Small Business Labs

What are DINKWADs?

Regular readers know that two of our favorite topics here at Small Business Labs are new buzzwords and pet trends.

So we had to cover DINKWADs, a new to us buzzword.  

It stands for "dual income, no kids, with a dog."  

DINKs is an old buzzword. It was coined when yuppies (a 1980s buzzword for young urban professionals) started pairing up.   

DINKWADs adds, "with a dog."

The Insider's Meet the DINKWADs: The TikTok legion making everyone jealous with their double incomes, no kids, and a dog covers this new acronym and trend. Key quote:

"The allure of the DINKWAD lifestyle is solely based on financial and personal freedom from any responsibility," Ahmed said. Instead, Benfield and Ahmed love to travel and are both passionate about not having children. They have a beloved rescue mutt named Yvie instead."

The same type of quote appeared in the old DINK stories, but without the mention of dogs.

But since the acronym DINK was coined, the trend toward pet humanization has dramatically accelerated.

And now, pets - and especially dogs - have become viewed as family members and kid substitutes. 

And you can pridefully show you're a DINKWAD by wearing a DINKWAD t-shirt (available from Etsy).

We cover trends like this because declining birthrates have significant, long-term economic and social impacts.

Key quote from our article U.S. Birthrate Hits Another All-time Low:

"Declining fertility and birth rates have enormous social and economic implications. They lead to reduced economic growth, make it harder to pay for social programs (especially social security and Medicare) and cause economic dislocations due to changing demand patterns."

See our Demographics and Pet Trends sections for more on this topic.

The Top Earning Pet Influencers on Instagram and TikTok

Veterinarians.org's article How Quickly Pet Influencers Can Pay Off Your Mortgage covers the top-earning pet influencers on Instagram.  

They used Influencer Marketing Hub's Instagram Money Calculator to rank the pet influencers by dollars earned per Instagram post (click on the chart below to enlarge).

Dogs and cats dominate the list, with only 3 other animals making the top 20.  A fox came in 4th, a hedgehog 14th, and a raccoon 20th.  

We were pleased to see Grumpy Cat continues to be a strong performer, coming in 5. We first covered Grumpy Cat in our 2015 article Cats Drive 15% of All Internet Traffic.

Staying in the top 10 pet influencers is not easy, and Grumpy Cat is a grizzled - and still grumpy - 10 year influencer veteran.

All About Cats also recently covered pet influencer earnings on TikTok, and they too have a top 10 list.  Their chart is below (click to enlarge)

Only Jiffpom appears on both lists.  He's number 1 on Instagram and number 2 on TikTok.  Like human influencers, it seems most pet influencers focus on specific platforms.  

Influencer marketing is a major part of and a precursor to the rapidly expanding Creator Economy.   

See our creator economy section for more on this fast-growing solopreneur and small business segment.  And see our Pet Trends section for more pet and pet businesses.  

Yes, Dog Weddings are a Thing - and the Pet Industry's Growth is Accelerating

The New York Times article Love Is in the Air. So Is Dander covers the trend toward doggie weddings. And yes, these are weddings where two dogs get "married." 

No, these weddings aren't legal. But they can have all the pomp and circumstance of human weddings. 

Key quote from the NYT article on Twixie and Cowboy's wedding, both 2-year-old Brussels Griffons:

"... the four-legged guests enjoyed a meal of puppy chow from Vestals Catering in Dallas (which also caters events for humans), as well as a puppuccino bar and activities including a ball pit ... The nuptials cost about $25,000."

The happy couple is pictured below. There was no mention of where they went on their honeymoon.  

We saw this article in Petco's investor day presentation. 

And as Petco's chart below shows (click to enlarge), powerful trends - several of which have been accelerated by the pandemic - are driving the pet industry's growth.

We cover the pet industry because the pet humanization trend impacts the economy and society in a wide variety of ways.  The pet industry is also a large small business segment. And we like dogs (and other pets).  

See our pet trends section for more on this industry.

Telehealth for Pets

Forerunner's Pet health is going the way of human health; our investment in Dutch covers the reasons the VC firm has invested in the pet telehealth startup Dutch.

The main reason is fairly obvious. The pandemic accelerated the already growing trend towards pet ownership.  

According to the ASPCA, 23 million American households acquired a dog or cat during the pandemic.   

And as the article points out, the increases in pet ownership came with increases in the demand for veterinarians and vet services. 

Unfortunately, there weren't enough vets to meet the new demand, which led to challenges getting vet appointments and increases in appointment wait times.

