Best Bets For Pets

Listen to Episode #312 Now:

BIO:

Allison Esposito Medina is the Founder and CEO of Tech Ladies, the largest community of women in tech. She's also an angel investor and advisor to startups.

Allison Esposito Medina, the founder of Juniper, an online community catered to dog parents, embarked on her entrepreneurial journey inspired by her personal experience as a new pet parent. After adopting her rescue puppy, Addie, she encountered the typical challenges and questions that accompany raising a young dog. Dealing with the 'puppy blues' and the abundant yet often overwhelming information online, she recognized a gap in the pet industry — the need for a supportive network that not only provided answers but also fostered connection among dog owners.
Motivated by her struggle and armed with a vision to create a more nuanced platform, Allison established Juniper. The platform blends a sense of community with access to comprehensive content, offering articles and resources to assist pet parents in navigating the joys and tribulations of dog parenthood. Through Juniper, Allison has created a unique space where support and information intersect, reflecting her dedication to improving the journey for fellow dog lovers and their furry companions.

Transcript:

Announcer [00:00:00]:
Pet Life Radio.

Announcer [00:00:02]:
This is Pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.

Michelle Fern [00:00:22]:
Hello, pet lovers. Welcome to Best Bets for Pets. I'm your show host, Michelle Fern. So let's see. You got a new pup, and you're thinking, what now? Where do I go? Where's my support group? Where do I go for, you know, like most of us these days, you might think, let me go online. But where do you go online? Well, my guest today has created a unique platform online that will come to the aid for pet parents all over the world. We will be right back.

Announcer [00:00:57]:
Take a bite out of your competition. Advertise your business with an ad in Pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows. There is no other pet related media that is as large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than Pet Life Radio. With over 7 million monthly listeners, Pet Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms, and our live radio stream goes out to over 250,000,000 subscribers on iHeartRadio, Audacy, Tunein, and other streaming apps. For more information on how you can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network, visit PetLifeRadio.com/advertise today.

Announcer [00:01:39]:
Let's Talk Pets on PetLifeRadio.com.

Michelle Fern [00:01:53]:
I'd like to welcome the founder and CEO of Juniper, Allison Medina. Welcome, Allison.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:02:00]:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Michelle Fern [00:02:02]:
I'm so glad you're on the show. So let's talk about Juniper. What is it and why did you create it?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:02:09]:
Yes. So Juniper is an online community for dog parents. And I created it really because it was something that I wanted after I adopted my rescue pup, Addie, I got her as a puppy. And so, like, anybody who's ever gotten a puppy knows, you have a lot of questions. You have a lot of struggles, internal struggles and external struggles, sometimes even, like, dealing with the puppy blues. So that really got me into diving into everything from the online communities that I could find out there to googling every question, and I still felt like there was something sort of missing in the pet space that would be a supportive space and answer all my questions. So Juniper aims to do a little bit of both. So we have an online community, and we have content and a lot of articles on our website, and we try to be a little bit different, a little bit more nuanced around.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:02:58]:
Like, here's why you might train your dog on this, and here's why you might not. Rather than coming from the trainer's perspective or the veterinarian perspective, which is, like, the expertise, we know everything that's right. For you and your pet, Juniper is a little bit more by dog parents. For dog parents. Right. So if we've all been there before and struggled with it, we can help each other. And we also have an active online community of dog parents that can talk to each other. So we have channels to talk to each other about all sorts of things that you're going through in your journey.

Michelle Fern [00:03:28]:
You think having a platform. So with Juniper, what is the end goal? I mean, I could see a lot of reasons for know, but ultimate goal.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:03:39]:
Oh, it's so fun to think about because there's so many ways that it could grow. We just launched a few weeks ago, so it's brand new. And to some degree, I'm letting it grow somewhat organically to feel like, what are the needs? I know what the needs of me are as a dog parent, but what are the needs of our community? So I think largely what we're trying to do is grow the largest online community of dog parents. And once we have a really large audience, then we can work and do really cool stuff with these pet brands. So another thing is, the reason I was really excited to be on your podcast is I started to really nerd out about pet products and find the best things and what are they know a lot of what you talk about here, and I think that there's, like, a space for just overwhelm Juniper. We're already working with a couple of what I kind of consider emerging pet brands, like the brands that we've identified as being either sustainable, high quality. Oftentimes we love to work with brands that are, like, women owned. Just if there's some kind of mission behind the brand, we love to work with them.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:04:38]:
And then how can we introduce the pet parents on our platform to really like the best products? So I think there's a lot more that will grow there. Right now, we're working with them to pass along discounts and things like that, but I think that will grow a lot more over time as well.

