Sodapup launches new Enrichment Lab Podcast

S1 Ep1 Sodapup Enrichment Lab Podcast – Introducing the Podcast

Show Notes

Keywords Sodapup, dog enrichment, pet products, community, creativity, product design, Instagram, family business, feeding dogs, podcast

Summary In this episode of the Sodapup Pup Enrichment Lab podcast, hosts Chris Chandler and Adam Baker discuss the importance of dog enrichment and how their products have inspired creativity among pet owners. They explore the community behind their brand, the innovative designs of their products, and the personal journey of building a family-owned business. The conversation highlights the joy of enriching pets' lives and the creative ways owners engage with their dogs through feeding and play.

takeaways

• Sodapup aims to transform meal time into an enriching adventure.
• The podcast will feature stories from dog guardians around the world.
• User-generated content on Instagram inspires product design.
• Community knowledge is valuable for sharing tips and tricks.
• Innovative designs can lead to unexpected uses by consumers.
• Feeding products can be both functional and beautiful.
• Sodapup started as a hobby and grew into a family business.
• The goal is to create emotional connections through pet products.
• Creativity in feeding can enhance the pet-owner experience.
• A well-enriched pet leads to a happier life.

Titles

• Transforming Meal Time into Fun
• Innovative Designs for Happy Pets

Sound Bites

• "It's a dog podcast."
• "I want to know who is doing this enrichment."
• "People were using our products in ways that I never anticipated."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Soda Pup Enrichment Lab Podcast

02:04 The Inspiration Behind Soda Pup Products

05:55 Consumer Insights and Product Design

09:55 Creativity in Dog Feeding

11:44 Closing Thoughts and Future Directions

13:30 New Chapter

Transcript:

Chris Chandler (00:03.452)
Hello and welcome to the Sodapup Pup Enrichment Lab podcast where we mix a little kibble with curiosity and sprinkle in some fun. I'm your host, Chris Chandler. Each week we will unleash tales of guard dog, dog guardians. That was a mouthful around the globe who are transforming meal time into an enriching adventure. Whether you are looking for inspiration,

eager to expand your dog's palette or just here for a pawsome chat, you found your pack. So grab your favorite snack for yourself and your pup and join us to explore enrichment, how people are using it with their animals and simple tips on how you can join in on the fun. Our first guest for our introductory podcast is Sodapup Pups founder, Adam Baker.

who also happens to be my husband, true confessions.

Adam Baker (01:01.889)
Hello! Sorry for the dogs barking in the background.

Chris Chandler (01:07.854)
It's a dog podcast. so we just want to talk a little bit today about the podcast and what we hope to do and what we hope to bring you. So Adam, as we have talked about this over the months, what have your thoughts been about how you would like to see this go and what you would like to see this be?

Adam Baker (01:32.266)
Yeah. So, you know, the main thing for me is I've been so blown away by Instagram and how people have used our products, our Sodapup Pup products for enrichment. And it got me really curious about who are the people behind these Instagram accounts? You know, I want to know who who is doing this enrichment and what motivates them. And, you know, I want to know more about their dogs and where they live and

So some of this is just for me to scratch an itch, to learn more about who these folks are and, you know, build a community and make some friends along the way. So that was the initial thought was who are these people and wouldn't it be fun to introduce them, to learn about them and introduce them to the world.

Chris Chandler (02:26.428)
So if you haven't seen our Instagram yet, I would definitely encourage you to give it a look. And what you will see is that it's largely user generated content and it shows all these amazing and really creative ways that customers and consumers all around the world are using enrichment products to provide food enrichment, mostly for their dogs, but some people with other animals as well.

And so we have been talking about learning more about these people, bringing them to you, and also drawing in their everyday expertise about how to do this every day.

Adam Baker (03:11.711)
Yeah, I think there's a real opportunity for us to learn from one another. You know, every now and then we will have experts come on the podcast as well. But, you know, I think there's a lot of knowledge just held within the community itself. And so the idea that, you know, we can share tips and tricks and educate one another. You know, the other interesting thing about Instagram is

people were using our products in ways that I never anticipated. so it's been a great feedback loop for me as I think about new products to design. we actually, and this started a while ago, a couple of years ago, we actually started designing in specific ways based on the way we saw people were using the products. And so there were some really interesting insights for me to inform product design. And so...

Yeah, so it'll be fun to talk with folks.

Chris Chandler (04:11.398)
Can you tell us? Yeah, so tell us just from your perspective a little bit more about what you started seeing and maybe a couple of things that have been the most surprising and then how that has informed things for Sodapup Pop.

Adam Baker (04:27.913)
Yeah, so you know the first Lick Mat that we did was during the pandemic. It was in 2020 and we did the Jigsaw Lick Mat and my intention was to make it quite difficult because you know Buddy, our Black Lab was he could use other brands Lick Mats and he could just lick them clean in five minutes and and I wanted something that would last longer. So when I'm on a zoom call I can get through a whole zoom call without Buddy.

requiring my attention.

Chris Chandler (04:59.61)
It was hard to do because Buddy loved Adam the most.

Adam Baker (05:02.955)
As they all do. And he, yeah, he was very needy. He was a rescue and he was insecure and he, you he wasn't accustomed to having me at home either. So the fact that I was here, he needed a lot of attention. And so we created a Lick Mat just for Buddy and it was the jigsaw. But what surprised me is I started seeing...

