Elliott Garber has accomplished a lot so far, from working alongside Navy SEALs to selling a business for 7 figures. He even sold a tutu ecommerce business and lost $1 million in the process.
In this fascinating look at his entrepreneurial journey, he talks about his time in the military and why it was a great decision when it came to risk-taking later on, and how he learned the ropes in ecommerce and built a pet supply business to over $10 million in annual revenue over four years.
He also talks about his return to the workforce, the book he wrote, his need for side hustles, and his current project.
Don’t miss this interview with a wholly inspirational person who shares the many lessons he’s learned on his journey.
Elliott starts by sharing his interesting background as a veterinarian in the Armed Forces and the experiences he had during his years working alongside Navy SEALs. He eventually entered the Army Reserve so he could pursue his entrepreneurial ventures full-time.
He talks about his early forays into online businesses, such as Amazon FBA and his eventual shift into ecommerce marketing services for manufacturers in the pet supply space.
He was able to use his unique experience to build the latter business up to over $10 million in revenue in just 3 years and develop a solid risk tolerance, which he credits in part to allowing him to succeed.
Jared asks him about his success on Amazon, and Elliott just a few of his tips and tricks but points out that it would be much harder to be successful now as companies have gotten better at using the platform.
Elliott shares his thoughts on the importance of expertise and whether or not his experience in veterinary medicine played a role in his success, and he also talks about an ecommerce clothing business he bought that was not a success. He eventually sold it and lost a million dollars in the process.
He talks about selling his ecommerce pet business and how ecommerce has changed since he first started in the industry.
Elliott moved into the software space, and he talks about where 34 minutes
Since he’s gone back into the workforce, he shares his thoughts on that transition and also talks about his experience having a safety net as he tried different projects, compared with a person who doesn’t have that security and wants to start their own business.
Throughout his journey, he has relied on his network of people and he talks about the importance of putting yourself out there
Lastly, he talks about his new project, a new domain he bought, who it’s for, and what his plans are.
Links & Resources
Topics Elliott Garber Talks About
- His experiences as a vet in the army
- His move to focus on entrepreneurship
- Getting started online
- His success with Amazon
- The strategies he used
- The role of expertise
- A failed ecommerce business
- Selling his pet ecommerce business
- Going back into the workforce
- Having a safety net
- Having a network
- His philosophy as an entrepreneur
- Current projects he’s working on
Transcript
Jared: All right. Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared bomb. And today we’re joined by Elliot Garber. Elliot, welcome on board. Hey, thank you. It’s great to be here. We were talking before we hit record, and this will oftentimes come up, it came up with, with you as well, that, uh, you’re a listener of the podcast.
I liked your little touch though. We haven’t heard this before. Maybe start by sharing that little fun history point about your, your listenership, but, but really get into your backstory. If you could tell us about yourself, you’ve got a really fun background, not just as listener, your background in your work and your, your online ventures.
So let’s get into that and then we’ll unfold how the day is going to go.
Elliott: Yeah. Sounds good. So yeah, what I shared before we started recording here was that even still now, when I feel like, uh, browser bookmarks are kind of a thing of the past, I have, uh, across the top of my browser here in Chrome, uh, niche pursuits, niche pursuits.
I don’t know how you like to say it, but either
Jared: way
Elliott: is fine. Um, right there as the second, um, browser bookmark across the top. So it’s, it’s in my mind, in my eye every day. Um, and I haven’t listened to every episode, but been a long time follower of, um, the, the team on Twitter and, and the podcast. So I really enjoy all the learnings I’ve taken over the years from that.
Um, so yeah, thank you guys for that.
Jared: That’s that’s, it’s fun to hear, but it’s great to have you. And I mean, looking over kind of the agenda we created going back and forth today, like you just have an amazing story in many different aspects. So it’s gonna be fun for people to listen. I think there’s almost something for everyone here, um, in terms of how you’ve gone about your online journey as it kind of pairs up with your, we’ll call it desk job, nine to five, whatever you want to call it.
Um, and I say desk job, tongue in cheek, because of what I know. Some of your backstory is, why don’t you get into it? And tell us a little bit about not only where you started, but then where the online ventures started in as well.
Elliott: Yeah. So thankfully, I’ve, I’ve never really had a desk job. Um, and don’t think I do well on that.
I love to have my hands in a bunch of different pots at once and working on a variety of things. So Um, as a, um, background, um, as a professional, I’m a veterinarian. I went to vet school up in the Boston area at Tufts and got a scholarship during vet school from the military. Um, and had no family background in the military had been since world war two.
My grandfather’s fought, but, um, somehow the next generation missed Vietnam, et cetera. So. Didn’t really wasn’t something I had considered at all, but I was either faced with kind of coming out of that school at 300, 000 worth of debt or looking at other options. And really the one interesting option to me was this army scholarship.
So it’s the same way that kind of most doctors and dentists and, um, other healthcare professionals end up doing some time in the military is they end up, they pay for your professional. Training and then you owe them a certain amount of time afterwards. So, um, did that with some trepidation felt like I was kind of signing my life away for a few years.
