CASE 1
Noah’s Arf: Coming to the Dogs
W
hen Kris Price sold her house and resigned from a successful 23-year career with Nike, Inc. to launch her own business, her friends and family thought she had lost her mind.
Kris, however, saw things from a different perspective. After
four years of hard work, research and planning, Kris realized
her dream in June 2002 with the grand opening of her business, Noah’s Arf (http://www.noahsarf.com). This full-service
pet care facility located in Portland, Oregon, provides a safe,
clean, and fun environment for pets. Customers can leave their
pets at Noah’s Arf, or they can hire the company to provide pet
care in their own homes.
Kris spent a lot of time traveling as an exhibit manager for
Nike and found it challenging to locate a good facility at which
to leave her dog. With that, the idea for Noah’s Arf was born.
Kris began her research and visited dog day-care centers and
dog washes throughout the country. Her research failed to find
a business concept that offered all of the services she imagined
for her venture. Her next step was to create a business plan.
Because Kris had never written a business plan before and
did not consider herself to be a good writer, she decided to use
Business Plan Pro to guide her. She says,
I just kept at it and kept at it, and then went back and forth
with the Small Business Administration (SBA) and took
about a year getting my numbers right. The exercise of
writing my business plan totally opened my eyes. I didn’t
know what was involved. Business Plan Pro asked questions that made me think about what was involved and
made me do my research. There is no way I would have
known all that without Business Plan Pro.
Kris scraped together $70,000 of her own money to invest,
sold her house, and donated her car to the business. Armed
with her business plan, Kris approached the SBA for a loan for
$200,000. She says proudly,
overnight stays, along with nine kitty condos. The company
now employs two full-time and four part-time people and
needs one more of each. “We are growing so fast I can’t keep
up with it. It’s scaring me, it really is!” says Kris.
The busiest times for Noah’s Arf are the holidays; in fact,
most kitty condos and dog kennels are full over holidays such
as Labor Day and Christmas. Kris has been busily promoting
her in-home care service, and it has now reached capacity. The
in-home care service requires Kris or an employee to visit a
customer’s house twice a day to check on animals, and, like the
in-house experience, this service is also in the greatest demand
around the holidays.
Initially, free publicity through local newspapers and
neighborhood publications and newsletters brought in customers. In addition, Noah’s Arf recently received the
Multnomah Animal Control Facility Award and received a
front-page write-up in The Oregonian, the premier newspaper
for the Portland metropolitan area. Kris’s choice of a location
for Noah’s Arf has helped sales because of a nearby dog park
where potential customers take their dogs. Price hears that her
business is “the talk of the dog park.” To date, Noah’s Arf has
had to do very little advertising because most new customers
hear about Noah’s Arf by word of mouth.
When asked whether she will expand the current facility,
Price says definitely not:
I don’t want it bigger because right now I know every
dogs’ name and after I walk them at night, kiss each of
them, rub them down, give them a hug—I can still be
very personal with them and that’s the way I like it. If
you get bigger, you lose track of all that. The next stage
is to hire people and get them trained so that I can get
out of the kennel and think more about the business side
of things. I took my first day off in over a year last week,
for my 50th birthday. I went to a spa, and I was a nervous wreck.
I lease this place. I wish I owned it. I have put a lot of
money into the building considering it’s not mine, but I
had a vision of what I wanted it to look like and I don’t
think it would have worked if I had not put the money in.
A lot of people said, “Don’t you think you are getting in
over your head? Why don’t you try to launch one thing
at a time?” I responded, “That’s not the concept.” A lot
of people have day cares, and kitty condos and dog
washes, but they don’t have all in one. There is nothing
else in Oregon like this.
Looking ahead, Price plans to grow the business by opening similar facilities in other cities, and she has already scouted
potential locations.
She says, laughing,
The customers of Noah’s Arf confirmed the vision Kris
had. The company hit its break-even point within the first two
months of operation. Within six months, Kris had a client base
of 20 dogs that reside at Noah’s Arf daily. The facility grew to
a capacity of 40 day-care dogs with the ability to lodge 26
Exercises
1. What entrepreneurial qualities does Kris possess?
2. Review the initial plan for Noah’s Arf at http:// www
.bplans.com. What are the primary points of emphasis in this
start-up business plan? How might this plan evolve as it
I look back now and I can’t even imagine I did it. Every
day is like a Saturday now. I work probably 18 hours a
day. I was up at 5 this morning. I work until 10 to 11 at
night, and I love it. I am working on adrenalin now,
that’s all it is.
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CASE 1 • NOAH’S ARF: COMING TO THE DOGS
changes from a start-up plan to an ongoing business plan that
will be used by the company?
3. Visit the Web site for Noah’s Arf at http:// www.noahsarf.com.
What recommendations do you have to improve this site?
4. What advertising and promotional strategies do you recommend for Noah’s Arf?
5. What might you expect to be the most significant challenges
for Kris in the future?
Source: Adapted from Sadie Dressekie, “Going to the Dogs” Palo Alto
Software, May 20, 2006, http://www.paloalto.com/pr/viewrelease.cfm?r=
NoahsArf .