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Take Your Pets Out On A Stroll With Waggin Backpack │ Waggin

Take Your Pets Out On A Stroll With Waggin Backpack │ Waggin

ANIMAL INNOVATIONS SHOW - EPISODE 144 - WAGGIN

Take Your Pets Out On A Stroll With Waggin Backpack │ Waggin

Have a love for biking but are worried about leaving your pet behind at home? Then why not take them with you for a stroll?

Cesar Lopez, the founder of Waggin, created the perfect solution that would allow you to grab your dog and go!

 

From Scratch To BackpackTake Your Pets Out On A Stroll With Waggin Backpack │ Waggin

It all started when Cesar adopted Ginger on a whim. His mom suggested they get a dog, which Cesar agreed to immediately.

They went to an adoption agency and browsed through the dogs they had. Just as Cesar decided to adopt one, he passed by Ginger’s cage and immediately fell in love. 

He processed the adoption, and before Cesar knew it, he was a newly branded pet owner! Though, being a sudden decision, he is wholly unprepared – aside from not having a dog bed and cage, he also wanted a bike trailer to take Ginger out with him for a stroll. 

Unfortunately, being 60 pounds, it was hard to find out what could fit him. 

“If there isn’t a trailer good enough to fit Ginger right now on the market, then maybe I can make one.”

It launched Cesar’s creative process and journey. He did research, made various sketches and designs, and worked on the prototype.

According to Cesar, they had created a new and innovative version of the bike trailer. One that resembles a backpack to suit the needs of urban pet owners. 

He had successfully designed a compact, functional backpack that transforms into a bike trailer! You now have the means to take your pet with you while you ride and have extra space to store your personal and pet items and needs!

Pet owners now have the chance to roam the city and commute with their beloved pets!

 

Take Your Pets With You As You Hop On Your Bike

Take Your Pets Out On A Stroll With Waggin Backpack │ Waggin

Everything started in 2020. After a year and a half, the Waggin Backpack’s prototype is finished and ready for production. 

“We’re excited to be the first to put it on the market and show people that it’s possible”

Cesar always had this vision of creating a product that could help many people. He designed the backpack with a clear goal to make it something multi-functional ─ something compact, small, and still fully functional. 

He wanted to make a bike trailer that was still as agile and safe as other trailers on the market. Except, he wanted his to be something that could be easily stored and carried while still meeting a pet owner’s various needs.

“Our overall goal, our vision and our mission are to make commuting around the city simpler for pet owners. There is more work to be done in that area, but that’s just one of the many things we have cooking. “

Dog owners have a certain radius where they take their dogs to stroll and explore. Waggin aims to expand that radius and have pets reach more places than they usually do!

 

If you’re interested in purchasing the Waggin Backpack, head to their website (waggin.com). They currently accept pre-orders. 

Have suggestions for who we should interview next?

Send us a message at [email protected]!

Cesar: Hi, everybody, my name is Cesar. I am the founder of Waggin. and you’re tuned in to The Animal Innovations Show.

Chris: So, Cesar, why don’t you introduce us?

Cesar: Hey, Chris, my name is Cesar. I am the founder of Waggin, and we are building and creating a new version of the bike trailer that connects to the back of a bike.

What we’ve done is— we have made the perfect on-the-go option for urban pet owners to be able to commute around the city with their pet using their bikes.

Essentially, we’ve combined a backpack and a bike trailer so, this bike trailer can collapse into the backpack. The backpack is still fully functioning and the backpack can hold a laptop up to 15 inches, along with other personal or pet needs that you might need while you’re traveling around and commuting during the day with your pet.

Chris: I love this, so you’re making it super easy for me to take— I’m guessing primarily dogs, right? My cats probably don’t want to go in that as much, but for me to take my dog somewhere and then I can pack it up and throw it on my back and off I go.

Cesar: Right, right, exactly.

So, we are primarily targeting dogs, but I will admit that as I’ve gone around the city, I’ve noticed a few more cat parents walking their cats on a leash.

So, if you want to put your cat in it, please feel free. It’s big enough for them as well, and they’ll be able to enjoy the outside, the fresh air, the air going through their fur just as much as the dog would.

Chris: So Cesar, how did you come up with this idea? Take us back to the point where you had this inspiration. You said there needs to be a product like this.

Cesar: So, we can actually take the story back to 2020—March of 2020. So, my family is originally from Delaware, so, I went down to Delaware for the weekend just to visit them.

Literally the weekend before COVID started, or COVID hit the NewYork city. And my mom, on a whim was like, “Hey, let’s go to the adoption agency and see if you want to adopt a dog.” 

I was like, “Okay, fine, let’s do that.” We went to the SPCA. We were looking around, and as I was getting ready to adopt another dog, I passed the cage of the dog that I ended up adopting— fell in love with her immediately, put the paperwork in, adopted her, and took her home.

