Today’s guest is an Emmy-nominated TV host, content creator with more than 2 million YouTube followers, owner of The Dog Bakery, and a pet entrepreneur on a mission to help rescue animals in need. In this interview, you’ll hear the inspiring story of Rocky Kanaka. Plus, find out his number one tip for success in business. A little spoiler: It has to do with hard work.
Read on for highlights from this interview.
Melissa:
You have such an interesting background! You grew up in Hawaii, is that correct?
Rocky:
Yeah. I’m from Hawaii, and then I went to high school and college in Missouri. So, it was a little bit of a culture shock. But my family is still back in Hawaii, and that’s where my heart is for sure.
Melissa:
How early on did dogs come into the picture? Was it back in Hawaii or after you moved to Missouri?
Rocky:
My whole life. My mom was really good at collecting animals. So, just naturally, I was the same way.
Thank goodness, we’ve all helped make it “cool” to rescue animals. Back in the day, though, it wasn’t really “cool.” They were seen as “less than.” If you really wanted a good dog, you went and bought a really expensive dog. The more expensive the dog, the better the dog. But, we didn’t grow up with a lot of money. So, when a dog showed up on our porch, that was our new dog.
And let me clarify: We always searched to see if there was a family. We never just stole dogs.
Melissa:
You took in homeless dogs! How many did you have growing up?
Rocky:
Oh, goodness. I don’t even know, that’s a good question. I’ve never counted. But, we’ve always had a dog.
One of the most impactful dogs in my life was a German Shepherd… When we got her, she was pregnant and then she had puppies. So, at a young age, I got to go through that experience. I don’t remember how old I was, 10 or 12. Some of the dogs were stillborn. One of the dogs we were able to bring back to life with some warmth and rubbing. So, it was a really neat experience at an early age.
Melissa:
How did you prepare for something like that?
Rocky:
I don’t think you do. That’s the great thing about life, right? It just comes at you, and you just do the best you can.
Melissa:
Did you keep any of those puppies?
Rocky:
No, none of the puppies. We kept the mama, and we gave out the dogs to people who had farms and could use German Shepherds. But, I did get to see them over time. It was really neat as I grew up and watched them grow up. That was a fun experience.
Melissa:
Was that in Missouri?
Rocky:
That was in Missouri. The dogs went to farms, which was fun because seeing the dogs get to work and really serve their purpose is neat. I’ve lived in Los Angeles now for 15-20 years, and most German Shepherds aren’t working.
Melissa:
Were you also involved in farming?
Rocky:
We did a lot of back and forth from Hawaii, moving. So, a lot of times, we would stay and work on farms to pay for our living. I grew up bailing hay and working on dairy farms. They were all very — as far as farms go — small farms. But it was a really good experience.
Melissa:
It seems like animals in general, not just dogs, have always been a part of your life. When you first entered the workforce, did you go into the pet space right away?
Rocky:
No. That’s a great question…
Like I said, we didn’t grow up with much. So, my thought was, “I need to get to work.” My mom really instilled a work ethic in us…
I went to college, and I personally should not have. I was horrible at it; I barely passed. College was not for me. If I could rewind, I would not go to college again. But I came out of college, ready to fight all my peers to work harder and do better. And what I found is: A lot of people just don’t work hard. So you’re really only in a race against yourself…
If you work really hard, you can do a lot of things. You can accomplish a lot of things. But, that leads to maybe success and maybe some money, but not happiness. What I learned, thank goodness, through some successes and failures very early on, is I want to do things in the spaces that I enjoy. And that’s a no-brainer, right? That’s like McDonald’s saying, “We focus on finding the best locations for our restaurant.” Well, duh. It’s the same thing. Find something you love to do and do it. But, it’s not that easy. It’s really hard. So I bumped around for a while, but eventually found my way to pets and said, “This is it. This is what I really enjoy doing, helping animals and building businesses!”
Melissa:
What was your first project in the pet space?
Rocky:
My first project was a bakery for dogs (called The Dog Bakery). I love food. I love animals. And so I thought, well, this is a no-brainer. I also liked that when I told people about it, they would kind of laugh, but also go, “I’d buy that. I’d get that for my dog!” So that was the first venture, and I still have those stores today. I’ve been doing that for 15+ years.
I still have those stores today because I love them. A lot of times, you’ll build a business to sell it, but it’s just where my heart is. I just love those stores, I love my team out there, they’re awesome. Some of the customers from day one still shop there, which is really cool.
Melissa:
Today, people are into feeding their dogs fun foods, healthy foods. But this idea was pretty novel back then!
