An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

… Do not underestimate the challenges and the time it takes to get your business off the ground and to break even. Of course, it is good to be excited when starting your own business, but don’t forget to be realistic as well.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Will Chen.

Will Chen is the Founder and CEO of P.L.A.Y. Prior to founding P.L.A.Y., he spent several years as a management and strategy consultant working across different industries where he advised companies on executive matters such as business turnaround, competitive benchmarking, financial and operations modeling, sales and operations planning, and lean manufacturing, etc. In 2009, his life changed when a very special pug named Momo entered his life, and the determination to find a dog bed good enough for her soon turned into feelings of disappointment. So he set out to design stylish pet beds that truly met the needs of modern pet parents, while helping stores stand out from the competition. Momo was the inspiration for P.L.A.Y. — and is now the company’s CPO (Chief Pug Officer) — which has since expanded into an empire of pet products. That same spirit to never settle for less when it came to his own pup inspires everything here at P.L.A.Y. That’s why he’s still focused on the essentials after 10 years of business! Better beds. Higher quality manufacturing. Great designs. Planet-friendly materials. All at a reasonable price. It might sound like a lot of work, but to his team, quite honestly, it feels like P.L.A.Y.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Hong Kong and later went abroad at age 12 to attend boarding school in Singapore. I came to the States to attend college in Michigan, and later made my way to San Francisco. I’ve been able to travel and live all around the world, and for someone like myself who loves traveling and sightseeing, that has been a real privilege.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson comes from Michael Jordan when he famously said, “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.” For me this encapsulates my belief in the necessity of motivation and ambition, as I believe that in order to attempt something or to make something happen, you must have no excuses.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A book that left a real impression on me and my trajectory would be Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, Phil Knight. I felt like this book was a great window into seeing how an empire like Nike started from humble beginnings as a small business, and how Knight was so candid about the stress and struggles of running what he didn’t know at the time would become a global empire. One of the themes I took with me from this book is that there are no objectively wrong or right ways to make the best decision for your business, and that there are many differing ways that all depend on you and how you want to develop your business.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

The first piece of advice I would offer would be not to get stuck dwelling on high level ideas. It might not be as alluring as pitching an out-of-this world idea, but you must first spend quite a bit of time on logistics. Is your product new? If it is, what niche does it fill? If it isn’t, what sets it apart from competitors? You must also be prepared to work heavily with numbers, be prepared to pour over finances, expenses, and profit margins. And finally, it is good to have some realistic perspectives, you may not break even or turn profits for some time, that is all part of the growing pains of getting a new idea or business off the ground.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

You will need a good team of people who you trust and are in tune with the current market. Together, you can research more thoroughly and confirm what is out on the market. A piece of advice: think critically about if no one has done this, is it a good concept?

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

This can be quite a long process, as you will often need to go through product development a number of times. This means taking an idea into product design, creating and testing samples, taking and reworking edits into the design, and repeating these steps as many times as it takes for you to reach the quality and style that you are hoping to achieve. The process becomes more complicated after this stage, where you will need to find trustworthy and reliable attorneys, manufacturers, and your core startup team. When all is said and done with product development and the building of your trusted team of coworkers and manufacturers, you can then begin marketing your product with tradeshows and listing it on wholesale platforms to finally get it in the hands of your consumers.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

There are only two things I wish I had been told prior to starting my own company. First and foremost, would be to not underestimate the challenges and the time it takes to get your business off the ground and to break even. Of course, it is good to be excited when starting your own business, but don’t forget to be realistic as well. The second is to be trusting, but always independently verify. This is mainly for logistical reasons, as you want to trust your manufacturing, fulfillment, back of house, and front of house teams, but it is best to also verify their capabilities to ensure that you do not experience delays/problems in one of these areas, which could then cause a domino effect.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

First, ask yourself, “Does this product solve a problem or help others?” If the answer is yes, then you can start moving from conception, to logistics, and begin researching how much your product will cost to make, and what would be a fair asking price. I would also highly recommend looking into the U.S. Patent office to make sure that before you begin developing, you are not infringing on existing patents. Finish this initial stage with a thorough business plan on paper before you start to take things further.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I cannot speak to this question, as we did not use consultants when starting this business. I would recommend considering how much time you will be devoting to starting your new venture, and factor in whether you want to start off full time or part time into your decision about whether or not to hire a consultant.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

There are pros and cons to both approaches. On the one hand, by bootstrapping it, you will be able to maintain more control over your processes and products, but will experience a more organic growth i.e., slower growth. With venture capital, you get that faster growth, but you may feel that there are certain expectations around growth. Of course, there is no wrong or right answer, but for many businesses, developing fast and capturing the market shares they need/want is a big priority, so make the choice that suits your business plan best.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Our products bring humans and their pets happiness, comfort, and warmth, and to me that in and of itself makes the world a better place. We are also very proud to be one of the few pet industry brands to be B Corp certified, meaning we must meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. We are dedicated to making the world a better place through our company-wide environmentalism and charity efforts, including recycling over 11 million plastic bottles and founding our own charity and scholarship initiatives (Warm Bellies Initiative and Scholars Helping Collars Scholarship). We are pleased with our robust donation program, which spotlights 501c3s that benefit animal welfare organizations, and provides thousands of dollars of in-kind product donations each year.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I truly believe in the B Corp mission of people using business as a force for good, and would love to see other business move towards this mindset. I believe that by transitioning to more environmentally friendly practices, investing back into the community, and fostering a respectful and equitable workplace, a business can create real good in the world. I also believe that the more companies who adopt these policies, the more informed consumers will be to make ethical choices.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

If I can pick a celebrity whom I can meet with, I would love to meet the tennis legend Roger Federer. He was a big part of why I fell in love with the sports in the 2000’s and besides his countless on and off-court achievements (to me he is without doubt the G.O.A.T.). I am also a fan of his sportsmanship, work ethics, longevity, and the ability to balance between family and professional commitments. More importantly, I am an admirer of how he uses his influence and reach to help the less fortunate children in Africa through his foundation.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Making Something From Nothing: Will Chen Of P.L.A.Y. On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Recommended Posts