascinating, exciting, and completely rewarding.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, it’s definitely a unique career path to this point. You’re the first person who was, could say that they’ve been a playing at Lala Pza and also founding a franchise. I don’t think that’ll ever happen again in my career but I got to ask on that topic. Just give us some insight right into when you’re touring, I mean, is it every week of the year you’re on the road, just new venues? Or how does it work? Do you have some weeks off? I mean, yeah. Can you give us some insight there?
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, you can shape it however you, you’d, I mean, with your booking agent, you plan your life two years in advance because when you’re trying to get a headlining slot at Red Rocks, it takes two years to book that because every other band in the world also wants to play Red Rocks and everybody wants to play on the best nights. And so then you build your tour and your promotion and your release schedules all around these huge events. So it’s long strategic planning. It’s betting on yourself knowing that, hey, in two years I’m going to be even bigger such that I can charge this amount and still sell it out. Yeah. And when you’re hot in the industry and you’re young, I mean, the more you can do, the better. And of course, the more shows you play, I mean, that’s the big revenue source for all musicians these days.
So in our particular case, we would go on live band tour, so that’s three of us, me, myself, Mike, and Gray, two brothers there. And we would do tour buses and crews, and we would go out for probably six to eight weeks. And we were lucky enough to, in our prime, our tours were bought and paid for up front by Live Nation as sellout offers because we were just really popular at the time. So we would play. Yeah, yeah. Live Nation was a great partner of ours, and we would play the Fillmores Houses of Blues, all these Live Nation own c beautiful theaters across the country. And so that was five or six days a week, I mean, first six weeks, and you’d become nocturnal because you get there at noon, you wake up, I’d go and work out, do a Steam, try to just get my mind healthy and ready for the day, sound check, couple hours off, go to dinner.
We wouldn’t go on until 10 or 11, play until one o’clock. Then the crew would take two or three hours to break down bus leaves at four, go to sleep, wake up in the next city, start it all over again. And that it was crazy. And then, but when we weren’t doing live band touring, we’re also DJs and we had residencies in Vegas and all these clubs across the United States, and this is right when E D M, I guess as they call it now, is becoming a thing. And that was additionally wild because I would leave New York Thursday, fly to a city DJ that night, wake up the next day, fly to a different city, DJ Friday night, next day, wake up, fly to another city, DJ Saturday night, Sunday, come home, rest four days, do it again all year. And we did that for a couple years too, and it was really fun. But as you can imagine, pretty exhausting. But I did get to see every state in the country, which was kind of cool. I’ve been everywhere multiple times. Yeah,
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s sweet. Yeah, I mean, definitely, right. I mean, the twenties had the time to do it because that just sounds exhausting, first of all.
Ben Eberdt:
But I’ve got two young children now. It wouldn’t fly anymore, so I got it in when I could.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Awesome. Well good for you, man. I mean, that’s super cool. And yeah, that’s just super exciting. I got to imagine it was just awesome to live. Well, I’m curious, so you mentioned how you guys would plan out effectively two years in advance to book a venue. So were you involved in that process? Is that you guys as part of the band trying to strategically land venues in advance? And really what I’m getting at too with this question is more of just are there actually any crossover, is there any crossover in what you did with Sevo into now being a founder and c e o? Or is it just, is two totally separate career paths?
Ben Eberdt:
No, it’s a good question. And I don’t want to like project for musicians and artists in general, but I would say a lot of my contemporaries didn’t really want to be involved in the business side of things. They’re artists. And that’s a beautiful thing too. I always was very much into both. I had representation with William Morris, for instance, was our agent for a long time. And it wasn’t just letting the manager go and do it, or if we had, I had meetings with the C e O of Atlantic records when it’s like, but I needed to be there and drive those meetings because this was my brand and this was my business, and I had my own strategic kind of way of looking at things, but also wanted the experience for myself knowing that it would benefit me in some way in the future. And so yes, we had representation and help and all the things that artists have, but it was something that myself and my band mates too, really, we all took a lot of pride in controlling the business side of things.
So I think direct comparable experiences is, I mean, running the brand as a brand from a marketing standpoint was something that I was intimately involved in. And now at GoDog, I am the president and C M O. So it still is my passion and my job to maintain the integrity of the brand and to build it, to expand it. And frankly, from what Level five has told us is what’s one of the main things that attracted them to GoDog was the brand. I mean the GoDog logo to me, I wanted it not to be this clip Artie mom and pop type operation. I wanted it to look like the LA Dodgers. I wanted it to be classic to where people could wear our stuff and feel like it’s cool. I mean, this is something I’m a member of, or this is a club where I take my dog and I’ll wear the hat.