Rocky:
Yeah. I timed it right – not on purpose. But this was around the time a lot of dog food was being made in China and there were recalls because a lot of animals were dying. It really helped open people’s minds to the idea: Dogs don’t have to eat dog food. They can eat food. You can’t give them things they can’t have, obviously. No chocolate, onions, or things like that. But why shouldn’t they eat just as healthy as us?
Melissa:
Exactly! How did you know how to make the treats? Did you cook growing up?
Rocky:
Yes, definitely. I was kind of the caretaker for my siblings, just because I was older, I love them, and they needed help. That caretaker mentality forced me into cooking. I am no professional chef. When I was cooking for them, I was making the world’s best mac and cheese. I wasn’t making a five-course dinner. But I knew the basics and I really loved baking. Food is my vice for sure, so I’m always interested in it.
I just started with the basics of baking, but I paid attention to how dogs’ pallets are different than ours. They react to things differently than we do. And you really don’t need big study groups or panels… You can watch a dog and see the way they take food or treats, think about it, and process it. Sometimes they’ll set it down, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s like if someone shoves a cupcake in my face, I’m going to pull back and kind of look at it before I (eat it). Well, that’s not true. I’d probably just start eating it. But that’s the case for most people!
So, (I spent some time) watching dogs and (understanding) how they process things. For example, a paw cake. You could make a paw cake taste like a cupcake. But you could also make it taste very sour, almost sour cream-like, and dogs really love that. That’s a fun experience for them.
Melissa:
Do you remember the first time you ever baked a dog treat and what the experience was like?
Rocky:
It was one of those moments where you’re in the kitchen and you’ve got pots and pans everywhere and you’re making different kinds of treats. What I should have done is gone, “Okay, I’m going to make this treat.” But what I ended up doing was going, “I made these 50 treats, let’s try them!” So, it was more of a mad-chef-in-the-kitchen sort of experience. My poor dog, I do not remember what treat they got first.
Melissa:
Did this start as a hobby, where you would bake for your dogs and your neighbors’ dogs? Or, with your business degree and background, did you say to yourself: “I want to turn this into a business!”?
Rocky:
Both at the same time. “This is fun, I really like it. It’s something I can do just in my free time. But, hey, I think other people would also like this. Is there an opportunity?”
I started the first store and now we have four stores in the LA area. I love retail stores, and I would open up so many more of them. But where we really serve our customers the best is online. (For example), if someone in Michigan really loves The Dog Bakery and wants to order a cake for their dog, they can customize it and can help them with that.
Melissa:
Wow, so you customize the cakes and then you ship them too?
Rocky:
Oh yeah! We pack them up and we ship them. And they’re real cakes – you could eat them. We don’t advise it, but you could. It would taste like a sugar-free cake essentially.
Melissa:
Take me through the process of opening your first store. What was that like? That must have been very exciting and scary at the same time.
Rocky:
That’s exactly what it was like — exciting and scary. You open the doors and you hope people will come in, and they don’t. So then you got to get to work.
You can’t be too cool for school. I have handed out so many flyers. Social media is awesome and it’ll take you so far, but it’s also about getting out there. Handing out flyers and meeting people – going door to door… Feet on the street. There was a lot of that.
The funny thing is, I still love doing it. If I’m ever by the store, I still love stopping in to see the neighbors. We have a vet office connected to one of our stores, and sometimes one of the vets, vet techs, or team members will come over and buy something. I’ll go, “Hey, wait. You know you get a 10% discount, right?” Because they’re neighbors. So that sort of thing is really important because we’re a community.
Melissa:
Are you planning on opening up more physical stores? Or will you continue focusing on your current stores and pushing online?
Rocky:
With the world right now, it makes it really hard for retail. But hopefully one day. It would be neat to be able to open a store in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and have stores across the nation that people can go visit. But, right now, we can barely keep up with orders online.
We send out thousands and thousands and thousands of cakes. It’s only capped by our ability to make the cakes. We’re a cake shop – you can’t mass produce this stuff.
Melissa:
How big is your team?
Rocky:
I’d say about 50 people.
Melissa:
So you have some hands on deck making the cakes!
Rocky:
Oh, definitely.
Melissa:
Along with The Dog Bakery, you also run a very successful YouTube channel, which has more than 2 million subscribers. I’ve seen some recipe videos and videos where you make cakes for homeless dogs. Was this originally a spinoff of your dog bakery?
Rocky:
No, it actually had nothing to do with it. I’ve just recently started tying it back in. That channel, the whole point is to help animals. The whole idea is working to show people that pet adoption is the first thing they should consider.
