Turning Canine Love Into a Lifestyle Brand – Mai Tran of Cavology

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks This is a show where I introduce successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business stories, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and that they have used to start to grow their businesses.

Today I’m really excited to welcome Mai Tran to the show. Mai is the founder of Cavology Cavology is a Canadian based lifestyle brand specializing in fashionable and functional accessories for dogs and their owners. And today I’m going to ask my a few questions about her entrepreneur journey and some of the strategies and tactics that she has used to grow her business.

Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. For more interviews like this, please visit treptalks.com And with that my welcome and thank you so much for joining me today at treptalks Really, really appreciate your time.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So when I was doing, uh, a little bit of a research on you, I believe your, uh, the result that I got was you, uh, a lawyer who kind of shifted into entrepreneurship and that kind of caught my attention yourself. What were you doing before and how kind of you transitioned into entrepreneurship and why?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Absolutely. So I am, I’m born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and, uh, growing up I’ve never had dogs. My background was very, you know, immigrant parents, very strict with school. So I entered kind of automatically the science route. I actually have a science undergrad. I went to university to get a biopharmaceutical bachelor’s degree, and after that I, I kind of didn’t know what you can do with a bachelor’s degree in science.

It’s pretty limited what you can do, so I explored some graduate programs and somehow ended up in law school. I quite enjoyed it. It was. A very different field of study and it required a lot of adjustment going from science to law. Uh, but then I just went through it and naturally was again, pushed into the field of intellectual property in law because of my science background.

And I dabbled in that. I, I also practiced in business law, commercial law, and then. Sort of drifted away from it to explore entrepreneurship because during my first years as a lawyer, I got my first dog, her key, and that kind of changed all my mindset on everything, honestly it with her, I started doing photography just because I loved her so much.

I explored photography, started posting photos of her online, and grew a community of dog lovers and dog owners. And that’s how everything grew. It was a dog influencer account. Then I started making products and that shifted into its own business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That is so interesting. So did you kind of completely let go of law or do you, do you still practice law that that kind of I don’t, I don’t

Mai Tran of Cavology: practice at all.

I actually stopped paying my, my, um, I don’t know how you, uh, my kind of membership to the bar of Quebec.

Track 1: Wow.

Mai Tran of Cavology: So I’m not a member of the bar anymore. I do some, um, not advising, but some, some counseling for friends and family. Uh, but officially I’m not practicing anymore.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Law, it can be, I mean, I work in a corporate environment and sometimes it can be very, very oriented work.

And now I think, um, that law and medicine is not for everybody, for, uh. Exactly.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Exactly. That’s what I think when you are not, what I learned is you can be book smart at something because I was a person that was always able to learn very easily. I was very, I was book smart and I had a very ease of going to school and graduating any program, but in the field of practice, I really didn’t have an interest for it.

So. Naturally. When you’re not passionate and you don’t love something you do, it’s very hard to be good at it and not it feeling like a job.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Correct. So let’s shift to ology. Um, yes. So you had, I think you had one of the, um, one of the best ways of starting a business, which is really to build an audience first.

And then create the, create the product around it. Uh, which is, I think, I think is the best way to, to do it, to be honest. Uh, okay. And, and safest and safest way probably because, uh, you know that you already have the audience. So can you talk a little bit about your business, the products you’re, uh, selling and, uh, the, the brand that you’ve created?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yes. So it’s interesting that you say that is the, the safest way to start a business because I always re-question my business and whether. It was the right way of starting it or not, but in the end, there’s no right or wrong way to start a business. To me, I always say just do it, and then you see what sticks and what works.

But to me, I really didn’t even plan to launch a business. It’s just I had an audience with my, with my dogs. It’s what you would call an influencer brand. It’s exactly what my brand is because my dogs, they were, they have a platform on Instagram. YouTube, uh, TikTok. And so through that audience, I, I started creating products and my very first product I think were bandanas and then rope leashes.

