Last week, I went “viral” on social media for the first time ever.

And no, it wasn’t on TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram —

I’ve never even been on those platforms (except for about 5 minutes on Twitter once when Ethan Brooks convinced me it was a good idea. It wasn’t.)

👉 The platform was LinkedIn — which up until recently, I just thought was a place where people kept their online resumes. 🤷

The reality is that I’ve never felt comfortable “putting myself out there”, so I’ve largely stayed off social media.

At a recent conference, I chatted with a social media influencer, who was explaining how he was “the face of this, and the face of that.”

My response was:

“I don’t even like being the face of my own face.”

Y’all — this is not a good thing. 🤦

I had to ask myself a difficult question

Was I shying away from the public eye because it was stupid to seek out the spotlight…?

Or because I was a scared little chicken shit? 🐔💩 

I knew how harshly I judged others who put themselves out there — assuming that their egos were the driving force behind their social media exploits.

And I still believe that to be true in many cases.

But what I failed to admit was that my ego was also the driving force behind me staying off social media.

And that’s (almost) just as bad.

I sat in the shadows and laughed at all the idiots, while never being brave enough to:

• Share my ideas

• Reveal my insecurities

• Fail in public

All because I wanted to protect my ego.

Shame on me.

Now, this isn’t to say that everyone who stays off social media is doing it to protect their ego — this is just one of my reasons.

Some folks genuinely have no interest or need for it. (I envy them.)

But for those of us who are building things for which success is determined by getting people to care about them…

❤️ How can we possibly expect others to care, if we’re not publicly demonstrating how much we care?

📖 How can we possibly expect others to relate to our mission, if we’re not out there telling our story?

🤔 And how can we possibly earn their respect, if they don’t even know who we are?

The tale of a dog and a wolf(gram)

During a summer of post-college restlessness, Meghan Wolfgram invented a better way to play with her dog—

Which would end up becoming a howlingly successful business.

It's unsurprising that this happened.

Meghan grew up as the daughter of entrepreneurs, and originally wanted to become a veterinarian.

But when Angie Hicks (the namesake co-founder of Angie’s List) gave a riveting speech at her college, Meghan knew in her bones that she wanted to build a business.

Meghan soon discovered the sport of “lure coursing” (yes, it’s a real sport for dogs), but only certain breeds are allowed to compete, and the equipment costs thousands of dollars.

This was a problem for Meghan because:

• Her miniature pinscher, Pretzel, was not a qualifying breed. 😔

• She was a broke kid, right out of college. 🤷

So she and her dad reverse-engineered a smaller version of competitive lure coursing equipment in her garage, and she invited some friends over for a dog party.

The dogs f*cking loved it. 🐶❤️🐶

So she moved the party over to a nearby horse farm, and invited the public to join the fun. Meghan began hosting community events, charging people $10 to give their dogs a chance to play on her machine.

Her events soon outgrew the horse farm. The space wasn’t large enough to contain the swathes of people and pets that her little invention attracted.

Holy shit. Meghan had accidentally created a business.

SwiftPaws was born.

The wolf’s got game

Meghan had a degree in economics with a focus in entrepreneurship, so she knew what she needed to do. 

She began the process of filing patents, manufacturing commercial models, and visiting trade shows all over the country to hype-up her new company.

Her marketing model was all about showing the world how much dogs loved her product. People would go nuts when she flipped the switch, and the dogs took off running faster than a toxic TikTok trend.

Meghan sold her product to trainers, doggy daycares, and even zoos.

She had created a way for dogs of all breeds to experience the exercise and enrichment that comes with feeding their primal instinct of —well— chasing shit.

But that was only half the mission—

Everyone wanted SwiftPaws in their backyard.

She needed to develop a consumer version.

But creating a thriving business at the consumer scale was a quest that required more than just a dog and a wolf…

The enemy of a wolf isn’t a shark — it’s an ass

By the summer of 2021, Meghan had been producing the consumer version of her product for a couple of years — but not without issues.

• The pandemic had caused supply chain disruptions.

• Her manufacturing costs were too high.

• Her product was too expensive.

• And her company was losing money.

Yeahhhh… not great.

But Meghan is a smart cookie, and she raised a round of capital so that she could fix those issues and begin scaling the consumer product to profitability.

Then she got an email from a producer at Shark Tank…

Which she ignored, fully believing it was a scam. 🙄

But after a few more messages and a phone call, she realized that this person actually did work for Shark Tank — and they really wanted her on the show.

But Meghan was opposed to doing it.

Not because she didn’t like the show, or because she didn’t want to welcome a new investor to her cap table…

She didn’t want to go on the show because she was convinced she would make an ass of herself on national television. 🤦

Her ego was blocking her.

Meghan knew her company wasn’t in the best shape at that time.

“You see people go on the show, and the Sharks are like ‘this is too early’ or ‘this is too niche’, or ‘your baby’s ugly, take it behind the barn and shoot it’. And my biggest fear was that I’d get laughed out of the room,” Meghan confessed.

Jumping in with the sharks

The Shark Tank producer suggested to Meghan that she simply think through the best and worst case scenarios for her business.

The absolute worst case scenario was that she would embarrass herself in front of millions of people — but those millions of people would also see her product, and how much dogs loved it.

And the best case scenario was that the Sharks would also love it.

Which, lucky for Meghan, is exactly what happened. ❤️

She finally agreed to put aside her ego, and go on the show.

👏 The Sharks cheered as Meghan’s dog, Piper, zoomed around the set, brilliantly demonstrating the pure joyfulness of her product.

🧠 They congratulated Meghan on her savvy business decisions thus far, and validated her goal of lowering the price of her consumer version.

😭 And they comforted her when she fell into a puddle of tears while talking about Pretzel —the inspiration that started it all— who had passed away a few months before.

“You are the American dream and you’re doing it the exact right way,” Mark Cuban told her. “You are the perfect entrepreneur that just needs a little bit of help.”

Meghan walked off Shark Tank with a “golden ticket” from Lori Grenier — a deal that matched the exact terms she walked in with. 🤝🤯

And while she and Piper celebrated their victory, Robert Herjavic tied a $20 bill to the SwiftPaws machine for Kevin O’Leary to chase around — which might just be the best 10-seconds of Shark Tank history.

(Grab the tissues and watch Meghan’s full pitch here.)

Well, that was fun, but now what?

While Meghan’s appearance on Shark Tank couldn’t have gone any better, “publicity” is cheap, and short-lived.

The biggest benefit was a permanent strategic shift in Meghan’s business — she was finally comfortable being the face of it, and telling her story.

So how does that translate into the actual business?

Meghan has 10x’d sales, and SwiftPaws is only a few months away from achieving profitability.

F*ck yes. 👊

By putting her ego aside, and taking a huge personal risk, Meghan has developed both a better mindset, and a better business.

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

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