Since I got involved in this industry, really dug in, learned, and visited Los Angeles shelters, I realized, “Oh man, this is really bad.”
I want to clarify: I think a lot of times people are almost embarrassed to say, “Oh, I don’t know anything about it.” But that’s okay. Why would you know anything about it? It’s been behind these cylinder block walls for generations. These pets go into these shelters, and then who knows what happens? Nobody.
It’s my job to show people that (these shelters) are not scary places. Rescues are awesome. They are kind, they are loving. They are doing the best thing for animals. When you go (to a shelter), you won’t have that feeling of, “I’m so sad. I want to rescue them all and I can’t do anything, so now I’m depressed.” That is not the case. You can go in there and you can help. You can get involved, you can foster.
(As we were getting involved), I thought other people would want to view those sorts of things. And so I said, “All right, let’s turn on the camera.”
I had to learn how to edit and film. The videos weren’t that great, but people enjoyed them. They were like, “I want to do that. I want to get involved. I want to help. How’s this work?” They really got behind the dogs we were helping. People were able to share the content to help these dogs get adopted. Each animal has their own story and their own personality. If you just take the time to listen to them, it’s a really neat experience.
Melissa:
Online is a big place. How did you cut through all the noise and what do you think contributed to the massive growth of your channel?
Rocky:
It really has nothing to do with me. There’s only one thing that has to do with me and that’s tenacity. It’s not easy. When people go, “I want to be a YouTuber, I want to do that!” I encourage them to do that. Most people can’t; it is hard.
What I attribute the growth to is people want this. People want to help animals. They want to be involved, they want to volunteer, and they want to foster. And, so, it really has nothing to do with me. I felt like there were people like me that wanted to learn and be more involves, and so I turned the camera on and found out it’s true – there are people out there that love what I love.
Melissa:
Have you seen a huge spike with COVID? Right now, so many people are fostering and adopting shelter animals.
Rocky:
It is so great! Oddly enough, and I don’t know why, we haven’t really… But I think awareness-wise for animals is great. I never thought we’d be in this position where I’d go to a shelter and I say, “Okay, which one of your pets needs help getting adopted? Let’s make a video.” And they’d go, “No, we don’t have any.” I rejoice. That makes me so happy.
My fear is, when the pandemic is over and we get through this together, people will start struggling with their animals. Frustrations will start to boil up and we will get this influx of animals going to shelters. I hope not. I hope a lot of people are watching content like mine and learning. They have time at home to watch YouTube videos to help train their animals. So, I hope that doesn’t happen. I fear it will, and so we got a lot of work to do.
Melissa:
A lot more content coming our way from your channel for that, I’m sure. What does your team look like for YouTube now?
Rocky:
When I jumped into YouTube, I said, “Okay, do I want to somehow make another TV show? Or what direction do I want to go?” And I looked at YouTube and I saw a lot of “YouTubers.” They would have success and then they would fail… But I think it’s because you have to have a business mindset about this to make it sustainable and ongoing.
I was able to find some people that were building teams around it and having success. Sky’s the limit if you can build a team. So we do, we have a team. We have producers and videographers and editors. But that took years, just like any small business. I used to bake every single dog treat that was in my bakery. I haven’t baked a dog treat now for months. The team now for YouTube is big and I hope it gets bigger. We’re adding team members and creating jobs. It is possible, but it ain’t easy.
Melissa:
Do you have a favorite video and story that you’ve covered to this day?
Rocky:
I love any of the videos where we’re taking a dog out for their best day ever, or working with a shelter. What people don’t realize is those take months. We don’t just go to the shelter and turn the camera on and then the next day we’re done; it’s months of work to showcase and share that story and work with the dog. We can’t just go in there and go, “Okay, dog, you’re up. Let’s film.” It’s on the dog’s schedule. Those videos are a lot of work, and we’re really proud of those.
Melissa:
Between the bakery, filming, other work obligations, and your family, you have a lot going on. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are trying to juggle it all?
Rocky:
I’m always finding ways to cut things and to say no, because you just can’t do it all. But I would say the main things that I focus on are the things that are working. Sometimes those aren’t always the things I love the most, so I continue to do what I love. It’s not always about the numbers, it’s not always about the analytics, it’s not always about the performance. When I go out and I do shelter make-overs and create 30-minute long videos for YouTube, those sometimes don’t perform as well as just a quick Facebook live. But it’s what I love and I’m passionate about it.
It’s so easy to chase bright, shiny lights. My advice is to continue refining and focusing on what is working and what you love. If you can nail those two things, everything else will fall into place.
You can connect with Rocky on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and The Dog Bakery website.
