What a pig can teach you about serving customers with Matt Meeker, Co-founder, CEO and Exec Chairman of Bark

Not My First Guess

This episode is a little flashback for us, jumping back to a conversation Hattie had with Matt Meeker, Co-Founder, Executive Chairman and CEO (that’s Canine Enrichment Officer) at Bark, and former founder of Meetup. Today, when she’s teaching founders how to test their ideas in the early stages, Hattie still comes back to how Matt tested both Meetup and Bark with customers, and with so many valuable insights and lessons, it seemed rude not to have this available as part of this series! So with Matt’s kind permission, we’re thrilled to welcome the episode to its new home. If you haven’t listened yet, there is so much in here!

Bark are on a mission to make dogs as happy as they make us. Because dogs and humans are better together. The company started as BarkBox a monthly themed combining their favourite toys and treats from the market, and have gone on to create their own toys and treats, along with health and wellness support.

Matt is an incredible, serial entrepreneur who before Bark, founded Meetup in 2001. Growing from 50 to 6,000 users in the first few months Meetup was then acquired by WeWork for $156million. After leaving Meetup in 2007, Matt went on to launch BarkBox in 2012 which is an equally impressive company reaching profitability in 2017 having sold over 50million boxes.
In this episode we discuss:

• How Meetup was born out of the devastating event of 9-11 to connect people and give underserved communities a place to go
• The value of the Lean Startup method
• Pivoting a business one year in after responding to customer feedback
• Putting the product where customers want to buy
• Building retention in subscription models
• Keeping connected to customers as a founder
• The keys to success as a serial entrepreneur

Since this episode was originally recorded, Matt’s dog Hugo, who was a big inspiration for him and the company, sadly passed away though Matt continues to feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility to honor him and his legacy, to ensure it’s still here and strong one-hundred years from now. Matt has also returned back to his original position as CEO and is just as passionate about fulfilling Barks mission to make dogs as happy and healthy as ever, as Hugo would’ve wanted.

Links:

• Bark - https://bark.co
• Meetup - https://www.meetup.com
• The Lean Startup Methodology - https://theleanstartup.com/principles