Over the past three years I’ve watched my company grow from 3 employees to over 70. It’s been an insane ride and if you’d told me three years ago that today I’d be writing these words, I never would have believed you.
It all started when I was back home after college working in Indiana. I loved the company that I was working for but I had that unshakeable pull to get back to New York City after my internship in college with CBS Sunday Morning.
Before I fell head-over-paws in love with the internet media style, I always thought I wanted to pursue a career in journalism. When I was searching for jobs in New York, I was mostly looking for traditional media positions… Until my friend sent me this tweet:
I remember thinking, “What the heck… Might as well answer and have a backup job!” I never could have dreamed the wild ride I would start by answering this tweet or how much this company would mean to me a few short years later.
A month and a half after answering that life-changing tweet, I packed up all my stuff (mostly craft supplies :P), drove out to NYC from Indiana, and moved into a tiny two-bedroom NYC apartment with two of my favorite people on earth.
I was hired to start the BarkPost– but since I was employee #3, there were a lot of things at the company that needed a helping paw. As with any early-stage startup employee, I wore a lot of hats back then. If you were one of the first BarkBox customers and emailed into customer support, there’s a good chance you were emailing with me. If you find a dumb joke on an old BarkBox info card, that was also probably me. 😛
Those first few months were hard in the way that anything is hard if you really care about making it work and be successful. Since I started this job, I’ve watched BarkBox go from 2,000 subscribers to hundreds of thousands. Today we’re also designing and manufacturing some of the coolest dog toys I’ve ever seen.
I’ve had many late nights fussing over how I can make interesting content to get new BarkPost readers. I’ve watched the BarkPost go from nothing to a growing media company with millions of visitors each month.
I’ve watched the company launch new product verticals like BarkShop and BarkLive, I’ve met more celebrity dogs than I can count, and I’ve been flabbergasted at how fun and ridiculous it is to come to work some days.
For the BarkPost, I think a lot of the success has been having the humility to hire people who are better than you at everything. I’m definitely not the funniest or best writer on the BarkPost team but I’m Bulldog stubborn when it comes to plugging away at making this company successful.
This company is cultish. We LOVE our dogs. Outsiders who aren’t dog people see our office and our culture and find us bizarre. (To be honest I look at some of the things I do at work and think *I* am bizarre.)
But when I think about it, isn’t every company and organization centered around an extreme passion point in the way that we are strange to everyone around them?
If working with dogs and crazy people sounds like you, be sure to keep checking on our jobs page! And I just want to thank everyone who’s been a part of Bark & Co. along the way from subscribing to BarkBox to reading the BarkPost. You’ve helped create a world where it’s pawesome to delight and surprise dogs, make poop jokes, and celebrate these furry buttcheeked family members that we love so much.
To read more about my Bark & Co journey, check out this old article! And be sure to click here to get 1 month free added to any NEW 1, 3, 6, or 12-month plan! You seriously have no idea how cool June’s BarkBox theme is going to be. 😀