And realistically, that’s what you’re doing, but I was ready for the adventure. And, and so spent ended up spending eight years on active duty as a veterinarian in the army. Um, one kind of fun thing about the veterinary core is. That we serve all the branches of the department of defense. So I spent six of my eight years working under Navy commands rather than army, which, um, sorry to the army, but the Navy is in better places in the world.
Generally has nicer facilities. Um, army has the big places in the middle of the country, which are cool in their own way, but Navy is generally. Next to the water, which is nice. So we spent, um, three years in Sicily Island in Italy and then went from there to Coronado, California, um, where I was with the Navy SEALs, Naval Special Warfare Command for three years and serving as the force veterinarian there.
Um, and so, yeah, it was really honored to have that opportunity to serve with them and. Got to deploy to Iraq with the seals and, um, for the listeners out there who may be wondering seals. Does that mean like the marine mammals? No, although the Navy does use marine mammals in other contexts, the Navy seals are the human operators and they use dogs and pretty much all of their missions.
And so it’s really important for the dog handler seals. to be prepared to face whatever kind of sickness or emergency situation they might with their dog while they’re out anywhere in the world where I’m probably not going to be with them. Um, and so a lot of my job was helping them be prepared for those types of scenarios to take care of their dog.
Jared: I feel like. We could do a whole podcast just on your stories and your findings from those types of things. I mean, you know, seals are known as, as the highest elite operators in the world. And you had a privilege to be alongside them. I mean, and by the way, I’m from San Diego, so we have a strong seal connection here because I know all the training happens at the Coronado.
Uh, the Coronado base, which is not far from my home right now. But what I, what I want to know is, because like I said, we could get into so many stories there, but as it relates to your future endeavors and, you know, cats out of the bag, your future online endeavors, whether it was with the army or specifically with some of your deployments or specifically with the seals and being kind of a special operating class, like what did you learn?
Any insights you learned that maybe the typical online entrepreneur? Wouldn’t be able to get from their job. What did you bring with you that helped your online journey?
Elliott: Yeah, good questions. Um, I think one of the kind of most influential things on my journey in the military was going from kind of what we call the big army or the big military, which is the traditional.
Force side of things into the special operations community. Um, and it’s really just kind of a night and day difference in how, um, people are treated and the responsibilities that you have, um, in the special operations community, they kind of joke around that you get to play by big boy rules, um, and people just expect that you’re going to do your job.
You’re, you’re aligned on the ultimate goal and mission. And so you don’t need to micromanage. Um, and that’s the opposite of the big military where there is a lot of micromanagement and very strict directives about this is what exactly what you’re going to do. And this is exactly what you’re not going to do.
Um, And I think for me as a entrepreneur at heart, it fits a lot better in the special operations side, where I kind of, I understand what my role is and what I need to get done and have a lot of flexibility in figuring out the right way to do that and the most efficient ways to do that. And so that was really helpful for me after the time with the seals.
I just, I realized I couldn’t imagine going back to. The big military side of things. And so that’s why I finished up my time on active duty and transitioned into the army reserve so that I could pursue my entrepreneurial stuff full time.
Jared: So, I mean, in many ways, as a veterinarian, especially with the special forces, like you’ve kind of served in some of the biggest capacities, what was the drive to move into an entrepreneurship journey?
I mean, I’ve got to imagine that a resume. Potentially like that looks great and you have so many opportunities in front of you to just stick with traditional veterinarian practice Um, I know at my agency we work with a number of veterinarians and it’s a you know Uh, you can have a big impact in your community It can be very lucrative like what was the draw to going into some of these online ventures we’re going to get into
Elliott: Yeah, so I realized Over time that I really was an entrepreneur at heart.
And as a child, I had always been dreaming up ways of kind of combining my love for animals and making money. And then that kind of dropped off as I began my professional journey in college and through vet school and the army, which is kind of, for most people, it’d be kind of the opposite of. being entrepreneurial.
Um, but as a vet, I also am a little bit unique in that I didn’t ever imagine myself working full time in a traditional kind of dog and cat clinical practice. Um, I just, I knew that for me, I think I’d get tired of kind of doing the same sets of things every day, five days a week. Um, although there are a lot of people who, yeah, like you said, run great businesses doing that.
And I’m, I’m glad that. There are people like that out there because, um, I use them for my own animals when I needed additional assistance with that. Um, but I always kind of was thinking more veterinary medicine, the big picture of how animal health impacts human health and economy and environmental health.
And so as I was looking at getting off of active duty in the military, my options were more kind of. Going to continue in the federal government in another agency, like the USDA or USA. I. D. I applied to a job kind of working in a infectious disease research lab in the country of Georgia. Now, there’s a lot of, um.
A lot more awareness of the fact that animal diseases can affect humans as well. Um, and, and some of that could happen naturally, um, through natural transmission. Sometimes maybe it could have come from lab experiments gone wrong. Um, so I think that interestingly, there’s more awareness of that. But yeah, I think for me, I just, I knew that.