Sure. So yeah, the brand aspect, obviously the strategic aspect of thoughtful planning, but I think if I had to say anything, it’s just the entrepreneurial spirit and the risk comfort because there’s no guarantees with any startup. And to start something as scary, intimidating, and GoDog was a lot more capital intensive, so there’s a lot more on the line, if you will, but living that life my whole life, I never had a guaranteed paycheck. I had to go out and get it every day. I never had any direct fallback plan. I was invested in what I was doing, and I was going to make sure that it was going to work. And with my music career, I liken it to making it to the nba, but being just a really solid sixth man for 10 years, like no one’s going to remember my name, but I made it to the big leagues and sustained it, and I’m really, really proud of that.
And then so I think taking that confidence and experience and starting a new endeavor directly after it, yeah, there’s a lot of parallels there. It’s comfortable living with that risk and just an undoing belief in yourself and your idea really. I just knew, and Jess knew that this was a good idea, and if we invest enough money and really do it right, we will win. And so that’s the belief that we continue to sustain and just the way I’ve always lived my life, and I’ve got that from him because that’s the way he’s always done it too.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It’s a fascinating journey you’ve been on, and I can see the parallels even taking drawing on my own experience where obviously very different than being a touring musician, but just as a content creator, I know what you mean by there’s the subjectivity of what you put out there and you’re not sure what’s going to stick, what will, and yeah, I can understand how at least building a, it is business at the end of the day, what you were doing with Savoy. So yeah, that’s a great primer for what you’re doing now.
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, no, that’s a good point. When I was younger, I’ll be honest, I never felt intimidated, but I felt awkward when I would meet influential folks or maybe someone that was having a lot of success in a traditional business sense, or a lot of contemporaries in New York, you never know who you’re going to sit next to at a restaurant or a bar, strike up a conversation. And I felt at first it was like, well, I’d say I was in a band, and then people would kind of be like, oh, okay, good luck buddy, and maybe look at me differently. But then I’d have to kind of rash justify. I’m like, look, no, you don’t understand. First of all, it’s not just a band.
The Wolf of Franchises:
People pay me for it.
Ben Eberdt:
And it’s like, this is a serious business. I’ve got a lot of employees that I pay. This is not just a band. So I was like, well, let’s just frame it up a little differently. But that was just a personal thing. So how
The Wolf of Franchises:
Did you frame it?
Ben Eberdt:
Well, I mean, as I matured, I just went through back and forth. I mean it’d be like, well, I’m in the music industry, and that would kind of spark, oh, really? Oh, interesting. So you’re in the music industry and well, what do you do? I’m like, well, I, I’ve got this. I started an ad agency. We just put a song in the a GoPro in the Super Bowl for one of their commercials, and they’re like, oh, wow, how’d you do that? And I was like, well, actually, it’s just my band and we’ve been on tour. And so it kind of goes into, yeah, they chose SA Boy’s song to be in the Super Bowl, and it was a different way of just framing the conversation to lend it to be just a little more approachable for someone that was not typically engaged and just speaking to artists, if you will. I don’t know. But then now I’m older again and I’m past it, and people ask me what I did before and I’m just like, ah, wasn’t a band all back to square one, and we can talk about it if you want
The Wolf of Franchises:
Comes full circle.
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah. So it’s a personal journey of just kind of describing it, but I always felt that it was more than that and felt the need to make sure that people knew that it no wasn’t just some guy in abandoned Brooklyn playing bars. Now this is something that was very thoughtful and successful. So
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. I love that. So I guess moving into the GoDog portion of the journey, I know you spoke earlier about how great cash flow returns on a business like this, but even just for the initial motivation to start it, did you look at other daycare centers for dogs and think they’re not doing it right? Did you have an issue with your own dog? Was there some initial just moment where you thought you there’s opportunity in the market here?