Michelle Fern [00:04:52]:
That's interesting. And, yeah, best bets perpets. It's been 13 years of products, so a lot, a lot of shows. Take a listen. I've had some of the best on this show, which I'm thrilled with and proud of and a lot of really great products. But not only are the products great, but the people and the company behind the products are pretty great, too.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:05:17]:
Yeah.

Michelle Fern [00:05:18]:
So how does Juniper work? And also Juniper does have a pay to join type system. So what, it makes it different. And I'm asking this not to be taunting. But I know my listeners and they're probably thinking this. What is the value for someone to pay to join Juniper when they could possibly know? Not the same thing, but pieces here and there from the.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:05:48]:
Yeah, yeah, of course. So to join Juniper is super easy. You can join for free, which I think most people would do to start out. That's just dropping your email on the website. It's Juniperpet Co. And we're going to be giving away some of the discounts to our free members and some access to chatting in the community. But the paid version of Juniper has access to everything, so it's going to be like all of the discounts that we work with pet brands to pass along, a lot of them are exclusive to Juniper. That's like the best price you'll get on that brand through us.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:06:21]:
And then also just the ability to really chat with each other in the community. We use slack for our community, so it's everything know, we have a puppy channel, we have a senior dog channel, enrichment ideas channel, a channel for training tips and then even just a lot of emotional support. So sharing your wins and things that you struggle with and just having a close knit community of people to chat with there who've maybe also gone through the same things. So it's a lot of, like, learning from each other. So how is this different from other communities that exist online? There's tons of Facebook groups and Reddit pages and things like that, but this is really. My background is in building, so it's. We're really building and curating a community from scratch and keeping quality really high and making sure people are answering each other. We have a lot of rules in the community and I think rules are really great for making communities actually thrive more, whereas a lot of these spaces you'll be in, you can tell they get unruly or out of control really quickly or just not useful for you.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:07:17]:
Right. So it's a curated admin, really lovingly put together community, which I think helps it stand out. And then working with these brands and then the content that we're writing, I feel is really. Yeah, really bringing nuance and the emotional aspects of having a dog into the content, rather than just like, should I do this for my dog? Yes. Or know if you want to Google. A quick question about your. Like, everything that comes up on Google is going to answer it for you. We're not writing that type of content.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:07:44]:
It's more about the journey you're going on with your dog. When you have really complex questions or even figuring out what are the right things for me that I should train? Should I train this or not? Why is it right for me and my dog and how to consider all of that? The idea is like, there's not that much one size fits all for dog ownership. Every dog is different and every person is different. So we're really trying to get at that with the content.

Michelle Fern [00:08:08]:
Okay, that's great. And when you mentioned rules, there's a little part of me that's a rebel. But I do believe in rules because then you are also getting away from the, what do they call, trolls and.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:08:22]:
That sort of thing, right? I mean, a lot of these online communities, they may be huge, they may have some value in there, but you're dealing with trolls or you're dealing with people who are mean or just overly critical about the wrong things, and then everybody gets stressed out. Right? Even, believe it or not, even when it's something as, like, fun as pets, there really can be a lot of that there. So we aim to be like a low drama, no drama group where you could really come and learn from each other and be really supported.

Michelle Fern [00:08:47]:
Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, let's walk through a process of me going on Juniper and just getting started. So I'll be right back. Molly, here's your dinner. Zeus, that's not your food.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:09:05]:
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Commercial [00:09:36]:
Go right now to cattreetray.com. That's cattreetray.com. Cattreetray.com. Let's Talk Pets.

Announcer [00:09:50]:
Let's Talk Pets on Pet Life Radio.