I would, I needed to go out and kind of try my hand at doing my own thing. And so I had had various blogs along the way, kind of was early in AOL as a middle schooler, my initial handles football 12 when I was 12 and then swish 14 when I was 14. And so thankfully my parents had given us enough kind of flexibility to begin experimenting in those worlds.
Um, early on and just had a good awareness of what was possible out there in the wider world of the internet.
Jared: Let’s talk about where you where you launched off like where you had a couple ventures. What was the first one? And um and and talk about its early beginnings and then Maybe some of the first things to kind of hit or go well with it.
Elliott: Yeah. So the first real online business I did, um, it was just as I was finishing up my time on active duty in the military and was thinking about kind of what was next and started digging in more on, um, some of the learning from online business folks, um, like Spencer and the team and. Um, basically at that, that was like the early in the Amazon FBA time.
And so it seemed like, Hey, this is a pretty potentially easy, obvious way to get started with it. And so I had a advantage there because as a veterinarian, I can usually get, um, accounts with a variety of kind of pet supply distributors. And so. Started out kind of bought a case of something and tried listing that and selling it and, and saw, Hey, you know, this works and then bumped it up to a couple of cases.
And over a few months went up to spending more money on credit cards. I had ever than I had ever done in my life. Um, and kept working, selling it on. Um, eventually over the course of a couple of years, I kind of transitioned from just being an Amazon reseller to providing kind of more comprehensive e commerce marketing agency type, um, resources to.
Manufacturers in the pet supply space. And so I would help them with their strategy on selling on Amazon and on Walmart and on their own e commerce sites. Um, because basically during that time, it was kind of the wild west of everyone trying to get their hands on everything. And so I was in a unique position in being able to kind of offer.
My expertise on that, along with my background as a veterinarian and animal lover, um, to these companies and so kind of built up a little group of manufacturers that I was working with and able to both sell their stuff on Amazon primarily and also help them with that strategy and kind of control over their distribution.
And so, That business has been the biggest one and the most successful that I have done so far. And over the course of about three years, um, built that up to just over 10 million in annual revenue, which is crazy to think about. But when you’re selling volume on Amazon, it happens more easily than you. Um, and you might imagine, and of course the margins are, are very slim there.
And so it was a very risky business too. And I think that that’s something I’d want to really hammer home to the ear listeners is that for a lot of my success is because I have. been willing to kind of build up a little bit of a risk tolerance. Um, and I think for me coming from a very, like, standard middle class background, um, parents who’ve worked traditional jobs, we, our house is our biggest asset and still is, and um, Um, there’s never any conception of owning a business or entrepreneurship for me being, I don’t know if I was born with it or if I’ve taken kind of one little incremental step along the way, but being willing to take those risks, um, has been what set me up for the success now that I’ve experienced.
That said, I, I got married pretty early and started having kids early. I have five kids now, um, ages three to 13, um, and had kids when I got off active duty and started this entrepreneurial journey. So didn’t want to go completely crazy and risk everything. Um, and so that was partly why I decided to stay in the army reserve.
And that’s something I’d encourage people to think about too, even though it may seem totally out there and crazy, but there’s pretty much every job you can imagine in the military. Um, most people think, Oh, you’re a soldier, you’re, you’re shooting people, whatever. Um, but actually there’s all sorts of administrative jobs.
It’s a huge organization that needs everything out there under the sun. And so the reserves has been really great for our family and providing kind of that underlying foundation of stability as I’ve. Done this entrepreneurial thing because it provides health care and a potential retirement package.
And, um, at the end of the day, I’m not going to be kind of out on the street and destitute, even if my business had totally crashed and burned.
Jared: A couple of things I want to hit on. Let me start with the, let me start with the three years to eight figures. Uh, I’ll say you glossed over it, not because, not because you were wrong, because you were, you were kind of giving us a high level.
Um, I want to get in and ask, I guess the high level question, which is what, what turned, like, what was the turning point? Cause eight figures, even though it is e commerce and we’re talking revenue. And as you said, like once you start really hitting on Amazon, like you can really churn out, um, a high volume of products and that’s not profit that’s revenue, but still eight figures.
A year on Amazon selling products through an e commerce platform is not easy. Um, what were some of the things that allowed you to, um, uh, kind of create that lift and separated you from all the other people that were selling much less volume?
Elliott: Yeah, I think it, I did a combination of things. So I, I had a private label myself that basically I Just through kind of my own research, identified products that I thought that there was a demand for a specific product in the pet space, whether it’s a certain kind of treats or, um, accessories, something like that, that wasn’t being marketed.
Well, and I thought that even though me as a non marketer, um, I could hire a few freelancers to, uh, Get me the stuff I needed to put it out there in a more effective way. Um, so I had the private label side of it, but the bigger part of the business was just the straight up reseller. And I think that was all about my relationship with the distributors.