That was our official first product were rope leashes and I was hand making them in my kitchen, in my condo while working as a lawyer. It was very, it was very, it was really not meant to be scaled or anything. It was really started as a hobby, just pushed through my audience and from that it grew. I eventually separated the influencer to the brand

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: and, and what products?

I see you, you do have a good collection of products on your website. Can you talk a little bit about your products?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yeah, so when we first started, as I mentioned, we only had bandanas and rope leashes. And if you look on our website, we still have the cotton robe, leashes. Those are our vintage. Star product, our ever first product, and we still come out with some new colors here and there, but we do import products now.

We design everything in Canada, but I do import products because. I just needed to diversify the type of product that I sell and I can’t just sell one product. So in 2021, I think we started, uh, importing harness sets and we have quite a different styles of harnesses, but we really try to focus on smaller dogs and on Cavaliers, just because I have a Cavalier and I know Cavaliers and small dogs and the type of harnesses that certain brand offer.

Doesn’t cater to all types of dogs. So I try to focus on what I know and what fits that type of dog the best.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now, if somebody is starting in a category like this, uh, pets category mm-hmm. Which, which would be considered more of a. Um, mature category where there’s so many competitors, so many players, um, and all kinds of products out there.

Like if you go on Amazon, I’m sure you can find all kinds of harnesses and so forth. Um, yes. I guess my question would be, um, do you think it has been successful for you or easier for you because you were able to build a, the audience for it first? Um, like how, how would a product like this. Set itself apart and all the noise and the competition that’s out there.

Mai Tran of Cavology: That’s a really good question and I, I question myself on that all the time ’cause I don’t know what’s the right answer to that. And to me, I think my edge is that I was an Instagram brand or an influencer brand that started years ago. I started officially maybe 20 17, 20 18. And back then there was not that many.

Instagram or social media dog brands. And with time they grew so much, especially around the pandemic 2021 to 20 22, 20 23, that there’s brands that start all over the place and everyone is better than the other. Everybody’s so creative and everybody’s doing such a great job, and the competition is very fierce.

So I think. My edge was that I was able to start before and build an, and I already had an audience, so that was already easier to launch and have a brand now. But I think starting a brand now is very difficult because social media is very saturated. But not to say it’s impossible because there are still new brands that see the light of day in 20 24, 20 25, and they still do very well.

So I don’t think it’s impossible. I just think it might be. A bit more difficult because there are so many amazing brands out there.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Correct? Yeah. And, and now I think you have to, uh, not only break through the noise, like you have to do something very, very different, but at the same time, your product still has to perform.

Like your product product still has to be good, otherwise people are not gonna come and Exactly. Exactly. When you started out, did you, I mean, it seems like a simple product and I think you started with one or two products. Mm-hmm. Did you invest a lot of money into it? Was it your own personal, um, kind of a bootstrapped, uh, thing?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Everything was bootstrapped from me, from myself, and again, I started very, it was super ghetto, honestly. I would go to the hardware store. I would literally buy. Things like Michael’s, Joanne’s hardware stores and find my material there. So it was really crafty before. The first real investments, I would say was when we started importing harnesses, because again, when we import from India, China, Vietnam, whatever it might be, the minimum order quantity is.

Is really big. And for a small business, that’s the most considerable expense that you’re gonna get because you have to meet those minimum order quantities and that comes up to a big amount. But when I first started, those were very small investment and we kind of, you know, one step at a time. We, I started having employees here and there that started as consultants before.

So it was, it was very gradual at first, but I would say around 2021, when. You know, you get a warehouse, you move out of the home business, you get employees, you start importing. Those are big expenses.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. I mean, it seems like your business scaled. Um, and, um, uh, are you, are you now getting all your products like from overseas and are there any impacts from like these tariffs and things like this?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Uh, yes. We are still mostly importing just because the. There’s no manufacturing happening much in Canada and the US Unfortunately, these types of products need to be manufactured overseas. We don’t have the capacity yet. I would love to see that one day perhaps, but they are so equipped to manufacture these types of products and we would not be able to get them at that price if they were manufactured here.