Ben Eberdt:
Well, sure. Yeah. It actually started really with the idea of this GoDog social, this dog park and bar. It was an idea that Jess and I had toyed along, toyed around with for a long time, just thinking, Hey, this is just a really fun idea. I mean, we think that the best icebreaker in the world is a dog. It’s the easiest way to talk to someone, a stranger friend, potential boyfriend, girlfriend, who knows what it could lead to, and you throw a couple of delicious cold beverages in the mix and who knows what might happen. And so while we’re toying around with this idea, I start to see these concepts actually pop up and in a few little spots across the country, and I’m like, wow, this is validating. So that was the initial thrust and say, Hey, I’ll move back to Durham and start with that and we’ll got a facility here in Durham, so let’s just add it and make it complimentary to that facility and start this notion of providing not just this service that everyone needs, but this amenity of actually creating kind of a social community around it, pets and their owners.
So that was the first thing. We were toying around with all these different ideas. First we’re going to call it Dogwood Social, it’s a estate tree and just kind of cute dogs. But the name GoDog became something that became more and more attractive to us. And during that time, we were working on forming the brand, and with our investment partner in Tennessee, a beautiful piece of real estate came up in Nashville that we just had to jump on. And so really it was just thrown into development of this facility. We just loved the location and it was predicated on a lot that we’ve learned in Durham about driving volume and daycare convenience. And what we didn’t see in the market was we thought that the branding was somewhat fragmented. We didn’t think that there was a strong player that spoke to the younger demographic from which we’re trying to approach younger demographic to include the folks that would come and hang out at a GoDog social.
But what we saw is that location specifically for US tribes, a really high volume of daycare. The boarding business is going to be solid. It is a bit seasonal, but if you can really drive daycare, the unit economics get just optimized in a way that we really identified over the last five years in Durham. So what we hadn’t seen is a prominent investment in a high value real estate areas, just really just taking, I guess, a calculated risk to say, yeah, this is going to be a lot more expensive, but it’s going to pay off because we think that the habitual convenience of daycare is a huge value to our clients if they’re able to quickly get in, quickly get out, it’s on their way. Those are typically high value real estate targets. And to be able to go and build something that’s a high end campus in those high value real estate areas was really the strategy that we latched onto. And so that’s what we did. And I guess that would be the crux of our analysis of what could be done across the country with the right kind of investment attitude towards building these.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fascinating. So it sounds like GoDog Social was kind of the initial, what you saw as the initial opportunity. And so are you kind of penetrating the market by picking these top tier locations real estate wise? So you can have daycare co, which is, I don’t want to say commodity service, but it’s not super easy to differentiate there. So are you using that, the location plus the daycare as the way to bring customers in and then you have this GoDog social plan on the background that’s going to really embed customers with your brand?
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, I think that’s a fair way to characterize it. I mean, we’re not reinventing the wheel or coming up with a new business out of doing daycare, but what we do is make it hyper convenient and a really beautiful high-end environment. So it’s just trying to do it as well as we can. So that means just thoughtful indoor outdoor areas, different kind of bifurcation for the way that the dogs behave. Amenities like saltwater filtered pools, and I mean, it’s luxurious daycare for sure, but it’s built in a facility where you walk in and you’d feel comfortable letting your dog board there because it’s spacious, it’s really clean, it’s beautiful, it always smells fantastic. Our employees have the best tools in the industry to keep it clean. And then, yeah, exactly, the force multipliers, this social idea, because it’s just really fun and it’s fun to meet other pet parents and to let your dog run around leash.
I mean, most cities in the country other than Boulder, really, you can’t let your dog off leash. And we have theories about the way that dogs behave off leash versus on leash, and there’s a lot of value for everyone included there. But really it is about just leveling up the investment, real estate driven decisions. And that’s what we’re not afraid to do because we believe in ourselves, it’ll work out. And now with the raise investment from Level five Capital Partners, the real estate team is unbelievable, so smart about the way they go about evaluating real estate and they’re professionals at it because they do it over and over with their other brands. And it was a huge attractor to us when we started talking to them. They’re just so hyper advanced in the way that they look at the country from a real estate perspective.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I definitely want to dive into that level five capital investment. But first I’m curious. So with GoDog social I, is there any kind of value add for customers where if they’re maybe a daycare customer that they get a discount or something to the social cl or how does that work? Is there any synergies there? Yeah, is it a membership model?
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, great question. And yes, there will be synergies, and that’s another kind of core belief of ours is creating multiple business or service lines all at the same location. So there’s a lot of inner department referrals that we can create there to not only just create business, but really create value for the customer too, because they can talk and we’re right there. And so if whatever they need, we can put them in the right direction and someone else can help them with whatever they may they need for their pet. But yeah, the way that we see the membership model working is it’ll probably be a tiered approach. So there’ll be different levels of membership that you can purchase, and if you’re a member of social, you get access to the park. But I can see in the future, frankly, we get so busy that sometimes capacity at daycare and certainly at boarding becomes a real issue.