Dutch is hoping to take advantage of the new demand by offering telehealth vet services.  Key quote from the article:

Dutch just launched its platform for virtual, vet-prescribed treatment plans for pets’ underserved conditions, delivered to their doggie doors. Dutch will initially address chronic veterinary issues like pet anxiety and dermatology/allergies, adding treatment for more ailments over time.

Telehealth for humans boomed during the pandemic.  Thanks to looser regulations and spurred on by fear of visiting doctors offices during the pandemic, telehealth doctors' visits have become quite common.

The longer term trend towards pet humanization has led to many companies offering anthropomorphic products and services like canine couture, feline wine and dog hotels. 

So it makes sense that vet telehealth services would follow their successful human counterparts.  

We're often asked why we cover pet trends.  There are 3 main reasons:

1. the pet sector is large, growing more rapidly than most other consumer sectors and lots of small businesses and independent workers participate in it.
2. pet humanization is a powerful social and demographic trend.  It's linked to declining birth rates, economic insecurity and other social trends we follow.
3. we like pets and it's a fun topic.

New Pet Industry Buzzwords - Petrenthood and Petriarchy

Regular readers know we like both new buzzwords and pet trends here at Small Business Labs.

So it's no surprise we enjoyed Wunderman Thompson's article On-Demand Pet Care, which is a pet trends article (it covers new on-demand pet services) and has two buzzwords that are new to us - petrenthood and petriarcy.

Even better, they are in the same paragraph in the article.  Key quote:

Rover CEO Aaron Easterly explains that the company’s growth—as well as the growth of the sector—has been fueled by the rise of petrenthood. “There is this broad trend of the humanization of pets,” Easterly told Quartz. “As income rises, people get married later and have fewer children. It creates this vacuum where pets become our de facto children.” According to Wunderman Thompson Intelligence’s research, 89% of single Americans and 91% of Americans in committed relationships believe that pets are like de facto children. As Morgan Stanley aptly put it, “welcome to the Petriarchy.”

Both terms link back to pet humanization, which is a buzzword that's been around for many years.

It's quite common for trend watchers and spotters to invent new buzzwords, even if they are redundant with older ones. 

inventing a new buzzword is considered quite a coup in the trend watcher world.

For example, the creator economy was referred to as a passion economy or influencer economy until about a year ago. 

And what is commonly referred to as the gig economy today has had several names over the years, including the sharing economy, the on-demand economy, the freelance economy and a couple of others.

So we're not surprised there are new pet trend buzzwords.

U.S. Birthrate Hits Another All-Time Low

One of the interesting statistics from the 2010 U.S. Census was their finding that the U.S. birthrate hit an all-time low in 2010.  

At the time, demographers tended to blame this on the great recession and many forecast birthrates would increase as the economy got stronger.

But fertility rates didn't improve. 

In fact, they got worse and steadily declined from the all-time low of 1.72 in 2010 to a new all-time low of 1.64 in 2020.  

Key quote from the Washington Post's U.S. birthrate falls to its lowest level in decades in wake of pandemic:

Before the pandemic, American women were already having fewer children, doing it later in life or choosing to not have children at all. The newly released data indicated a sharpening of that trend. The U.S. birthrate fell across races, ethnicity and almost all age groups.

Falling birthrates also, obviously, means fewer births.

The chart below, from Bloomberg's U.S. Births Drop to the Lowest Level Since the 1970s, shows the impact on births from the last decade's declining birthrate.

Declining fertility and birth rates have enormous social and economic implications.

They lead to reduced economic growth, make it harder to pay for social programs (especially social security and Medicare) and cause economic dislocations due to changing demand patterns.

On the plus side, they lead to more people buying pets.

We have more on these topics in our Demographics and Pet Trends sections.  

Spending on Pets and Investing in Pet Startups Continues to Grow

U.S. spending on pets reached nearly $100 billion in 2020, up from $95.7 billion in 2019, according to the American Pet Products Association.  

And according to Crunchbase News bad pet pun infused article Pets Became Purrfect Pals During Pandemic While Startup Funding Didn’t Lay Down, 55 pet startups raised $281 million in venture funding in 2020 (chart below).

Pet startups now even have their own venture accelerator programs.

Leap Venture Studios, for example, is a partnership between Michelson Found Animals and Kinship, a division of Mars Petcare. 

Leap, which started in 2018, provides training, seed investments and other support to pet startups.  

Regular readers know the pet humanization trend is driving the growth of the pet industry.  