Announcer [00:09:52]:
Pet Life Radio

Michelle Fern [00:09:55]:
Welcome back, everyone. We're talking to the CEO and founder of Juniper, Allison Medina. And so let's talk about how it would work. So I just got a puppy. I got a rescue puppy and I found Juniper. And I thought, you know, this is what I need. I don't know a heck of a lot about dogs and I like the support of a community because I'm a little nervous about what to do first. So how would I get started?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:10:34]:
Yeah, that's a great scenario. And love that. It's a rescue puppy, too. So is mine. So, yeah, Juniper is super easy. It's literally just drop your email on the site and then you're in. At that point, you're going to get an email that's going to give you a link to our guides. And actually, luckily already we have one of them, which is a puppy 101 guide.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:10:52]:
So for you in this scenario, that would be really helpful. And we're going to continue to build out these guides. We plan to put out one per quarter. So, like, a more in depth guide than just the articles that we're publishing every week. And then you'd also get a weekly newsletter. So the weekly newsletter highlights, just, like, what's the latest and what's happening on the site and in the community. So there's a lot of value there. And then the links to some of the discounts of the products that you might be shopping for when you're looking for stuff for your puppy.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:11:21]:
So goal for me there with curating these products is really, like, avoiding the problem I had, which was buying way too much of the wrong stuff and then not knowing what the really good stuff was or the high quality stuff, and then also making mistakes. Like, actually, this came up in the community today. Somebody's, like, not a first time dog owner, and they're wondering, what's the best, cheapest color I can buy for my puppy? Because I know that this puppy is just going to grow out of it, and I don't want to spend a lot of money. So even just considerations like that and learning from each other. So you realize these puppies are going to grow and you don't need to buy the best thing on day one. But here's the stuff that's still really good for that kind of scenario.

Michelle Fern [00:12:02]:
Right. And how do you have it organized as far as. Well, you have it by sections. But what about geography? You have different products. Most products these days are global, but you're probably focused more on us, North America.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:12:17]:
Yeah, definitely. I think most of Juniper members today are from the US and Canada, and we're technically open to join from everywhere, and somebody can join from any country and get value out of the content. A lot of that is going to be the same no matter where you live. Product recommendations slightly skew more towards us and Canada, but, yeah, the talking to people and support can happen from, say, and I imagine as we continue to grow, we'll still be largely us and Canada because we're based in the US. But yeah, we can welcome people from everywhere.

Michelle Fern [00:12:49]:
You see as a know, there's a lot of talk with telemedicine and there's a lot of different points of view with veterinarians and so forth. Is that a topic that. Have you talked about that yet on your platform? Is that something that you might develop later on?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:13:05]:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of solutions that exist already, and it feels almost like a competitive space to be in. I think what would be interesting for us is sort of like, what are the outlier things that vets are thinking about? I would love to talk to vets about that. The stuff that you can't just Google right now, if somebody posts something and they're worried about it, we're just going to say, go to your vet. We're not vets. Right. But as far as telehealth or checking in, there's so many online services for that. I would love to find one that we love and can truly recommend and partner with and discount for our members or something like that. But I don't know if we'd go back and really reinvent the wheel there.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:13:43]:
But I do think it would be interesting to work with more vets for content that isn't your typical vet content.

Michelle Fern [00:13:49]:
What about that aspect? Not so much recommending, but do you have an area of Juniper that focuses on, say, pet insurance, or is that just something that might be a topic in your newsletter?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:14:02]:
I think pet insurance would be. Yeah, we get that question a lot, and I think as we grow, it'll be like, okay, can we find one that we truly feel is the best? And then this is the one that we recommend, and then that becomes, like, the top Juniper recommendation. Or can we write a post and really actually compare them? Because it is something we see get asked a lot. People really want to know that about pet insurance. And right now, we can ask it in the community and kind of crowdsource it. I can recommend mine, somebody else in the community can recommend theirs, and we can even ask each other questions like, did it cover this or that if you experience this. So we can kind of do it ourselves within the community. But I do think it would be nice.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:14:40]:
Eventually, as we start to work with more companies, the longer we're around, we're starting to develop more and more of these partnerships. I think it'd be great to have something we feel really good and solid about, or even a top three.

Michelle Fern [00:14:53]:
Okay, and you're solely dog based. What about cats? Oh, my gosh, let me just say that's my other show, catitude. And right now we just lost our little Nikki. So for the first time, and I don't even know how many years, I'm a cat only household right now.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:15:09]:
Wow. Yeah.