I still make some of the rope leashes at our warehouse, so our rope leashes now are a mix of imported and made in-house. So some are Canadian made. Some are imported, but so far I personally haven’t been affected with the whole tariff talk.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, in terms of your audience, I know that you’ve kind of built this audience on social media.

Track 1: Mm-hmm.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, are you, are you, um, is that kind of your primary way to acquire customers or now your brand is kind of well known in the small dog? Market that people can recognize it and come, uh, to your store directly.

Mai Tran of Cavology: So we’re always trying to acquire new clients of like, I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners that you talk to, we’re always trying to get new clients because there’s always a lifecycle and a lifespan with a customer at a brand.

So we obviously have these amazing clients that have been with us from the start for almost eight years now, which is amazing. But newer clients are usually acquired through social media still. So we try to create content that will attract newer customers. Um, and I always try to still nurture my dog influencer account.

In order to funnel to my business still, you know, so it’s, it’s not only social media for my brand page, but it’s also social media for my influencer page that has to keep going.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: It seems like now you have created processes in your business, now you have employees. Mm-hmm. How much time do you spend now in working in the business, or you are now more of the working on the business?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Uh, honestly, I am working a lot less than I used to work because I have amazing people taking care of everything. Um, at our warehouse, as I mentioned, I am currently working remotely in Florida. I. And we have staff at the, at our warehouse taking care of admin, receiving and shipping. Um, I also have an amazing social media manager.

She works remotely. I have an email marketer and he works remotely, so I’m able to scale back and do a lot less. And I, I do a lot of overseeing. Um, I work with our external consultants, I would say our accountants, lawyers. Uh, I work on business development, so. I don’t know how, how, how many hours in terms of hours I’m working, but I would say a lot less than before.

Definitely.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. I mean, because that’s kind of the dream of every entrepreneur, right? Like people start business so that they can reclaim their time. Like yes, a lot of entrepreneurs want freedom. And so, so it seems like, I mean, you’ve, you’ve been able to achieve, uh, your goal. Like if, if that was, uh, one of your goals?

Yes.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Because a lot of, a lot of content before, like before I, when we first started, and I, I loved working. It’s not, it, it was never like a chore When you work on your own business and on your own craft, it’s such a joy. I remember working 12 hours a day and it felt like, so. Fulfilling, you know, and enriching to work on your own craft.

But now that my life is different, I’m in another stage of life, as I mentioned, I have a, I have a young child. I have my dogs, like we have a family life now, so I’m not even able to do 12 hour days anymore. So I’m very glad that our business. My business is at a place right now where I can scale, like take a step back, do more overseeing, not doing the nitty gritty because I even don’t have that many hours available.

You know?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure, for sure. Mm-hmm. Um, in terms of your sales channels, if your website, the primary sales channel, are you selling on marketplaces? Are you selling wholesale? Are you selling like, uh, other places also?

Mai Tran of Cavology: So the main platform where we’re selling is our website. Um, for B2B two C, I am trying to expand into B2B, and that’s a whole other challenge.

I’ve, since I’m an Instagram brand and I’ve always been more focused on the customer, our clients are usually the customer, the end customer. But now to get more eyes on the brand and to expand, I, I’m trying to get into more retailers, get into. Smaller shops. So with that, we are on a marketplace called Fair.

I don’t know if you’re familiar.

Track 1: Yes.

Mai Tran of Cavology: So on that platform, I’m able to list all my products and then retailers are able to browse through our products and get an order from there, which is amazing.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. And, and Fair is working for you? Like are you able to get orders there?

Mai Tran of Cavology: I do get orders. Not a, not a ton, not huge.

Uh, I would love for it to be more automated and, uh, have a better volume. I’m still trying to make the best out of it. I think I’ve been on the platform for like a year and a half or so. I see other brands that do so well on there. So I don’t know if my products need some tweaking or my actual page or what it is, but I’m also trying to do some, uh, cold call outreach to, to brands, and.

