sales continue to climb, and both colleen and alex say it s the combination of the founder and the ceo that have gotten them there. the founder s perspective is often very different than anybody else s. and it s important to put yourself in their shoes from time to time. we all like to look back and say, were there some things i would do differently? sure. but at the end of the day, i think we did it quite right. all right. now your dog has a toy. your dog is watching tv, and it is time for feeding. and that s why we have you. you re going to be pitching in our elevator. what s the name of your company? olly. and it s a dog food company. yes. e-commerce company. all right. and who did you bring along with you here? my dog simon. is this your taste tester? absolutely. he loves every product we make. and was he the i thinspirati for the company? no, my other doll wg who unfortunately couldn t come today. he was busy today.
championing these changes. that s sometimes hard to do. that doesn t mean that there aren t times when the pair don t see eye to eye. i would say that alex and i disagree often. i mean, it does happen that we are not on the same page, but the difference is that we do listen to each other. and there are times when he s right and i m wrong, and i change the decision because of that. technically, alex has the ultimate say, but that s not the kind of relationship he and colleen have formed. if i could reverse the decision, but it would never really come to that because we have an understanding. i trust she s seeing where we re going better, so i would never second guess a decision that colleen makes. but he and colleen are in touch about every other day, which is giving alex the flexibility he d been looking for. every time i was able to let go successfully, my life became a notch better. so though it s maybe not the easiest thing to let go, if and when you do, if it s done rig
needed to be watching. all that changed when he heard about colleen mccracken. it was 2013. i was itching for a smarter partner, and it still took years to find the right person. i like to say that colleen rescued our company. she d been working as the ceo of another business, so she had the business chops. and not only that, she loved animals. i had worked with company founders in the past, and i learned very quickly what it s like to, you know, run a business with the founder very involved. alex and colleen agreed that she would come on board, but they made a very key decision. she was not brought in as the ceo right away. it was easier to formulate the beginning of the relationship in sort of a consultant-type manner, which gave us both an out if it wasn t working. alex knew that if he was going to truly hand over the reins, he had to feel comfortable with colleen first.
that doesn t mean that there aren t times when the pair don t see eye to eye. i would say that alex and i disagree often. i mean it does happen that we are not on the same page. but the difference is that we do listen to each other. and there are times when he s right and i m wrong, and i change the decision because of that. technically alex has the ultimate say. but that s not the kind of relationship he and colleen have formed. i can reverse the decision but it wouldn t ever really come to that because we have an understanding. i trust that she s seeing where we re going better. so i would never second-guess a decision that colleen makes. but he and colleen are in touch about every other day. which is giving alex the flexibility he d been looking for. every time i was able to let go successfully, my life became a notch better. so, though it s maybe not the easiest thing to let go, if and when you do, if it s done right, the company obviously benefits. sales continue to
trust wasn t there, it s really debilitating. and it almost, to me, feels like a dog leashed to a tree. colleen agreed with alex s plan. she thought it was better for everyone to get to know each other. it s a little different to come in, you know, here s our new ceo, versus here s someone who s going to help us on this project that we re working on. and so i think it was a really good opportunity for the company to meet me, and me also to meet the company. alex realized pretty quickly that colleen was the right person for the job. she was asking good questions, and already thinking about solutions to some of planet dog s woes. she was a great listener. it seemed that she was willing to not guess or presume. she took plenty of time to learn about the direction it needs to go before she even decided to change any direction. and when colleen became the ceo, she thought it was critical to stop herself from moving too quickly.