Um, and so honestly, I, I kind of hate to even get into all the details now because I’m not sure it’s an opportunity anymore for people, because most of these manufacturers and brand owners. Have a much better handle and control over their distribution now. But like I said, at that time, it was just when Amazon FBA was taking off.
And so there were a lot of products that the manufacturer had no idea where they were selling or how much they were selling. Um, so not to say someone couldn’t be successful with that now, but I do think, um, it’s, it’d be more difficult than it was for me.
Jared: This theme will come up, I think, throughout the rest of the interview.
So ask it now. And I’m sure a lot of people listening are going to have this question like how important to your ventures and their success Has it been to actually be a veterinarian with that experience? Um, you’ve focused your efforts online To solve problems that you see in your Again, I’ll say your day job, right?
Like your expertise. A lot of us online are using our expertise from our day job or our past experiences to create online businesses, and then a lot of us aren’t. We’re looking for gaps in the market, right? We’re looking to see if we can fulfill them. I mean, speaking of EECOM and Spencer, Spencer, Kind of had this, uh, great Amazon business, uh, around pillows, right?
And I don’t know if Spencer was here, I’d ask him, but I don’t think he’s a pillow expert, right? So, there’s kind of this dichotomy of like, do I go after what I’m an expert in? Or do I go after where I see gaps and try to fill them? You’ve always gone after your expertise. How influential has that been or has it?
Been that big of a deal at all. When you look back on some of these ventures, like this e commerce business, you’re talking about.
Elliott: Yeah, I think for me, being a vet hasn’t been the reason that I’ve been successful or not with these things. I think it’s more that that’s my own actual passion in life is I love hanging around with animals and, and animal people like me.
Um, and so that’s more of the importance. It’s not the actual degree or. experience or learning I had as a vet as much on that side of it. Um, I think the biggest way that I kind of figured that out is that I thought that I had kind of figured e commerce and Amazon out. And so during the super growth period of my pet supplies business, I bought another business that was primarily e commerce on Amazon product sales from one of the major Um, brokers and, um, it was a clothing retail and, um, kind of a niche women’s clothing where kind of old fashioned dancing stuff, which my seven year old daughter and my wife thought was kind of cool.
Um, but I had absolutely no, um, real experience or interest in. Um, and so I unfortunately kind of learned a great lesson through that and That business did not go nearly as well and kind of was a very stressful period over a year and a half or so. Um, when I ended up selling that at the end of the day for at a significant loss of the money that I’d invested in it.
Did I lose you? Yes. Oh no.
Jared: Is that going to mess things up? No, it’s all good. Uh, I noted the cut times. Um, you were basically mid transition to buying a, um, uh, buying a, uh, Well, a new business basically, uh, yeah, I was going to
Elliott: get into the fact that the fact that I wasn’t actually interested in the clothing stuff probably.
Yeah,
Jared: so it was going to be a transition. Anyway, so let’s pick up there. We’re basically right in your mind where you started going. I picked up a another online business from a broker. Just start there again and we’ll just pick right up there.
Elliott: Okay, great. Yeah, so I ended up buying another e commerce business from one of the big online business brokers.
Um, it was a women’s clothing manufacturer based here in the U. S. which I like the idea of had a long history. There’s an actual like manufacturing plant down in the boonies in Tennessee. Um, and the brands were Yeah. Some unique kind of niche women’s clothing. So for dancing, like tutus and petticoats and some really high quality stuff.
But realistically I should have realized like I had no personal interest or background in these products. And I really didn’t have any reason to connect with the customers or buyers of those products. Um, even though my, my seven year old daughter enjoyed. That wearing the tutus and playing around with them.
Um, but that contributed in a big way to the fact that I just couldn’t bring myself to put the time or energy into actually making that business successful. So going back to your initial question there, I think the fact that I’m a veterinarian is more a result of the fact that I love animals and love animal people and animal products.
Um, and so that’s what’s made me successful is, um, having. That actual kind of passion for something problems that I want to solve and be involved in. Um, and so that that clothing business, I ended up selling again, um, just a year and a half after I bought it and probably lost close to a million bucks overall.
in the whole operation. So, um, there was a great lesson for me, a very stressful period. Um, so thankful that ended up finding a buyer, finding a buyer, um, is a, a big Indian e commerce company, which the brands are still going now. The products are made in India rather than in the U S. Um, but, um, it’s good to see that.
Still exists in some way,
Jared: a million dollars lost on two twos. That’s a tough story.
Elliott: It’s crazy. Yeah. And that’s, it’s another, I should have known now seeing that like 80 percent of the sales were in the week leading up to Halloween, which I wouldn’t have thought because people buy two twos for Halloween.
Um, now I realize that is just such a crazy. Type of business to get in physical products that have to be planned for and manufactured they come in different sizes and colors and styles.
Jared: That kind of seasonality is brutal in the online space, right? But now you’re managing inventory on top of that. That is, yeah, that is almost insurmountable in many ways.