Retailers.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So w um, with retailers, I mean, I’m assuming you, are, you, you’re looking at like the bigger, uh, pet stores? Uh, or

Mai Tran of Cavology: I mean, that would be a dream. That would literally be a dream. The thing is, my, my limitation with going into a bigger brand is that my brand is not fully set up to fulfill such a big order for examples, you know?

Um. If I can show you any product that you would buy in a store that has a barcode like this.

Track 1: Hmm.

Mai Tran of Cavology: My products are not set up with these codes yet, and that is a, an investment on our part that we would have to do. We’re not, we’re not so shelf ready for the bigger box stores. Usually our products do well in the.

I, I don’t like to call it mom and pop, but like the one-off the specialty boutiques that you find in these stores here and there, our products do well there ’cause it’s like, um, like a novelty product and you see a new brand and it’s kind of local. Um, they do well in Florida in our, in, in little shops in Florida.

They do very well. I but the big stores, that would be a total dream come true. Like if, if my product could be in like a Target one day, that would be.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A dream, but, uh, a lot of the times, like retail has its own, um, headaches because I think they, oh, the mar the margins are slimmer and

Mai Tran of Cavology: yeah, the margins are slimmer and you have to.

Every, everybody that I talk to in the pet industry and I tell them I would like to expand in B2B, they tell me they wanna expand in B2C because the margins are bigger. And so, you know, we always have our own challenges, but I’m trying to grow on the other side. But they say that the, a big challenge on the B two, B2B side on retail is that you, you really have to fight to keep your space on the shelf too.

Because there’s so much competition. The margins are, are smaller. And also the retailers, they have limited time and space and on their shelves as well. They wanna go through the inventory pretty quickly. And when the same item sits on the shelf, it doesn’t look so good for their brand either. So it has its own set of challenges, of course.

But what I’ve noticed also is that those big retailers have started to do their own, their own brands. It’s like, hmm. You know, they have their own brands, let’s say at at PetSmart.

Track 1: Yeah.

Mai Tran of Cavology: It’s almost like their home brand. And they import their own products now because they can make way bigger margins if they manufacture their own products than if they buy from some from another brand.

You know?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Correct. Correct. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think every, every business has, has now figured out that, you know, it’s much easier to, let’s just

Track 1: make our own products.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Correct. Correct. I think that’s why it’s so important to have some sort of a differentiation that other businesses or products not have or like just create that strong, uh, brand.

Track 1: Absolutely. Um,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: in terms of markets, I know you said that. HQ is in Canada and you are in the us you’re selling in the us. Are these like, is North America your biggest market? Are you also selling like Europe, Australia, other places?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Um, I used to a lot more before. Um, I, I’ll go into that in a moment, but I would say 80% of my volume right now is US customers.

And I’ve always had a bigger customer base in the us I, I’ve seen a big decline in the Europe market. I used to. Send much more packages to Europe, but it’s declined over the years because even customers, they tell me now, they’re like, when we import from outside the eu, they get taxed so much for, for imports so that it’s not even worth it for them.

And I feel really bad because sometimes the customer, they refuse the package once it gets to customs and then it’s just get, it just gets sent back to me ’cause it’s not even worth it for them to purchase. And for Australia, I. Also a small volume. I see some, but it’s because our shipping costs so much to ship to Australia.

So I see less going there. But our biggest destinations is the US followed by Canada.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I’m, I’m curious, so you did not mention a marketplace like Amazon. Was there a reason for it? Uh, because your product is more, do you consider it more of a premium item or.

Mai Tran of Cavology: I do, I, I am a huge Amazon customer. Okay. I think I order on Amazon every single day.

And what I’ve noticed with my own Amazon purchase behavior is that I usually go for something specific that I need, and I will usually just go through. The first three products at most, and the competition for you to be on the top three products on Amazon is so high. I don’t think, I don’t have the budget for marketing and for ads to be on the top products.