You just can’t get in because we have our metrics of how many pets will allow that we can still create the environment that we want to for those dogs. And it’s just really popular. People really, really like us a lot. So once they start coming, it becomes a normal part of their routine. And we’ve seen it in Nashville after we’ve opened up. I mean, we get full quickly and we have really loyal clients, which we’re so grateful for, but I can see a V I P type or an elevated membership model to where you could be a member of social plus perks of the other services. So you might have a guaranteed spot in daycare a couple days a week, or we could guarantee your schedule, or perhaps we save your boarding reservations two or three weeks outside of every major holiday, so you don’t have to worry about not getting in, which if you’ve ever owned a dog or anyone that’s ever owned a dog, well, you know, might forget that you’re going somewhere for the holidays and you try to go and get your dog looked after and it’s like, oh no, sorry sir.
We’ve been sold out for months. And so you end up driving forever to someplace to get your dog boarded when you could have just been right around the corner. So there could be perks like that that are included in your membership then and beyond. I mean, programming special events for the parties and all the stuff. We’ll be doing it fun nights at social beer specials, you name it. I mean, I think the perks are endless, and that part gets really fun when you start thinking about the programming for social and throwing these types of events.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, I love it. I think it’s almost bringing pretty much all the, and yeah, just all the services that you could imagine under one roof. So there’s definitely a lot of opportunity there. So I mean, today you have three locations open, correct? Or three, at least three corporate locations are open
Ben Eberdt:
Corporate. So they would be the affiliated direct businesses that I own with my partners outside of Level Five Capital. And then a fourth is in downtown Raleigh called West Street Dog. And that’s right Off’s kind of one of the main areas in Raleigh. And it’s boarding daycare, but also a social there, and it’s really cool. And we have got a killer bar menu, spiked milkshakes and all sorts of fun things that people love. So West Street Dog is also in the portfolio as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Okay, cool. So walk me through, how did you guys find level five? How did that relationship start? And for those who don’t know, a level five capital private equity firm in the franchise world, they’ve invested in multi-unit franchisees and they own as a franchisee over a hundred orange theories. And then on top of that, they make equity investments in franchisors such as Restore, hyper Wellness, big Blue Swim School, and a few others. But GoDog is one of their most recent investments. So yeah, how did that all get started, Ben?
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, good question. They approached us about a year ago, I’d say, and one of the principals there, Danny, he’s just happens to be friends with my brother-in-law and sister, and they all lived in Chicago kind of near each other. And Danny works there at level five, and I think my sister had just posted something on Instagram of rendering of a or something like that. And she said, Hey, so proud of my brother Ben. He’s opening a Godo. And Danny saw it and contacted Blair, Nick, my sister, her brother-in-law, and he said, Hey, I really want to talk to your brother about this, and that’s really how it started. And so we met with Danny, Jess, and I did Jess and my father. And funny enough, Jess had actually played golf with Danny in the past just randomly somewhere in Chicago. And so they actually already had met somehow and really just never gave it a lot of credence, but they showed a lot of interest.
They knew a lot about the space. We had a lot of discussions. I think at some point there was an N D A and we shared some financials with them, and then it was like, Hey, next week we got to meet you guys in Nashville. We want to see this facility in person. And so we did. And again, it just felt like, how is this happening? Like I wanted to believe in it, but I didn’t want to commit to the idea too much because it was just such a big notion of a transaction. And then over the course of, I call it eight months, we got into negotiations and met with Chris that the c e O there many times, and every point in which we discussed and negotiated it, I guess, was just really productive and pleasant and just felt very, very, I guess natural in the partnership.