Elliott: Yeah, I. I thought more of myself than I actually could handle.
Jared: Well, there’s a couple of things there. I mean, I’m glad you highlighted. I asked if the reason you were successful with your original pet e commerce business was because you were an expert or because you saw a gap. And the reality is you pointed out a third thing, which is you had a passion for it.
And then you ended up buying something that you had no passion for. And so it didn’t go very well. There were probably other reasons. Um, as well, um, uh, what, what ended up becoming of your online pet, uh, e commerce brand and where did that end up going? Because unlike the two, two business, it sounds like that one did pretty well for you overall.
Elliott: Yeah. Um, it was still kind of at the end of the day, not a huge home run, but definitely set me up. For success in a way I could never have imagined in my life before that. So, um, it was right over the course of a couple months that I ended up selling three businesses all at once. So that was a really crazy, stressful time.
Um, kind of six months into the covid pandemic. And, um, maybe I don’t know if that impacted my desire to, uh, Just move on and get, get settled with something else. But so the pet supplies business ended up selling. I had been looking into listing it through one of the brokers, um, and was all set to do that, but a friend of a friend kind of connected me with, uh, a successful founder and CEO of a few different pet businesses.
And he was looking to, um, bring in something like this to kind of kickstart their e commerce operations. Um, and so at the end of the day, sold the business to his operation and kind of join them for a six month transition period. And that wasn’t easy either. It was stressful kind of handing over all the relationships I had developed.
And, um, in that business, I had been doing a completely solo. Until kind of the last year that I hired a kind of freelance operations director guy. And so it was just me and a part time kind of operations guy who built up this big business. So, It was a lot to hand over and, um, I learned some lessons through that acquisition.
That was the first kind of real big business I had sold. And so probably would have structured things a little differently and gotten some better counsel on, on how to set that all up, um, after the fact, but had an earn out that ended up doing okay. Um, the business is still trucking along, doing well, and it got.
I sold it and then it got sold another a year and a half later to a publicly traded company, one of the biggest companies in the vet industry. Um, and so that was, yeah, at the end of the day, pretty successful story, even though, like I said, a lot of stress, a lot of risk involved along the way. So, um, I’m thankful looking back that I.
Went through all that. Um, and that helped to build my family, a new house and bought my dream farm property out in the mountains in Virginia here. Um, and so all that stuff never could have even imagined without doing that, but yeah, it’s not for everyone. That’s for sure.
Jared: Congratulations. Huge. Um, You know, I think one thing about your story that’s interesting is that, um, you know, you have this big success, but you also shared that you also had a failure.
And so I think it’s really important, like the more I interview entrepreneurs every week, right? And all of them tend to have failures. And it’s just, it’s not about letting your failures define you to some degree. It’s about making sure you also have those successes, right? But it is to some degree about taking swings at the plate.
And, um, uh, like you, you talked about how e commerce maybe nowadays isn’t as simple or just isn’t the same. And I know that Your timeframes of when you were selling, uh, 2020, 2021. Those time periods were huge for the e commerce space, right? The aggregators were rolling up, uh, um, uh, a lot of these e commerce brands and offering really high multiples and stuff.
What do you, maybe some insights you could share before we move on to some of your other entrepreneurial journeys. What are some insights you have about that? Like, why do you say that e commerce is different now and maybe what from a high level is different about it?
Elliott: Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a more mature industry now.
Um, and so you have, when you have a lot more money involved, you have better operators and, um, bigger businesses that are trying to compete with you on it. Um, so I think, yeah, I wouldn’t want to be getting into just that myself now. That doesn’t mean that. Other people shouldn’t, but I think there are natural kind of swings in terms of what businesses are easier to be successful with.
Um, and so, and also it was just kind of after my experience, after four years of handling physical products, like cool. Opening thousands of boxes myself and labeling and poly bagging products like more hours than you could imagine. Like why is a veterinarian doing doing that kind of stupid work? But I had to do what I had to do to make it work.
Um, handling physical products made me kind of come to a hard stop conclusion at the end of that. You know what? I want to do digital products from now on. Um, and so, and I had seen some, some friends who were getting more into the software side of businesses. Um, and so just made a decision. I’m done with physical products for a while.
I’m going to try my hand at the software space. And I think even from long before I started in e commerce. software has always been, uh, potentially an easier business to be successful. And if you could build it, and I’m not a coder, I’m not a developer, so I couldn’t build it myself. And it’s super expensive to build traditionally.
Um, and so I think now, just in the last year, Something that I’m super excited about is that the software space is opening up in a big way for entrepreneurs, um, of all varieties, even if you aren’t naturally prone to wanting to build the code yourself. And so, um, that kind of goes into the new project that I’m working on, which we can get into later, but that was a lot of why I just was ready to be done with e commerce was that there a lot more money involves a lot bigger players.
And I was just tired myself of having to worry about where these boxes going to sit until I can sell
Jared: you’d make for a good podcast host. Elliot does a good transition. Let’s get into this software. You kind of teased everybody and that was next on my list. There’s a third business here, right? We’ve got the e commerce pet supply business.