Second, our product is more expensive than what Amazon has to offer, and the pet products on Amazon for accessories is the equivalent of a quick fix almost. It’s like you need something right away and you will buy it. Our product is more premium. It has features that, you know, it’s more thought of in a product.

So I feel like people gravitating towards our product have to do more research and they have to be more intentional in their purchase. Whereas when you go on Amazon, it’s, it’s like, oh my gosh, my leash broke. I need something for my trip tomorrow.

Track 1: Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Mai Tran of Cavology: So that’s the reason why we’re not on Amazon.

It’s also a big, again, it’s, it’s, it’s an investment for us to go on Amazon and to bid for the ads and, and all that. So I’ve decided it’s not for us. Good,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: good. Um, in terms of your team, can you talk a little bit about your team?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yeah. Absolutely. So, uh, our team in Montreal, we have a warehouse manager. She oversees the shipping and the receiving and everything that has to do with warehouse.

That’s why we call her a warehouse manager. She does mostly warehousing and shipping. I also have an admin manager, I would say she oversees like customer service and emails, uh, accounting when you know bills are due and things like that. And then I have a social media manager that I work with closely.

We do monthly meetings and we come up with, um, a social media calendar, a, a content calendar for the month. And it’s really important to me that our content is planned, but also has space for kind of impromptu posts. Hmm, because this is, this is something that was most important to me is that my social media still feels like me, and I didn’t wanna delegate 100% of my social media.

We are still a page that posts every single day on there. So our scheduled posts is three per week, and then all the four other days, I have the liberty to post something spontaneous, something that is more personal. Something that arises, something that will keep the audience more engaged than a scheduled post.

But the scheduled posts are still very important because I, I like to have some sort of structure and I don’t like to scramble every single day to have something to post. Uh, so that’s where the little tidbit on my social media. And then I also have an email marketer and he is working closely with our social media manager as well.

And he does email marketing, um, remotely. He, we do one email a week.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. And, and you think that that’s a good frequency?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Honestly, for me, yes. I think. I would, I, my audience could manage to, to receive more than one email a week. Our stats are really good on the email marketing side, but I personally really don’t like having so many emails from the same brand.

And I will often unsubscribe from email lists when I get an email a day.

Track 1: Yeah.

Mai Tran of Cavology: From certain brands, you know, so I, I like to keep it at one email per week. I don’t know if that’s like good or if it’s bad. It’s just a personal thing.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. I think, um, I think as long as somebody feels that they’re getting value, some sort of a value, like whether it’s entertainment value or like a deal, uh, or I think as long as somebody feels that they get some sort of a benefit.

I don’t think there’s a limit. Well, but that’s the thing.

Mai Tran of Cavology: I don’t, uh, I don’t know if I can just push products every single, yeah. In every single mailing list. You know, that’s why we try to make like some funny ones. We include vlogs and, you know, some sort of entertaining content in there. And not only push like, oh, promotion this and promotion that to not be so overwhelming with, you know, buy this right now.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, I see your, I’m, I’m on your YouTube and Instagram. It looks really great. I mean, uh, do you have a, well, first of all, do you find that, um, social media has now become more of a, um, capturing the trend wave? Like, you know, what’s relevant today? Like, there’s a new news today. You, you know, you get on that, get a.

Views. Yes. Versus as, as you said, you know, you, you, you schedule a post and that’s like a

Mai Tran of Cavology: exactly like the, the, that’s why we do a mix, because every single time there’s like a trend or there’s something I need to do it right away. We have, we even have our social media manager, she also has a, a, we call her a reels girl, but she sends us trends of reels to do, and honestly, if I don’t do it within the week, it’s no longer relevant.

So I always have to catch it at the right moment. And I’ll give you the perfect example is every time there’s a red carpet event, and the latest one was, um, the MET Gala.

Track 1: Yeah,

Mai Tran of Cavology: you, I always do a post about that and it’s always the following day. So let’s say there’s a, a weekend event, the VMAs, the Met Gala, the Oscars, whatever it is, there’s always red carpet and there’s always some sort of content that’s pop culture related that I can do a post of the next day.