Instagram images where people were putting different colors in each piece of the puzzle and I never really anticipated that type of use when we did the design I was just trying to make something that was complex and would take a long time for a dog to lick clean But I didn't expect people to fill different segments with different colors and there you know that design enables you to do that whereas other types of designs that might just have nubs

You can't do that if you put color in one thing, it just spreads out across the whole mat. And so that was a really interesting insight for me. And from then on, I started designing designs that would have self-contained shapes. Now, the first dog bowl that we did was the honeycomb dog bowl. And the same thing, the same behavior was going on there, which I didn't anticipate. People are using it kind of like a charcuterie board. They're putting different foods in each one of the combs.

and creating beautiful meals. And I didn't anticipate that either. So as we designed more and more dog bowls, it was always with an eye toward creating these self-contained shapes. And if you stop and think about it, a self-contained shape like one of those combs in a honeycomb bowl is like a mini dog bowl. And so it's forcing a dog...

to use his tongue, he can't actually get a snout down into that segment that's too small. And so, you one of the happy outcomes of this is that our dog bowls actually take dogs longer to eat. And many of the competitor dog bowls that I buy and test and, you know, it doesn't really slow the dog down very much. And so our bowls are definitely much more difficult and much more effective. And a lot of that came from consumer insights, how people were using the products. So.

Adam Baker (07:20.789)
So there's a couple of examples.

Chris Chandler (07:23.654)
Yeah. And we've seen some, we do see every day, incredible beauty in how people are putting food in the lick mats, the bowls, the trays, and people are really using them like canvases. And it's just been really fun to watch people take Sodapup Pups creativity in terms of the design of the mats and the colors and what we offer, and then using their own creativity.

to make it this beautiful, as you said, a charcuterie board. Sometimes it looks like a painting. People in terms of using different colors and different kinds of food types and different taking the products they use, whether it's goat milk or yogurt and giving it color. so we continue to be really fascinated and inspired by and amazed by

Adam Baker (08:16.995)
Amazed.

Chris Chandler (08:23.036)
people's creativity out there for both for feeding their dogs in well, also in these really beautiful ways.

Adam Baker (08:24.945)
Yeah, it

Adam Baker (08:30.933)
Yeah, it's funny when I designed certain designs, I actually have certain Instagram accounts in mind and it's like, hmm, I wonder what so-and-so will do with this design. Or if I do this, I wonder if that person would engage with it. So it's fun. It's like doing a dance. We're not really talking to each other, but I'm thinking, this would be really fun to do. And I wonder if so-and-so would respond to that.

You know what people might not know about Sodapup Pup is that, you know, we're a family owned business. We started this as a hobby business in the basement. My background is in sporting goods, not in pet. and I wanted to, the reason, the reason I created Sodapup Pup is because I didn't think that pet products were very interesting. And, you know, we had three dogs and two cats and

You know, you go into a lot of pet stores and it's just the same stuff all the time. The assortments don't change that much. and, and so I think many, many retailers treat products like dog bowls, like, pet supplies. Sounds weird to say, cause it has a pet supply, but, but I wanted to create something beautiful, more like a consumer product.

Like how do we create things that people can have an emotional reaction to? Like how can we touch people's hearts in ways with a product where you wouldn't ordinarily get that? So many of our Lick Mat designs and our Dog Bowl designs, we're trying to lean into people's experiences with their dogs, but not strictly with their dogs. We wanna create beautiful objects.

So it's been especially gratifying to see the types of creativity on Instagram coming back at us. So it's been it's just been a really, really fun ride and and it fuels more ideas for us about what we can do in the future. Not just you know more designs of the types of things we do now, but you know maybe new new types of products in the future. So we're always.

Adam Baker (10:58.892)
We're always open to ideas and new ways of thinking.

Chris Chandler (11:04.198)
Great. So we're going to keep this first one short. That's just a little intro for you about what we're going to be bringing to you. So I do have a question to ask you. Yeah. And that is, if you were a dog, what kind of dog would you be?

Adam Baker (11:25.282)
Mmm.

Well, I'd like to tell you that I'm a sleek greyhound hound. But I'm actually, thanks a lot. I think I'm a black lab. I'm not that smart. I'm kind of dumpy, but I'm very lovable. And I'm not as food-motivated but I'm pretty good-natured.

Chris Chandler (11:32.082)
I shouldn't laugh.

Chris Chandler (11:48.914)
You're not as food motivated as a lab. So I don't know. Yes, you are a good natured. Okay. Well, a lab, a black lab. Well, so, so I will have to tell you that we, right now we only have one dog, which we had three and then we had two and now we're down to one and

Adam Baker (11:57.708)
So I'm a lab. A black lab. And I throw up on the carpet all the time.

Chris Chandler (12:17.072)
We for a while now haven't had a lab and we've almost always had labs and we're debating about dog, another dog, no dog. mean, you know, we have one dog, but we add a second. And if we added a second, if we added a second, it would definitely be a lab. think I'm safe in saying that. And I bet I said to Adam, as we were out walking today, I said, you know what? I was like, you know what? It's been.

Adam Baker (12:26.161)
Well, we have one dog, but do we get a second dog? Yeah. They keep growing up and getting old.

Chris Chandler (12:43.654)
Like it's been like a year since any dog threw up on the rug. Cause it seems like in our history with labs, because they're always eating yucky stuff, they throw up on the rug a lot. I don't know. And other yucky stuff. Anyway. So as we close this episode of the Sodapup Pup Enrichment Lab, I hope that you will be inspired to jazz up your furry friends day.

Adam Baker (12:54.844)
a lot of grass, among other things, and cat group.

Chris Chandler (13:10.64)
with a sprinkle of creativity and a dash of deliciousness. Remember that enrichment is not just a buzzword. It's the key to tail wagging, panting good times for our beloved companions. If you enjoy this episode and were the ones that are to come, and we hope that you will subscribe, share the joy with your fellow pet enthusiast by recommending the podcast and leave a review. So keep the tails wagging.

bowl's full and remember a well enriched pet is a happy pet. Thanks for being here.