They have just a tremendous amount of respect for Chris and Danny and Duane and the folks there at level five. They’re all just unbelievably fantastic people. And I was now anxious. I really want to learn from these people. I <laugh> very smart at what they do and I’m honored to be working with them. So yeah, it took about probably eight months during the negotiation of which it was just a very cordial, productive, we were hitting the ground running way before we closed the deal. I mean, we were all confident, Hey, this is going to happen. We just had to button down the nuts and bolts, and that’s kind of the long and short of it. And so we closed in September and we’ve been off to the races propping up the franchisor and getting thing ready for a big splash in 2023.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Amazing. And a little more background too, just for the audience on level five, they’re unique in that they not only will invest in franchisors like they did with you with GoDog, but they’ll also build out a bunch of locations for their brands as franchisees, and they become what’s called an anchor franchisee. So I’m sure, right. They’re probably building 20, 30, 40, 50 plus locations of GoDog around the country or they’ve committed to. But yeah, I guess I’d be curious to hear, there’s definitely some franchise founders and CEOs who listen to this podcast. And then on top of that, I think other folks in the audience who maybe have ambitions to start their own franchise. Can you walk me through your mindset and your decision making process on this transaction? Because, and feel free to share as much or as little as you want on this, but the press release said, but level five invested around 20 million into GoDog. So I’m imagining, right, you must have given up some level of control in your company. So yeah, what was just the thought process this early on? And probably, I’m going to guess maybe they may have introduced you even to the idea of, hey, this is a franchisable concept. So yeah, what was just the levels of like, oh, do I want to franchise? Yes, I do. I want to now franchise with level five and I won’t own as much. Yeah. Can you walk me through that from your founder and C E O?
Ben Eberdt:
Sure. Yeah. Obviously a lot went into it, and you’re right, level five did present this entire kind of strategy and idea. It was not something that we were actively seeking prior to L five was our stated admission was really to have five or 10 of these things with great real estate acquisitions to anchor each one. And that was really the strategy. And I thought that if I were to build 10 and own them, I’d set up a fantastic life for myself and my family. But of course, level five comes along and they’ve got all this experience and all this success and just really to us just ingenious way of thinking about it being that yes, they are an anchored franchisee as well. And you’re right, they commit to a significant franchisee platform to open at least 25 30 of these GoDog themselves, which was a completely novel concept.
I mean, had they just been a private equity firm and said, Hey, here’s the money you go build out on the team and go do it. Would’ve not done that again. I could’ve just built my five or 10 and been a happy guy. But they’re unbelievable Acceleration services division headed by Christina. There is just so impressive with every department led by absolute just killers at what they do. And so to meet all those folks and to understand that, hey, not only are we going to support you, we have the roadmap. We’ve obviously got the capital. We have a strong passion and belief for your brand. I mean, they’re all major dog lovers, but we’ve got the resources to prop this thing up the right way. And I think that’s what attracted to them, to us again, which is we’re nimble, we’re small, we can build the foundation together correctly from the start.
We don’t have to hopefully make any mistakes upfront that we have to then go and correct as part of a larger system later on. We can really build this thing solidly from the ground up and position ourselves to grow and scale quickly, which is our goal. And then the added bonus of essentially committing to building 25 of these gives me and my operations team the confidence to know that we can really dial this in-house and really, really perfect our model and squeeze every bit of value and create new value out of each unit. And that’s really going to make this system beautiful, which is not only are we building units quickly, each one, the value is better, it’s a better return, it’s a more efficient construction, whatever it might be, because we’ve got such so many smart eyes refining every inch of our unit that it was just an unbelievably interesting and impressive notion and model to us. And they’re essentially ensuring their own investment by doing it themselves. So it’s just like if they do what we’ve set out to do just before we even sell a franchise to an external third party, we still win. And so that felt really exciting and something that we wanted to be a part of. And so at that point in time, it’s like, Hey, yeah, five or 10, I can still go do that and will, I’ll be buying franchises myself, but there’s also a much bigger picture to look at now, and that’s obviously extremely exciting.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. Yeah. I had to ask the question, but I did obviously know it’s a no-brainer, especially at just the point that they started working with you in that, right? If I’m a franchisee looking at this, I mean, it’s all very positive signals. It’s level five did due diligence on this new brand and they felt like they were worthy of an investment. Now GoDog as capital and resources behind them, which is not always the case with an emerging franchise. In fact, it’s often not the case. And that’s not a knock on all or emerging franchises, it’s just most are bootstrapped and there’s some downsides to bootstraps, to bootstrapping businesses. You don’t have the same resources as a private equity backed one would. And then on top of that, as you mentioned, right, they’re building out 25 stores. So if I’m a franchisee, I mean, yeah, I’m confident that model is going to be refined and honed in on, and by the time the 25th one is built by level five, I imagine that Go Doc’s just going to be dialed in with their playbook and how to build, get customers in the door and how to retain those customers.