So that’s always something that I like to do and jump on.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Yeah. Um, I see that your YouTube channel has a pretty decent following also. Do you receive some ad revenue on that or,

Mai Tran of Cavology: uh, on my, on my influencer, I don’t know if you’re looking at Herky, the Cavalier or Caval, sorry.

Track 1: Herky. Herky. The Cavalier.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yeah. Yes. We do have AdSense revenue, and that’s what I love about YouTube is that. It’s such a almost permanent space. Like so many of our clients and so many of our customers, even to this day when they meet me in person or when they purchase from ology, they say, I found you on YouTube years ago when you first got herky.

So the, the connection that you feel with somebody you, you find on YouTube is so. It’s so deep and meaningful because it’s long form content. So people that know us from YouTube really know us the best, and we’ve been posting on YouTube for so long that yes, I still have AdSense revenue monthly, and it’s, it’s good.

Revenue, I’m guessing. Uh, I would love to have more time to post content on YouTube again, because it really nurtures the following and the customers because they really feel like they know us and we provide such different content on there than a product based business. So, I don’t know. I love my YouTube family like the most.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Mm-hmm. No, it, it’s awesome. Mm-hmm. Um, what is your future vision for your business?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Oh my goodness. Um, I would love to nail a big, get into a big retailer. A large retailer like the, like my top retailer of my dreams would be Target or Nordstrom, putting it out there. Those are my top, top, uh, goals. I would love to see that one day.

Otherwise, I. I would just love to be able to still do this, come up with new products that our customers would love, um, still provide content for cavalier owners tips and tricks to be like the go-to source for Cavaliers always, and still be that person. And you know, just being able to live life, continue having a family life and continue doing this, which I love.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you, when you are thinking about new product ideas, do you like survey your audience?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Oh my gosh, I do sometimes. But you know, what I’ve learned is that when you survey the audience, people will say whatever. Okay. They, it’s like, I will often do a poll, okay. About what people wanna see. I’ll give you a perfect example.

Like I say, who wants a restock of this? And then that person will say, yes. Let’s say, and then when you restock, you don’t hear about them or they don’t care. Yeah. So it’s really hard to survey your audience because yes, it can be very valuable sometimes, but you really have to trust your own stats and your own gut because your Shopify Analytics and your Instagram analytics are your best friend, and you really have to trust your own judgment because.

When you do surveys, sometimes it’s people that don’t even know your product will say something.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm.

Mai Tran of Cavology: So that’s my 2 cents.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think you have to get them to prepare and that, that, that, that’s probably the best.

Mai Tran of Cavology: You know what? I actually did a pre-order once, and it worked really well. We had one collection that did so well.

It’s our Cavaliers of the World Harness because our, our audience is so heavily Cavalier, king Charles. So it sold out and then. When I place an order with my manufacturer, it takes months before you get it because manufacturing just takes a very long time. So in the meantime, I asked people to pre-order if they wanted it, to make sure that they have it, and that actually worked really well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Uh, in every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always mistakes, lessons learned, failure. What has been like a big mistake or failure in your journey? What did you learn from it, and what can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?

Mai Tran of Cavology: I feel like this could be its own episode because every single day there is something I swear.

Entrepreneurship is is not for the faint of heart. It’s about. It’s about learning every single day, and you’re served a big plate of WTF. Every day there’s something new. My latest thing is that communication, okay, is my number one. Um. Communication is my number one in every sphere of your life with your spouse, with your parents, with your friends, but also with your manufacturer and every person in business.

I can’t stress this enough. I have been with the same manufacturer for years, and still to this day, there’s still mistakes in the products that I receive. And I don’t know if I don’t communicate well enough, but. I would say communicate every single thing. Even if you’ve been working with the person for years, don’t assume that they still know something from the previous back.