We’ve got the female clothing business. You did get into software. Let’s talk about that. Maybe give us the origin story of the software where you came up with the idea. Uh, Where that was in your journey as it relates to some of these other businesses, and then we’ll kind of talk about, about where the software is.
Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. And again, I can’t claim any great genius on my part with this because I literally was just taking what. Guys like Spencer and Pat Flynn and and the other gurus back in the day were talking about and so basically heard this over and over like You can find a problem by just hanging out in a little community where people are talking about their problems and as a vet The natural place for me for that was veterinary groups on Facebook.
Um, and so I just over a few months as I was kind of preparing to sell the e commerce businesses and try to move on from that, um, started spending a lot more time hanging out in Facebook groups and seeing what people were talking about and what. people were complaining about. And one of the constant refrains for veterinarians, which again, this totally kind of a niche problem that most of the crowd won’t appreciate.
But as a veterinary community, we haven’t had a way to send prescriptions to pharmacies electronically. Um, and so It seems like you probably in the entrepreneur business crowd, you hear like, if you can find a business that’s still using a fax machine, like that’s a good opportunity. Um, and again, that’s something I heard over and over and I was like, wait a second.
Most of that practices are getting tons of faxes every day. Um, and so realized, Hey, you know, if we could find a more efficient way to help veterinary practices communicate with pharmacies. Through electronic prescriptions, that could be a win and kind of a very discreet problem to that you could try to fix and focus on.
And so I decided I was going to pick that up. And again, it was, I took the approach of kind of. If you build it, they will come. And sometimes that’s failed and sometimes it’s been successful. But I, I kind of talked to everyone that I could about the problem. I set up a website, a nice website, made it look like I was a legitimate.
Business getting started, which I was to whatever degree, um, and established myself as kind of the go to guy who actually knew about veterinary prescriptions and electronic prescribing to pharmacies and things like that. And that was all just my own research in the late hours of the night, reading online everything that I could about it.
Um, yeah. And so I set that up and ended up selling that kind of very early business projects. Um, this one, it was more of kind of an acqui hire it was, they wanted me rather than whatever business I had developed because I, like I said, I wasn’t a coder and so I didn’t actually have the software that was going to solve the problem I needed to figure out how to do that.
But I was about to. Try to raise some funding and hire some developers and build it myself When a veterinary software company ended up buying that project with me In an aqua hire and that has worked out really well for all of us I think it’s pretty early in the company there about 20 people when I joined four years ago an hour at about 150 people have an amazing portfolio of projects, software projects, solving problems in the veterinary space.
Um, the company’s called instinct science and really love the team and the work that I’m doing there. Um, but after about three years of doing that full time as a traditional W2 employee, although still working remote and really flexible schedule. Um, real, I just kinda, I couldn’t stop myself from. Seeing another problem that needed solved.
And so, um, is a little bit more complicated because I’m a full time employee of another company, but got permission to start up a new kind of side hustle. Actually, I sold, um, didn’t sell, closed down another e commerce business that I had been working on on the sides. For a few years last year and kind of said, you know what?
I’m going to shut this one down. Can I start up a new side hustle to take its place? Um, and so that’s where I am now, as I’m still working full time for this veterinary software company, which I love. Um, and then in the evenings and weekend time, I can find the space, um, working on something new, which is exciting.
Jared: What, um, what are you doing right now, uh, for your, like, for your full time job? Because you talked about how you don’t have a lot of experience necessarily with software, but you were doing software, you kind of got aqua hired. As you’re starting software, but you don’t really do software. What are you doing right now with this company?
And how’s the transition been to W2 life? I mean, you had been on your own for a while, granted, still a reservist, um, in the army, but like, I mean, how’s that transition been?
Elliott: Yeah. So like I said, it’s as best, as good as it could get for someone like me. Um, it was a fully remote company even before COVID and the founders felt strongly about kind of a very flexible.
Work life balance. And again, kind of playing by those same big boy rules, um, that I got used to in the special operations community where you’re getting your job done and it doesn’t really matter if you’re doing it from nine to five, or if you prefer to work for. A couple hours every night, um, filling the gaps on the weekends or whatever.
Um, and so with that company, I have been more on, as you can imagine, more on the business development and partnership side of things. So, um, I get to do what I love doing already, which is staying in touch with everyone in the veterinary space. Who’s working on cool new technology and figuring out how we can work together with our companies.
Um, and so it’s been a really great fit from that perspective.
Jared: Through this whole time, and to my understanding, you’re still in the reserves, with the army reserves, right? Either way, through all of this entrepreneurial highs, lows, everything in between, you had that fallback, as you described it. You had that reserve, and it covered a lot of things for you.
Talk about that, especially as people listening are wondering The when and the how of diving into their online journey, their side hustle, whatever it is, and trying to figure out how they wrestle with keeping their full time job or transitioning into something that’s a little more part time. Like, um, you have a unique story you’ve done a lot, but you’ve kind of had a bit of a safety net behind you as you do it.