So yeah, it’s a huge stamp of approval on a brand. So I mean, congratulations, <laugh>, like it’s a, it’s awesome. And it’s closed. You said that deal closed in September, so I mean, we’re recording this near the end of November, the acceleration services started. Are you guys selling franchises? Yeah. Do you want to just get us up to speed on where the brand is at today since that transaction?
Ben Eberdt:
Sure. We were massively engaged with the acceleration services and were before the deal closed, which me being, I haven’t done any other private equity deals before. I was of course a little, not nervous, but just pins and needles like, Hey, I really want this thing to close. And Dwayne the main principle that shepherded us through this thing. He’s like, Ben, do you understand how much time and money and resources we’re already spending on acceleration services? Like this is a done deal, man, <laugh> like we are off to the races here. So we are already deep with legal compliance, looking to finish up the franchise disclosure document. By the end of the year, we’ll be ready to launch the franchisor platform for selling franchise opportunities. Q1 2023 is the goal. We’ve just been in depth with not only real estate services looking for, well, we’ve identified a handful of corporate locations that we’re ready to pull the trigger on hopefully here soon anyway.
And so there’s expansion happening, there’s new locations being identified and deals being made to put GoDog in those locations. There’s also been a ton of work on the brand. There’s been a ton of work just internal resources for franchisees for ourselves just to expand the brand. There’s a lot of internal developments with our tech stack. We are actively on a C E O hunt, so I’m the president and C M O, but we will be hiring a C E O, hopefully a person with some relevant hyper kind of growth experience in the past. Not necessarily franchising or even PET specific of course helps to be a dog lover, but we are looking for that person and deep in that search and then just getting all of our ducks in a road actually launch this franchisor. I didn’t really realize, but there’s a ton of actual, I guess everyone here probably knows, but there’s a lot of compliance that goes along with that.
And then just building out the teams, our operations teams and our manuals and refining all the, I mean, the amount of time I’ve spent with the construction crew folks at level five, really evaluating every inch of each one of our existing locations and looking at them with a microscope, understanding where do we get the value? What is this for? How do we standardize these types of things in building and renovations? So there’s some massive transfer of knowledge from GoDog to the Godo franchising based on everything we’ve ever learned and what makes us so successful in the past and how we can recreate that and kind of really standardize it for the future. So that’s the work that we’re doing in short right now, and it’s a lot of fun and there’s a ton of people on the team, a ton of touchpoints, and yeah, it’s just a massive transfer of knowledge and then boxing that up into a way that we can really kind of make it a standard thing.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yep. Yeah, that’s exactly it. It’s the best franchises I think, really can just transfer the knowledge quickest and in the most seamless fashion for their franchisees. So love the way you framed it and yeah, you heard it folks Q1 2023, it’ll be off to the races for GoDog. Yeah, Ben, look, this has been a fun conversation. I’m excited to watch the brand grow and see that relationship with Level five evolve. In the meantime, is there anywhere online where folks can follow your journey, go Dog’s Journey, whether it’s social media accounts or just a website?
Ben Eberdt:
Sure. Yeah. And Patrick, thanks for having us on. Really appreciate it, and it’s been fun talking to you and appreciate your passion for this space. And it’s fun to dive into a little bit about the old music career there, <laugh>.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely.
Ben Eberdt:
Yeah, I’m not really on social media. I’m kind of a private person in that regard. But yeah, GoDog hq.com is our website. There is a portal on there for franchising where you can put in your information and we will add you to our database of interested parties or just reach out to us at that point. There’s tons of different contact forms there. But yeah, GoDog hq.com. If you want to see lots of cute dog pictures, you can follow one of our facilities on Instagram at GoDog West Nashville, or GoDog Chattanooga, GoDog Durham. Also our business in Raleigh, west Street Dogs on Instagram. That’s a fun one to follow as well. So yeah, you know, can find us, and I’m sure you’ll be seeing our digital presence growing and evolving as we add new features to the website to kind of make it more of a national type franchising home. But yeah, that’s where you can find us. And of course, level five Capital’s got some information on us probably coming to their website soon as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Beautiful. Yeah, look, we’ll plug the website and some of those Instagram handles and the show notes. So yeah, folks, if you’re in the market for a dog franchise, I would keep your eyes on GoDog. Ben, thanks again for coming on. We’ll talk soon. All
Ben Eberdt:
Right, talk soon.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Thanks for listening to Franchise Empires. We’re coming to you soon with actionable insights to take the next step on your franchise journey. So make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.