Joanna Stanford: Trots Dogs

Background

Trots Dogs is a dog walking, boarding, and training business based in Long Beach, California, USA. The company was started by Joanna Stanford, who didn't initially plan to become a dog walker. Her interest in the psychology behind dog training led her to start the business, and her goal became to teach people to "speak dog" and understand their pets' behavior better. Over time, what started as a one-woman operation expanded to include several dog walkers and additional services.

"It wasn't my intention to be an entrepreneur or a business person. My intention was to work with dogs. I kind of had to learn the rest of it in order to do what I wanted to do."

Joanna Stanford

Founder, Trots Dogs

Problem

Despite the growth, Joanna realized she didn't want to have dogs in her house 24/7 for the rest of her life. She also faced challenges in managing the business during its growth period and planning for further expansion. Not having entrepreneurial experience, Joanna had to teach herself how to manage her growing company while also perfecting the business end of Trots Dogs, organizing her finances, and preparing for expansion. The major problem was creating a comprehensive business plan that would allow her to showcase the potential of her business to get approvals for loans.

Solution

Joanna found the solution to her problem in LivePlan. She started using it to write a step-by-step business plan. It made it easy for her to make changes that others could see in real time, and made it easy for Joanna to track and understand her financials to share them with lenders.

Outcome

Using LivePlan, Joanna created a thorough business plan, which received compliments from various quarters. With LivePlan's help, she was able to track metrics more closely, make small adjustments easily, and change her business plan according to the changing circumstances. This helped Trots Dogs stay nimble and iterative. Joanna is now using LivePlan to prepare Trots Dogs for expansion, with the hope of impacting more people's perspectives on how to build a positive relationship with their dogs. She also advises other entrepreneurs to use LivePlan to make the process of creating a business plan less scary.