Owner of Labpups.com - Tripp Wood Owner of Labpups.com, Tripp Wood, has been a natural business man since a young age. Now, Wood owns Labpups.com, a labrador breeding farm; and JaxMax, a upcoming dog food company determined to provide healthy dog food unlike commercial brands.

First off, thank you so much Mr. Newmark for taking time out of your day to help us understand how we can become successful in the online industry like yourself.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Your name, location, hobbies, etc.
Tripp Wood – Charlotte, NC.
Hobbies: Scuba Diving, Sailing, Fishing, Bear Hunting, Hiking, Wilderness Camping, Skiing, Photography.

2. What does a typical day look like for you?
Starts with a trip to a local coffee house with my two sons. This gives us time to reflect on the day prior, and more importantly update plans for this day and the future. Most of my business decisions are made over a cup of coffee, with input from my sons. The synergy created between the three of us is instrumental, and their input and dedication invaluable. We get so excited planning and discussing new ideas that we can hardly wait to get back to the farm to implement them.

Back at the farm: Care and inspection of all Labradors. This includes fecal flotation to check for parasites, ultrasounds, medications, and looking for ADR dogs. (Ain’t doin’ rights). Next comes returning customer service calls and new calls. Most inbound customer service calls are actually requests for education on the care, training or health of their Labradors. Somewhere in the day we fit in grounds keeping, fence repair, building maintenance, rebuilding crashed computers, and packaging boxes for our internet orders of JaxMax (our specialty dog food). Lunch typically consists of burgers on the grill just out front of the office, or perhaps a getaway to a local restaurant.

In the evening, visits to our foster families and their new pups for inspection, dewclaw removal and photographs may be one of our chores. After dark, Labrador breeding takes place. This will be finished anywhere from midnight to 3:00 am.

These are very full days with many hours of work, but as we are all together as a family doing something we love, time flies.

3. What was the best advice you were ever given?
There were two pieces of advice that tie for first place, so I’ll give them both:

A) No matter how bad you may interpret the situation to be, always remember that tomorrow will hold improvement. (A gem from my mother when I was very young).

B) When you are building your business, unexpected challenges will arise. Run so fast and so hard that you can get your business secure before these challenges catch you. (better put, “A dog in the hunt doesn’t know he has fleas”).

4. A puppy breeding business truly seems like a business that takes a huge amount of time and effort. What was the inspiration behind Labpups?
At the time of its inception, I was a Captain flying passenger planes for the airlines. Most people think pilots hold well paid positions, but this is not always so. I made more money as a flight instructor than as a passenger pilot. I was also home schooling my two sons. In order to keep home schooling, we needed a business that would allow us funds to keep the lights on. As part of their education, business development was naturally a part of their curriculum. (Our inspirational meetings actually started when my sons were about six and seven years old). One of their first lessons taught them to find a need and fill it, or more simply put, fix a problem. We were already volunteers taking in Labradors and finding them homes. Unfortunately these pound Labs were there because of hyperactivity or health problems, and placements were often temporary. From here came the business plan: Create several genetic lines of Labradors that were less hyper and very healthy, and provide training for the customers.

5. Nationwide, you can look in your paper everyday to find full bred Labradors at relatively cheap prices. What gives you the edge over the home based breeder?
Dog breeders are stuck in the rut of breeding just like everyone else – for either Show or Field Trial. Stressing the breeding for these two ends does not necessarily produce a good Labrador to be within the family unit. They can be more high strung, less intelligent, or have high rates of health problems. By the virtue of being in the rut and following the crowd, they tend to not think outside the box, but rely on old information to make their breeding, health, nutrition and training decisions. This population of breeders usually belongs to organizations that are stale, and help them to parrot the old information to one another. It’s easy to breed this way, because all your thinking is done for you, but the results are less than stellar. They are the same group of breeders that are highly critical of our operation. When I receive criticism from this group, it is literally reassuring to me that we are on the right path.

Here’s one example: Most breeders perform x-rays on their breeding stock to see if they are clear of hip dysplasia. The thinking that dysplasia is totally genetic dictates weeding out breeding stock with bad hips to produce puppies with good hips. This thought process is over 30 years old. Puppies born from this group of hip certification breeders produce a higher number of puppies with dysplasia than they did several years ago. To date, a “bad hip” gene has never been located. Why do these breeders continue down a failing path? Because its popular, and requires little thought. Our program, which is markedly different on its approach to preventing hip dysplasia, produces 1 in 137 pups with bad hips, compared to the normal 1 in 25.

