8fig gave us the confidence we needed to grow because entrepreneurship is very scary.
Essentials for pups
Jake Chambers started Pupsentials with his wife Kyndall in 2021 in Fort Worth, Texas. Kyndall’s art background and their mutual love for dogs, of which they have five, drove them to create something dog-related. The goal was to create something for the dog community that didn’t exist yet. So they settled on creating hyper-detailed custom embroidery of dogs, which they had been unable to find anywhere else previously.
Jake and Kyndall embarked on a journey of 43 different embroidery shops in Fort Worth, Dallas, and even Mexico and China. No one wanted to take their orders because they were so detailed and complex. So they bought a sewing machine and learned how to do embroidery themselves. The first product was a sweatshirt with an embroidered image of each customer’s pet.
They quickly learned that there was a lot of demand for their products. The first influencer they hired earned them around 300 product orders. Jake and Kyndall soon ran into bottlenecks. Since all of their products are custom-made, they had issues completing all the artwork and embroidery in time. Initially, Kyndall took care of all of the designs and the two of them did the stitch work together. So they started hiring others to help with these tasks.
We’re a custom business and 8fig’s a custom business, and it’s not a cookie-cutter approach.
Funding
The kind of Japanese embroidery machines Jake and Kyndall use are very expensive, ranging from $40,000 to $50,000 each. They knew that to keep growing, they would need more machines to complete the stitching their order volume required.
We knew that 8fig funding could allow us to capture that additional profit that we weren’t able to beforehand.
So they sought out external funding in order to fund the vision they already had success with. “We did all the interviews with Wayflier and Shopify Capital and Onramper and then we stumbled upon 8fig,” says Jake. “We really loved how the terms were flexible, how it could work with our schedule and we could figure out a plan and a solution just for us. We’re a custom business and 8fig’s a custom business, and it’s not a cookie-cutter approach.”
8fig provided Pupsentials with a customized funding plan that according to Jake was “based on what we needed and when we thought we could pay it back. That’s what worked best for us.” They were able to leverage this funding to invest in the products they knew were selling well. Jake started running paid ads and optimizie fulfillment times to improve the customer experience: “Taking care of the customer was our number one goal.”
8fig gave us the confidence we needed to grow because entrepreneurship is very scary. There’s no one holding your hand. It’s you at the end of the day and having a partner like 8fig to support us in this growth was all we needed.
Scaling
Before acquiring external capital, Pupsentials was generating around $20,000 to $50,000 in monthly revenue. With the additional investment in products, equipment, and advertising they reached $100,000 to $200,000 in consistent monthly sales.
“In 2021 we left a lot of money on the table, over half a million dollars, because we weren’t able to fulfill all of our orders,” explains Jake. Once they got funding from 8fig, they “were able to capture over a million dollars in revenue from October through December that next year.”
In the beginning, Jake and Kyndall ordered the blank sweatshirts they used through a third-party supplier, which cost them around $20 each. Thanks to capital from 8fig, they were able to source the materials themselves and custom manufacture their own blank sweatshirts, bringing their per-unit cost down to $8. This was only possible by purchasing in bulk quantities. “We knew that 8fig funding could allow us to capture that additional profit that we weren’t able to beforehand,” recalls Jake.
The benefits of 8fig
8fig was better because it was custom to our business. It allowed us to be flexible in exactly what we needed and exactly when we wanted to pay it back.
8fig funding was so helpful to Pupsentials, not just because of the capital it offered, but because of the flexibility of the funding and remittance schedule. Each funding plan is tailored to the company in question, to fit their cash flow needs. Jake says that, “for us at Pupsentials 8fig was better because it was custom to our business. It allowed us to be flexible in exactly what we needed and exactly when we wanted to pay it back.”
These conditions, to Jake and Kyndall, were unmatched on the market. They “allowed us to grow on our schedule versus the other competitors like Wayflier or Shopify Capital, that not only I found to be more expensive, but they took a remittance every day which could hinder our cash flow,” he explains. “8fig to us just seemed like the perfect solution to help our business grow to that next level.”
After partnering with 8fig, Pupsentials saw 878% sales growth during Black Friday-Cyber Monday 2023, optimized its supply chain, and went on to bring in 6-figure sales on a regular monthly basis. With more equipment to produce their sweaters and capital to invest in marketing campaigns, Pupsentials’ sales are now higher than ever.