I’ll give you a perfect example. We have one harness that I reordered in another color. You would think if I ask for another color, you do exactly this harness in another color, and there’s still some differences. The harness, and I’m like, why didn’t you do anyway? So that, I would say you can’t repeat things enough in business and in life, and that would be my biggest, um, recommendation.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That is true, especially working with the contractors or I think, uh, yeah. Yeah,

Mai Tran of Cavology: and it’s, I think it’s, it’s really hard also when you deal with manufacturers from overseas because there’s. Not only the time zone difference, but there’s a language barrier as well. Correct. And dealing with manufacturers in China or India, they live 12 hours ahead of you.

They, we don’t speak the same language. And there’s always errors of communication because it’s, first of all, it’s not even same culture. So it’s very different how they approach things and how we approach things and. For me, the language barrier is a huge thing and sometimes I have to ask my sister-in-law, she speaks Mandarin and I’m like, you really have to tell her exactly what she needs to hear.

And you know, I do. We do our best, they do our their best also. But communication is your best tool.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment, I’m gonna ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or a sentence or so. Yes. The first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs.

And why?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Um, I’m reading this one. I really like, it’s stop overthinking.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And, and what

Mai Tran of Cavology: I, I am a person that will ruminate very easily and go over mistakes and re-question a lot of things and. This really gives you some tools in order to, you know, stop overthinking things.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. And innovative product or idea in the current e-commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about

Mai Tran of Cavology: in any,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: yeah.

Any, any, um, any, um, idea or product that you feel excited about?

Mai Tran of Cavology: I’m really excited about the RayBan meta glasses.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Are you using it?

Mai Tran of Cavology: No, I would love to Have you used them?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, but I want to, I I, I’m thinking like that in my shopping list.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Yeah. Like I, this is something new that just, I, I don’t even know if it’s really new, it’s new to me.

I would love to try them out. ’cause we do, every time we do dog content behind the scenes and photo shoots, that would be so cool. ’cause we’re always with multiple phones looking at everything. So those glasses would be really fun to capture some behind the scenes content.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. For people who do social media or content, I think that’s, yeah, I mean, from what I see, uh, some of the, the footage, it looks great.

So

Track 1: yeah, it’s not, I would love to try

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: a business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tool.

Track 1: Productivity tool, is that what you said? Productivity tool?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Tool or tip?

Track 1: Uh,

Mai Tran of Cavology: honestly, I. Uh, I’m gonna be very, very, uh, boring about this, but your Google calendar with notifications is gonna be your best friend.

Every time you have an idea or something, just put in your calendar because your brain will play tricks on you. You won’t even remember things that you think you’re gonna remember. So put everything in your calendar.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Awesome. Uh, another startup or business that you think is currently doing great things.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Uh, another startup or business, um,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: any products that you buy from, uh, any other business that you really like?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Oh, I really like, currently it’s gonna be very boring, but hydro jug. I really, really like this. I’m all about hydration and I used to be a Stanley girl, like the Stanley Cups. Yeah, yeah. But Hydro Jug is really good because it’s actually leak proof.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I’m a big

Mai Tran of Cavology: fan of Hydro Jug. I’m gonna say Hydro Jug.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Uh, I’m gonna say, uh, Christine Chang. She is the CEO of the brand Sassy Wolf. She started her brand about the same time as me, and she is doing so amazing and so kudos to her.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Final question. Best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Mai Tran of Cavology: I would say my, my biggest tip is if you have an idea, just do it. Don’t overthink it. Just start it. You never know where it’s gonna go.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, those were all the questions that I had.

Ma, thank you so much for sharing your story, for, uh, sharing your business, uh, advice, lessons and failure. And, uh, if anybody wants to check out your products, what’s the best way to do that?

Mai Tran of Cavology: Okay. Thank you so much for having me. Have a good one.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What’s uh, if anybody wants to check out your products, what’s the best way to do that?

I’m

Mai Tran of Cavology: sorry. Oh, sorry. So if anybody wants to check out our product, our website is covology.com and our Instagram is at Covology brand.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, Mai thank you so much again for your time and wish you all the very best.

Mai Tran of Cavology: Thank you so much having me. Have a good one.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You too.