Michelle Fern [00:15:12]:
We went five cats and two dogs to three cats. So it feels, like limited around here. Possibly a fourth cat soon. We'll see. But what about cats?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:15:22]:
Oh, yes, I am a cat lover first, actually. I have a twelve year old senior boy that I love so much. And so I think about cat stuff all the time, and I really love cat products and cat communities, so I think there's definitely a place for it. We just wanted to really focus on dogs first, just really so we could stay focused and come out and really deliver a great experience for people. But I think once we nail that and figure out how to scale it out, we'll be able to expand to cats as well.

Michelle Fern [00:15:49]:
Well, that's good to know. So I also want to talk about you have a focus and affinity for shelter dogs. Where do you have that focused on Juniper?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:15:59]:
Yeah. So we provide free memberships to the paid version of Juniper to anybody who works at a shelter foster rescue, and could benefit from reading what we're writing about, training and things like that, and access to the discounts and things like that that could help them. So we're also featuring, we have something really fun called the Underdog Awards on our site. It's just a way for people to come upload a photo of their dog and then share it on social media. So we use that to also we have a category called most adoptable. And so we use that to feature a shelter pet each week. And then we're sharing that on our social media as well.

Michelle Fern [00:16:37]:
Okay, and what is your wish for Juniper say in the next year and then maybe five years?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:16:45]:
Yeah, I mean, for us, it's all about just growing the community, really finding the right folks, which I would describe as people who care about their dog so much that they would consider throwing a birthday party for their dog. That's our type of dog parent that we want to find and have them join. So it's really just growing as many of those types of folks, getting them together as possible in five years. I would really love to be like the site where people can discover both get all the best answers about having a dog and connecting with people who have dogs, but also discover the best pet products that exist and kind of sort through all of the junk.

Michelle Fern [00:17:23]:
That sounds amazing. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about that I didn't bring up.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:17:29]:
No. I think the only thing interesting that we didn't talk about is just really, like something that I think is interesting is that we are connecting with folks who have either big Instagram pages about their dog and things like that. We've been reaching out to them really organically, even before we were launched to just sort of ask them, what is the stuff you actually use? Not necessarily the stuff people pay you to talk about being good, but what are your favorite harnesses, leashes? What's your favorite food to feed for your dog? And just kind of gathering the most honest answers from these folks. And that's been so interesting because it's led us to so many brands that we didn't even know about, and then we've included that. And so I think it's an interesting take to both crowdsource from people in our community about what their favorite products are or tips and all of that, but also go out to the larger community of dog parents and kind of find out what are they really loving and find out about some good stuff that way. So that's been a great discovery for us, and I think it'll be something that we can incorporate into our content going forward as well.

Michelle Fern [00:18:33]:
Oh, I have a list for you, but we'll talk about that.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:18:36]:
Oh, great. I love that.

Michelle Fern [00:18:37]:
Sorry, folks, but there's about 300 something shows you could listen to.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:18:41]:
I know.

Michelle Fern [00:18:42]:
Okay. And lastly, Allison, how can our listeners find out more about Juniper so they can just go to your website and sign up?

Allison Esposito Medina [00:18:49]:
Yes, our website is Juniperpet.Co. And yeah, you can sign up there. It's free. And you're going to get a bunch of resources about how to be the best dog parent you can be.

Michelle Fern [00:18:59]:
Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on Best Bets for Pets and taking the time out to tell us about Juniper. And I wish you the best. Hey, maybe you might have Best Bets for Pets someplace on Juniper.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:19:11]:
I love it. Yes, we need to get our Pet Life Radio.

Michelle Fern [00:19:14]:
We have so much content, but it's a little different. And there's so many needs for pet parents out there that I think there's always room for more.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:19:24]:
Absolutely. And we don't have a podcast, so we can send people over here for podcast listening because I love to listen podcasts when I'm doing other stuff. So it's absolutely one of my favorite formats. So I'm excited to have discovered you and learn about everything from listening to all of your shows, too. So thank you so much for having us.

Michelle Fern [00:19:41]:
We have over 75 shows and I'll give you my faves.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:19:45]:
That's amazing.

Michelle Fern [00:19:46]:
I love it. Going to be off air. Maybe they'll be Best Bets for Pets with my favorite shows, but it's kind of like a parent picking their favorite children.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:19:55]:
Be careful with that one.