In short, our willingness to go the extra mile, work harder and smarter than our competition, and produce a Labrador that is unique gives us the edge.

6. Just in the past few years, you have integrated Jaxmax, a food specifically for Labradors and large breed dogs. Truly an genius idea on how to maximize your contacts through Labpups. What was the inspiration behind starting Jaxmax?
During the latter part of the 1990’s, dog food companies found ways to make their products even cheaper. This had a direct impact on the health of our Labs. We hired a well respected canine nutritionist to help us locate a good food. Not even he could find one sufficient to allow the canine to synthesize adequate amounts of vitamin C. Failing in this endeavor, his next task was to formulate the best food possible without regard to cost. He also vowed to keep chemical preservatives such as ethoxyquin out of the finished product. As this doctor put it, we did not have to worry about competition because no other company would spend this much money in the quality of materials he specified. JaxMax was literally built in reverse – instead of budgeting for the finished product, we truly put the dog first. I remember breaking out in a sweat when I authorized our first production – my finished cost at that time was more than the retail cost of the most expensive food I could buy! It was so worth it. Moms no longer looked haggard or were missing hair when they had pups. Litters were 20% larger, and the mortality rate was near zero. Hip dysplasia dropped to an astounding 1 in 137. Cancer has been completely absent, and life expectancy of our Labs has grown. In the end, we really had no choice but to develop our own formulas. I could not imagine breeding again on commercially available foods.

7. JaxMax includes high quality and high priced products compared to other dog food companies. With a smaller ROI than other dog food companies, what are your ideas behind beating out the bigger dog food brands?
Beating out the bigger dog food companies: I don’t know that we will ever top sales of a huge company like P&G. Dog foods are just like other products – if you want to move large quantities, the idea is to make it cheaper than anyone else, put a good bag around it, and advertize frequently. That’s just not our game. I would rather move smaller quantities through viral marketing, family run pet shops, breeders and the internet while maintaining quality. Quantity will come in time. Once a dog eats our product, he will usually go on an eating strike when offered another food. Whereas most dog foods are marketed to appeal to the human, ours is made to appeal to the dog.

8. Do you ever plan on taking JaxMax public? Why or why not?
I would certainly not rule this out. When the timing is right, going public could help JaxMax to attain a more global base. By that time, we plan on having many other specialty products in the system, which would be a great multiplier. The trick to going public is to maintain your standards and formulas while inviting stockholder suggestions.

9. What are your future business plans for JaxMax and/or Labpups?
By continuing to build a library of educational DVD’s, books and seminars, we will spread the true facts about how to purchase, feed, care for and train man’s best friend. We have planned some national businesses surrounding these companies, but I am not at liberty to yet disclose these.

10. Do you have a hero you look up to?
“I was fortunate enough to meet my hero when I was four years old. I was on a Boeing 707 as an unaccompanied minor traveling from Boston to Washington, DC. During climb out, a stewardess took me to the cockpit. The aircraft was popping in and out of clouds at a tremendous speed, giving quite a visual display through the front windows. The Captain was a big man with silver hair and moustache. “Wanna come up here and fly this damn thing?” he asked me gruffly. To my “Yes Sir!” he picked me up and sat me on his lap. For ten minutes, I let my small hand ride on the four throttles as they moved back and forth, and held the control wheel. He showed me instruments and told me what they did. From that moment on, I had a dream – I was going to be a pilot – period. All through high school my friends were lost when it came to what they were going to do with their lives – I knew. This Captain went to the trouble to teach me and show me things that changed my life forever. His ten minutes with me were repeated over and over for children when I eventually became Captain of my own commercial aircraft. He not only gave me a dream, he inspired me, and in turn, hundreds of other children. OK, so he didn’t solve world hunger or invent a lifesaving vaccine, but the kindness he showed meant everything to me. I only wish I could thank him for giving me early direction.

11. If you could give one piece of advice to our readers about how they can build a successful business like you have, what would you tell them?
Make sure the business you have picked not only makes good business sense, but is one that you can stay excited about. Things will come your way to derail you time and time again and usually at the worst possible moments. Involve your family and inspire them – you will need their support at times you cannot yet see. Set your core beliefs and values to paper, and stick to them, no matter what. Listen to others, but obey only your gut feelings. Learn the difference between acquaintances and true friends.

Thank you so much Mr. Wood for teaching us about yourself, tips on the business, and how you built your business and future goals.