Bark

Anchor the business in a promise, not a product

Werdelin explains why he modeled Bark on Disney: Disney is hard to peg because it makes toys, parks and content, yet it's coherent because it's anchored in a customer promise. He built Bark around the promise of dog happiness rather than any single SKU.

“And so I think what was intriguing for a slightly kind of neurotic entrepreneur like myself was this idea that you could anchor your businesses not in a product that you were making, but in a promise or a problem you were solving for your customer. And we wanted to make our dogs happy.”

Steal thisAnchor your brand in the customer problem or promise you solve, not the product you ship — it lets you expand into new lines without losing coherence.

BarkBox grew from a $20/month box to ~$250M in annual revenue

Shaan notes Bark, built off the ~$20/month BarkBox subscription, was doing roughly $250 million in annual revenue at the time of recording (2019).

“I think the last numbers I saw was like you guys are doing somewhere on the order of $250 million in revenue annually now. So built a very big business off of this.”

Sell the lifestyle, not the product (the MTV playbook)

Drawing on his MTV background, Werdelin made Bark's content about the dog-owner lifestyle ('what do you do if your dog doesn't like your boyfriend') rather than utilitarian product copy. They even trolled political forums posting from a dog's point of view to build a culture of playfulness people wanted to share.

“I think our content would be more about like, what do you do if you're dog doesn't like your boyfriend, then it was about like 5 ways to clean the paw of your dog. And I think everything, things tend to be pretty utilitarian because most product owners or entrepreneurs were like, well, I need to sell my stuff.”

Steal thisMake your content about your customer's lifestyle and identity, not your product's features — it's more shareable and easier to associate with.

Try many crazy things, then kill them ruthlessly on 'data day'

Bark's operating rhythm: build whatever idea they want, run it for a week, then on Sunday 'data day' Matt reviews the numbers and rolls back the entire week if metrics dropped. Werdelin calls it a 'bipolar' attitude — don't overthink experiments, but be disciplined about killing the losers fast.

“And so in the early days, we would build whatever we wanted to do, and then we would run it for a week. And then on Sundays, Matt would do data day. And if we had kind of dropped in numbers, we would just roll back a whole week.”

Steal thisRun new experiments for one week, then hold a weekly 'data day' to roll back anything that didn't move the numbers — fast to try, fast to kill.

Bark had 150 'celebrity dogs' on payroll

Before influencer marketing was a category, Bark put famous Instagram dogs (like Tuna Meltz My Heart) on payroll — at one point around 150 of them — in a symbiotic cross-promotion that helped grow the brand's following.

“But at one point, I think we had 150 dogs on payroll. And so like, you know, Tuna Meltz My Heart.”

Pay influencers on a fixed CAC — only for converted subscribers

Bark's discipline around influencer spend: stick to a target customer-acquisition cost (CAC) and, in the early days, pay celebrity dogs only when they converted a sale, roughly $20–$30 per subscriber. Werdelin notes the model has since shifted to more pay-to-play.

“But we've always been pretty disciplined by having a CAC that we stick to. So I would imagine it was like within those, I don't know what it was back then, like $20 or $30 or whatever it was, that we would offer these celebrity dogs if they converted into a sale.”

Steal thisPay influencers on conversion against a fixed CAC target, not flat fees — so acquisition spend stays tied to real subscribers.