Michelle Fern [00:19:57]:
Yes. Thank you so much, Allison.

Allison Esposito Medina [00:19:59]:
Thank you so much.

Michelle Fern [00:20:00]:
I hope all of you enjoyed the show. Be sure to check out Juniper and more information will be on the episode page for this show. Thank you so much, Allison, for coming on Best Bets for Pets. Thanks to my crew, Charlote, Molly and Dennis. My cat crew, the dogs are in doggy heaven, so my cat crew for always being there and listening to me when I go through my warm ups for Best Bets for Pets. And of course, thank you to everyone listening to Best Bets for Pets for 13 years. Many, many products. So thank you.

Michelle Fern [00:20:36]:
And of course, the show wouldn't be the same without the magic of my producer, Mark Winter. So thank you, Mark, for doing all you do to make best for pets and Pet Life Radio as wonderful as it is. So hey, remember, keep listening because you never know what we're going to have next on Best Bets for Pets.

Announcer [00:20:56]:
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand, only on PetLifeRadio.com.

Timestamped overview:

00:00 Juniper is an online community for pet parents.
03:39 Growing online dog parent community with pet brands.
08:22 Online community aims to be drama-free support.
11:21 Curating products to avoid mistakes and overspending.
14:02 Exploring pet insurance and community recommendations.
17:29 Crowdsourcing dog product insights from Instagram influencers.
20:00 Acknowledgments and shout-outs for long-running pet show.

Key topics and bullets:

Primary Topic: Introduction to Juniper
- Allison Esposito Medina introduces Juniper as an online community for dog parents.
- She shares her personal experience of needing a supportive and informative space after adopting her rescue pup, Addie.
- The platform aims to provide a space for dog parents to seek support, advice, and connect with each other.
Primary Topic: Features and Goals of Juniper
- Allison discusses the goal of growing the largest online community of dog parents.
- The platform plans to collaborate with pet brands and provide discounts on high-quality, sustainable, and women-owned products.
- Juniper is working towards becoming a space for discovering the best pet products and sorting through the overwhelming amount of options.
- Free memberships are provided to individuals working at shelters, fosters, and rescues.
Primary Topic: Functionality and Membership Structure of Juniper
- Juniper offers both free and paid membership options.
- Free members have access to discounts and limited community access, while paid members have access to all discounts, deeper community engagement, and more resources.
- The platform uses Slack for its community discussions, featuring channels for various topics such as puppy care, senior dog advice, enrichment ideas, and emotional support.
Primary Topic: Content and Community Curation
- The community is curated to maintain high quality, ensure helpful engagement, and eliminate negativity.
- Allison emphasizes the importance of curation and community rules to foster a supportive environment.
- Juniper crowdsources information from the dog parent community, as well as from individuals with large Instagram dog pages, to identify genuine product recommendations and valuable tips.
Primary Topic: Expansion and Future Plans
- Although currently focused on dog parents, Juniper plans to expand to cater to cat owners in the future.
- The platform aims to become a comprehensive resource for both advice on pet care and pet product recommendations.
- Plans for expansion also include potential partnerships with pet insurance companies and a focus on content that goes beyond typical veterinary advice.
Primary Topic: Engagement with the Pet Community
- Juniper features the "Underdog Awards," allowing people to upload photos of their dogs and share them on social media, thereby promoting shelter pets.
- The platform actively engages with individuals to gather genuine product recommendations and experiences, focusing on building authentic relationships within the pet community.
Primary Topic: Promoting Juniper and Future Collaborations
- Allison expresses interest in collaborating with and featuring emerging pet brands, especially those with a sustainable and mission-driven focus.
- Juniper aims to become a prominent platform for discovering the best pet products and maintaining high engagement with a wide community of pet parents.
Primary Topic: Conclusion and Contact Information
- Allison shares the website for Juniper, where pet lovers can sign up for free and access resources to become better dog parents.
- Michelle Fern thanks Allison for the insightful discussion and encourages listeners to check out Juniper for more information and resources to support their journey as pet parents.

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• This Week's Guest:

  
  

  

  Allison Esposito Medina

  BIO

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  juniperpet.co

• Questions or Comments?

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