Elliott: Yeah, exactly. And I think it’s, I know it’s kind of unique. It’s not something that would work for everyone, but it is. I think a great opportunity. I mean, I’ll, I’ll put my recruiter hat on and say that probably a lot more people could look into it than might have ever considered it before. Um, I think not only the benefits while you’re a reservist, but also as a veteran in the military.
I mean, it’s basically the best benefit. Programs that are out there in our country and the world, um, that our country has chosen for now. We’ll see if that continues to really take good care of people who have been willing to step up and defend the country and pursue our interests around the world when we want to do that.
Um, so. Yeah, that’s been a big part of my story. And like I said, I don’t know if I would have been willing to take as many risks or if my wife would have been supportive of that without kind of having this kind of underlying, basically kind of poverty level taken care of. Like it’s not
Jared: lucrative when we describe it.
Right.
Elliott: Exactly.
Jared: Good. Um, Another, another theme I keep seeing is it seems like you always seem to know someone when the time comes to make that next transition, you talked about selling the first business to pet supply e commerce. I believe you mentioned that you had a friend of a friend that you got connected with.
You talk about being fortunate enough to find a buyer for the clothing, uh, e commerce business. You then talked about pre pre market before you even had a product, you were acqua hired and um, and like what? Thank you. What role has your network played? Is that something that you develop and tap into? And how, um, how influential has that been for all these successes?
Elliott: Yeah, that’s been huge. And I’m glad you remember to kind of come back to that. Cause that’s one of the points I wanted to hammer home is something that I feel like I really needed to hear. A lot of times until I was willing to try it was this whole concept of kind of the platform, building a platform for yourself.
And yes, I’m a veterinarian. And so maybe people feel like that’s kind of an unfair advantage. Um, and that does give me something unique about me, but I did have to decide at one point in 2015, whatever it was, you know what I’m going to create. A Facebook page. I’m going to create a Twitter account. I’m going to, um, set up a blog and, and turn into a website and started a podcast.
I did five episodes, all the five episodes, they still get watched. Um, but I wish I had kept going because I would have been like the first veterinary podcast that couldn’t, I couldn’t do all the stuff myself at that time. Um, and it was a lot of work. But so that’s a really important thing that I think is still just as valid as it was 10 years ago is just putting yourself out there and establishing yourself as an expert in something.
Um, and even if you’re not an expert, maybe a participant in something and people begin to recognize your name and you get to be part of the conversation. I mean, happens all over the Internet all day, every day, whether it’s. Discord channels or Facebook groups or Reddit, um, subs and, and every day there’s people establishing themselves as kind of, this is a, a go to person who knows something about something.
Um, and then it just comes down to kind of being willing to ask and contact people. I mean, even still my siblings and my wife and her siblings will laugh when they hear. What I emailed someone to ask for, um, because they can’t believe that I’m willing to just do that. Um, and I think, and I’ve, I’ve tried with all those, all my siblings, my wife, siblings and cousins stuff to kind of encourage them to come along this online business journey.
And no one has taken me up on it yet. I kind of, I was really sad and disappointed about that for a while and kind of have gotten over it and realized it’s not for everyone. Um, but I think for the people who are interested in. being successful in that, then the path is still wide open and the opportunity is there.
Um, and it really is as simple as you hear on these podcasts. Getting the account set up, starting to engage in the conversation, starting to create content of some sort, whether that’s written or short videos or podcast or, or something, but you, you get involved in the conversations and you start to become someone who is worth.
Talking to
Jared: we’ve kind of gone through your greatest hits album, if we, if you will, but I was preparing for the podcast and kind of, you know, looking a little more into some of the things about you. And we’ve only covered a handful of things. Like you’ve got a New York times article that you published.
You’ve written several books to my knowledge. I wanted them being a, like a thriller book. Uh, another one being more of a short story. That’s kind of related to your time in the service. Uh, I’m sure I only know about a few things like you have this knack of continually putting yourself out there. And I mean, again, we talked about your businesses that have gone on to be sold and you’ve gone to be hired for, but like you do have this.
It seems this thing of trying stuff, seeing what works, continuing on the stuff that is working, but always trying stuff like, can you talk about, you know, again, some of the stuff I found, but just their impetus behind all these projects that you’re, that you’ve got your hands in.
Elliott: Yeah. Again, I don’t know if this is just something I was born with or what, but I’m a hustler at heart.
And. I’m sure it has all sorts of weird psychological things from my childhood, but part of it was growing up kind of very straight middle class, but my parents being aspirational about the communities that we are involved in. So went to kind of schools with mostly kids who are a lot better off than us.
And so it was exposed to, um, different types of lifestyles and stability in life. And for me. Um, never wanted the huge house in the suburbs, but always dreamed of growing up on a farm and, um, never got to. And so that was a big thing that I’ve always aspired to is having that, um, in addition to the, yeah, the writing stuff, my wife and I also are into real, real estate and, um, do a lot of work.