BTW, in case you were wondering, 63.4 million U.S. households own dogs. This is roughly half of all U.S. households (there are about 128 million U.S. households). Cats live at 42.7 million U.S. households (no one really owns a cat). Fish come in third, with about 14 million households owning them.

See our Pet Trends section for more pet humanization and the pet foods industry.

From Man’s Best Friend to Family’s Favorite Child

Regular readers know we like Pet Trends here at Small Business Labs.

So we had to cover the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's article The Pet Economy Kicks Into Overdrive.

The article covers the growth of the pet economy. Key quote:

The surge in spending on pets – and explosion of new products, services and unique “experiences” to help quadrupeds and their owners bond more closely – is at an apex, tracking to break U.S. records this year.

According to the article, "the U.S. pet economy is projected to exceed $75 billion this year, up from $72.5 billion in 2018 and a doubling of 2005’s $36 billion ...".

The key reason the article gives for this growth is pretty much the same as we covered in our article in our article Pets Used to be for Kids. Now they are Kids: pet humanization.

Key quote from the article:

“What we see happening is a transition from pets being ‘man’s best friend’ to ‘family’s favorite child,’” Petco chief merchandising officer Nick Konat, told CO—. “ People want to take the best care of their pets, like they are a member of the family.” He does not view this mindset as a trend so much as a movement that’s been building over time as people integrate pets more fully into daily life — the workplace, dining, shopping and celebratory occasions."

The pet industry's growth is attracting a wide range of products and services. Our favorite from the article is Nashville's BarkPark (pictured below).

BarkPark describes itself as "an ultra-fun dog park that doubles as a hip human hangout for playing, working, and chilling."

They also claim BarkPark "is a much needed ‘third place’ for dogs".  

While we're not sure how needed a new 3rd place for dogs is, it's likely pet parents will embrace the concept.

Pets Used to be for Kids. Now they are Kids.

Petcare Everywhere, from J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, covers how brands are responding to millennials increasingly choosing pets over kids.

Key quote:

"Traditional life-stage choices are shifting, seeing millennials waiting longer to have children – and choosing pets with increasing fervor. Millennials are now the primary pet-owning demographic ... What’s more, 82% of millennials see their pets as their children or as the first step towards starting a family. Pet-care brands have capitalized on this with anthropomorphic products like canine couture, feline wine and dog hotels. Now, brands beyond the pet sector are catering to this growing demographic of pet parents."

The article highlights Tesla's new Dog Mode, which keeps the car's climate control system working so pets are safe while left alone in the car. It also displays a large notice to passerby's that the animal is safe. 

But our favorite is Jaguar's Pet Pack, which is pictured below.

It includes anti-spill water bowls, upholstery protections rugs, a folding ramp to help a dog access the trunk and a portable doggie shower.

The reason brands of all kinds are adding pet products is simple. The pet industry is growing rapidly. 

According to the article, the global pet care industry is expected to grow to $164 billion by 2023 – a 31% increase from 2018. 

This is much faster than most consumer goods categories.

Pet humanization is, of course, driving this trend. Key article quote:

“Pets used to really be for the kids,” said Gabby Slome, cofounder and chief experience officer of pet wellness brand Ollie. “Now pets are becoming the kids in a whole new way. Therefore, their place in the household is sort of unprecedented.”

See our Pet Trends section for more on this topic. 

Coworking Goes to the Dogs (it had to happen)

Allwork's DOG-FOCUSED COWORKING: A Q&A WITH WORK & WOOF FOUNDER JILLIAN DRETZKA talks about Work & Woof, a combo coworking and doggie day care space in Austin, Texas.

Dog friendly coworking is common.

But Work & Woof takes it to a whole new level. Over the half of the facility's space is an interior play yard for the dogs. There's outside play spaces too.

Work & Woof also offers grooming and doggy day care. Key quote from the article on these services:

"We do everything but cutting on-site, so nail trim, baths, blowouts, brushing, we do in that back room. We also do daycare for the day, so you don’t have to cowork and leave your dog, you can just leave your dog."

One-third of Work & Woof's members are dog entrepreneurs. The space even hosts dog entrepreneur meetups. 

Regular readers know we closely follow both the pet humanization trend and the growth of niche and specialized coworking spaces. 

And from our point of view, it was just a matter of time before these trends merged. 

If you're at all surprised that one-third of Work & Woof's members are dog entrepreneurs, see our Pet Trends section for more on the large and growing pet industry.