And as I was driving home to New York, I thought to myself, shoot, what do I want to do with a dog? I wasn’t planning on getting one.

I don’t have a dog bed, a cage, or anything for a dog, right. So, that kind of was like an eye-opening experience.

But—you know, literally, the moment that I saw Ginger, my dog, I fell in love with her. So, whatever she needed, I was ready to buy for her.

And what I enjoy doing is I actually enjoy biking. So, I was ready to go biking, but I didn’t want to leave Ginger at home, so I was, okay, maybe I can get, like, a dog trailer or something like that, because my dog is 60 pounds.

If there isn’t a trailer that’s good enough to fit Ginger right now, on the market, then maybe I can make one.

So, I immediately started doing my research. I checked again to make sure that there was nothing like it on the market.

I continued sketching out what I thought it could look like. I found somebody to do like, the initial CAD work for it, just to kind of get a better sense of what I was actually thinking about.

And shortly after, we were able to find our engineering company that we have now called, Productworkx, they were able to—they took our vision. They designed exactly how—you know, even better than what I imagined it could be.

And you know, now we’re on the—We have our first prototype. We are currently waiting to be closer to production, getting our second prototype together and all of that stuff.

But it’s been quite a journey. It’s been about a year and a half journey trying to get things going, and yeah, it’s been one hell of a ride.

Chris: Yeah, now, what’s your background, Cesar?

Were you a product designer? Have you ever done anything like this before?

Cesar: I have not. So, all of this is brand new to me. Actually, for the last ten years—Ten years prior to COVID, I worked in finance. I did a lot of budget management, expense management, things like that.

But I’ve always had—like the product bug in my head, creating something that would be useful to not only make my life easier, but maybe if it’s cool enough to make a lot of other people’s lives easier.

Chris: That’s what I was going to say. So, Ginger has obviously been there to help you test prototypes, right.

As things started to kind of come to life, and you started figuring out what are the features and how do things work, right?

Cesar: We probably could make it a bit bigger for her. But then it will be a little bit too big to wear as a backpack. 

But I will say that our future versions of the backpack will include a little bit extra room so that she can comfortably fit in there. Just as comfortable as more like medium to larger-sized dogs would.

Chris: Yeah, exactly.

So, what’s the hardest thing? I guess it’s coming together pretty fast, but what’s the hardest thing for you, thus far to kind of figure out?

Cesar: I will say that, one: patience is definitely something that I’ve had to learn about myself. Patience and understanding that most people—are not going to prioritize my dreams as much as I prioritize my dreams.

But I feel like there is a means, it’s just a means to an end.

I think what we’re going to be putting out for is going to be something that hasn’t been done before and we’re excited to be the first to put it onto the market and show people that it’s possible.

So now, this design will actually work though on those rideshare bikes, right, if you will. We’ve taken the approach that this product needs to be multifunctional.

It needs to be able to meet urban pet owner needs. And one of those needs is to be able to be compact, small but still fully functional, strong, just as strong as any other trailer would be, just as agile and safe as any other pet trailer could be, but just in a way that can be easily stored, easily carried, fit multiple needs for our pet owners.

Chris: So, I got to figure you probably have ideas for other things that you’re going to build. So, what’s the future look like?

What are you going to build or add on next?

Cesar: Our overall goal, vision, and mission is to be able to make commuting around the city, simpler for pet owners.

There’s work to be done on that idea, but that’s just one of the many things that we have cooking.

What we want is, we want your home to be point A, but we want anywhere else that you want to go to be point B.

We want to be able to expand the radius that you’re able to take your dog. You know, right now a lot of people, myself included, we have a certain radius that we take our pups for walks or whatever.

And what we want to do is we want to be able to expand that radius.

We want to explore more and everybody’s happy.

Chris: Yeah, exactly.

That’s the goal of the products, everybody’s happy.

Cesar: Exactly.

Chris: What have you learned about you in this process?

Cesar: I’ve honestly learned that I’m way more creative than I give myself credit for. We sell our product directly from our website.

Our website is WAGGIN.COM

We anticipate being able to take pre-orders in sometime in September or October and we’ll be doing all of our alerts on our social media.

Our Instagram is @GETWAGGIN.

Our TikTok is at @GETWAGGIN, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of it is @GETWAGGIN. So, we’re super excited about it.

Chris: As I wrap up our show, I always love to remind our viewers and listeners, maybe you’re sitting here watching or listening and you said, I got a great idea for something that will help animals.

We’d love to know about it. Love to have you on the show.

Just go to INNOVATIONS.SHOW and we’d love to have you on the show to talk about it.

And of course, don’t forget to sign up to be a Dooberteer. We’d love to have you at Doobert you could be a transporter, you could be a foster— DOOBERT.COM where you can become a Dooberteer and help our animal rescue friends.

So, Cesar, thank you so much for coming on really excited about what you’re going to do and I’m sure there’s going to be many more products to come.

And thank you, Chris— I love what you’re doing.

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