My wife, especially on our vacation rentals, which was kind of another boom time thing that we got involved in grief. We didn’t even, I didn’t even find that. I’m sitting right now in our farm, which we rent out as a vacation rental, the main 1840s farmhouse. Um, and so it’s just a lot of little pieces that we put together and, and realistically, I mean, it takes hard work and takes choosing to work on something instead of watching a TV series at night.
And, and we love doing that too, and we’ll have something that we. Do every few nights or so together, but a lot of evenings were sitting side by side in bed, working on our laptops and, and working for other things that we care about and aspire to. So
Jared: Elliot Garber, the modern Renaissance,
Elliott: that’s overly generous.
Jared: We’re going to call you. I don’t know if it is. Um, Hey, with the last few minutes we have. Uh, obviously you’re working on something new and exciting. Uh, I feel like I can say that now after spending 45 minutes with you. Uh, what’s next? What are you working on now? You did tease it at a site, you shut down an e commerce project to focus on something new.
What are, what are you, what are you working on here as we, as we kind of close out?
Elliott: Yeah. So I’m really excited about this new project. That’s at creatures. com. It’s the only premium domain I’ve ever bought spent more than I ever thought I would, but it wasn’t something crazy. Like you see people talking about online, but it was another thing that I just.
Put myself out there, um, domain wasn’t for sale, but I was thinking up kind of names for this new project, something around animals and wanted something that could really be a, a brand, um, if possible, and so reached out to. The retired old lady who had started this domain,
Jared: I’d expect no less
Elliott: when she was back in the nineties, she was probably one of the first hundred websites or something
Jared: that could come in handy someday.
That’s a nice domain name.
Elliott: And so she had had some personal projects on it over the years, but. Um, reached out and she thought about it on and off for a couple of months as I kept following up and then sold it to me. Um, and so creatures. com is going to be kind of online home for animal business people of all sorts.
Um, and so we’re working on providing software tools and a marketplace and community for people who. keep and take care of animals in not just kind of the pet owners, but more the people who make small businesses out of it. So people who breed a variety of animals and people who provide services for animals, whether it’s the boarding facilities or transporters or things like that.
And I had just kind of, after buying the farm two and a half years ago, um, I’ve, I’ve populated it miniature Scottish Highland cattle and miniature donkeys and have realized as I’ve gotten into those little crazy niche breeds of animals that there still somehow in 2025 isn’t a great way to buy and sell live animals online.
And part of that is because all the big online marketplaces specifically. Don’t allow animal sales because of kind of welfare and ethical concerns. And it’s just not worth their while to get into that controversial topic and subject. Um, so Facebook marketplace doesn’t allow it. eBay doesn’t allow it.
Amazon, of course, um, Etsy, no one allows live animals. Um, and so unfortunately that means there’s a ton of scams and people getting caught up in all sorts of crazy stuff because there’s not a safe. Transparent kind of trusted marketplace for that. And so that’s the primary thing that we’re building, but as a way to bring in the whole crew of animal folks, we’re providing some useful software tools for them to actually manage those businesses too.
That makes complete sense. I have a personal story about that,
Jared: but no one would care about that. Not in
Elliott: this class. I’ve always enjoyed when you guys have covered, um, kind of the funny animal related, like super niche websites.
Jared: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Elliott: The horse name generator, which I now have one on my site, which isn’t that was a good one.
That was one of the better ones. I agree with that. And then there’s all sorts of directories, so we’re gonna be the directory of directories for all things animal related. I love it. Okay. Um, you have a place for that. Um, so
Jared: yeah, I’ll give the listeners a lot of, uh, a good mental picture. Um, Ellie, this has been a really fun deep dive into a really fun entrepreneurial story.
But again, um, it just seems like everything you touch seems to turn to gold. Um, I wish It’s you got a, you got a great story. Uh, thank you for your service. Thank you for sharing all of your, um, your successes and failures to some degree with, uh, with the community here, I’m glad to have had you on. Where can people connect with you or follow along, uh, with what you’re doing going forward, because I’m sure there’ll be many more things you’ll be working on going forward.
Elliott: Yeah. I mean, honestly, for your audience, if there’s anyone who loves animals, then we’d love to have you. Connect, um, on for the new creatures platform. There’s a basically a landing page there now with an email collection. Um, I do have a Facebook page and tick tock. I mean, not tick tock X and Twitter. I’m kind of very active as an engager.
Not as much of a, um. Producer of content currently, but that hopefully going to change that. And then on YouTube and I’ll get you the links for all those things where people can follow along, but always happy. I have a personal website too. Um, that’s kind of what started it off and happy to get emails through there with anyone with specific questions.
Jared: Elliot, thank you so much for jumping on board. This has been a really inspiring interview and, um, much continued success in all the projects you’re working on to this day.
Elliott: Yeah. Thanks Jared. It’s fun to be on here.
Jared: You got it.
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