Female Founders: Dr Theresa Welch Fossum of Dr Fossum’s Pet Care On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
I am a risk taker by nature. Once I have mastered something I am typically looking for my next challenge. I was recently asked by a mid-sized company to give a keynote presentation to their workers who are spread all over the world. Many of these employees were young women and my main points to them were “be willing to take risks!” and “be willing to step out of your comfort zone”. You will never get ahead if you aren’t willing to do these two things.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Theresa Fossum.
Dr. Theresa Fossum is a world-renowned board-certified veterinary surgeon and considered one of the most well-respected doctors in all of veterinary medicine. With over 30 years of practice, plus decades of research, teaching, entrepreneurship, and publishing five editions of her textbook Small Animal Surgery known as the top resource on its subject and is used in veterinary schools globally, Dr. Fossum has recently turned her attention to the burgeoning field of natural health. Now the CEO of Dr. Fossum’s Pet Care, this globally recognized pet doctor is creating plant-based remedies for cats, dogs, and horses that are efficacious without the damaging side effects of many pharmaceutical products.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I grew up on a cattle and quarter horse ranch in northern Idaho. I have loved animals since I was a young child and by the time I was in 3rd grade I had decided that I wanted to be a veterinarian. Human medicine never really interested me. I graduated from veterinary school at Washington State University and because of my background, I thought that I would end up being an equine veterinarian. However, I did a year as an intern at a small animal clinic in Santa Cruz, California, and fell in love with surgery. I went on to do a surgical residency at the Ohio State University and then received board certification in surgery. I have never officially practiced on large animals. Developing wellness products for pets was a natural extension of what I love to do most — help animals!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Founding and starting this company has been a huge learning curve for me. I knew from the start that I only wanted to provide the highest quality products possible and that I wanted to develop products that met unmet medical needs in the animal world. It wasn’t my original intent to have the company called Dr. Fossum’s Pet Care. I was thinking of something more generic such as Vets4Pets. However, my advisors (we all need them!) recommended using my name because of my reputation, both domestically and internationally, in veterinary medicine. Over 25 years ago I wrote the most used textbook in veterinary medicine, Small Animal Surgery, which is now in its 5th edition. Having your name on the company has led to a whole different realm for me. I didn’t expect to be the primary person being interviewed about products or appearing on talk and radio shows. While I do a lot of speaking around surgery, I am an introvert by nature so I am not only learning everything about designing and selling our products but I am also learning new skills to help get the word out about our products.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This isn’t really funny, but when we came out with our first CBD/CBG product we thought that veterinarians would be interested in recommending and/or selling CBD products because they were getting inquiries every day from clients who wanted their advice on what product to use and how to dose it. Because CBD had recently become legal federally, we thought that state boards would also consider CBD legal. What a mistake! Instead, most states have failed to give guidance to veterinarians regarding CBD products and that has left these veterinarians not knowing what they can say or do when clients ask about cannabis. Once we realized this we knew that we needed to produce products that did not contain cannabinoids as well. Our first non-cannabinoid-containing product, CogniCaps, was recently released to the market. This product is intended to help maintain cognitive function in aging dogs and we are very excited about it. In fact, my 11-year-old Labrador is taking it and it seems to be helping him immensely.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have had a number of important mentors during my career but in regards to starting a Wellness company, my most fortunate find was my COO, Sean Ford. Sean has been in the cannabinoid space for years and he understands the benefits of the different components of the cannabis plant. I have learned a lot about how to source great ingredients to make our products and what components, when combined, give the best outcome. There are very few pet products on the market that contain anything other than CBD and CBDA. While we likely weren’t the first, we were one of the earliest companies to add other cannabinoids such as CBG and CBN plus additional terpenes to our products.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
There are a number of things in my opinion that hold women back from founding companies. First, starting a company is a risky business — most fail not because they aren’t a good idea but because they are undercapitalized. I think it is still significantly harder for women to get the necessary capital to grow their companies than it is for equally qualified men to do so. Additionally, women may have a harder time stepping out of their comfort zone. Anytime you start a company there are so many unknowns that you have to have a lot of faith in yourself that you won’t fail or if you do fail, you will learn a lot from the failure and will be able to pick yourself back up and start again. Lastly, there are fewer mentors available for women and mentors are exceedingly important for anyone starting a business.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
We need more mentors. These could be retired individuals who desire to give back and are willing to take a woman founder under his/her wings and save them from making critical mistakes. Women can’t spend significant time on businesses when they have young kids without additional help. High-quality, affordable child care would be a boost for many women. Also, I would love to see more government funds that are strictly for women and minority entrepreneurs.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
There are plenty of issues that relate more to females than men and, not surprisingly, women are much better at discerning these issues and coming up with solutions. Having women entrepreneurs that have started successful small businesses means that more workers will be employed (sometimes more women than men) which will help grow our economy. Women tend to be highly creative and may be more likely than men to become serial entrepreneurs. All of this is important for our economy.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
There are many people who believe that becoming a founder is relatively easy work. You come up with an idea, find some funding, and “BAM” you will be successful. There is so much more work, HARD WORK, that goes into it. I once had a friend tell me that when you are putting a company or funding together, it will fall apart 4 times before it actually comes to fruition. That has happened to me numerous times and knowing that has made it a little easier to take the times when it all seems to be falling apart because I know it is just part of the process.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder, and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
The two most important characteristics of a successful entrepreneur are that 1) they need to be visionary, and 2) they need to be comfortable taking risks. Visionary entrepreneurs can see what they want their business to look like 5 or 6 years down the road. They may not know how they are going to get there, but they see the outcome. These visionary entrepreneurs need to surround themselves with “detail” people who can fill in the gaps as they move along. The “detail” people will have a tough time seeing the long-term goal but they are essential in helping the visionary person get where they want to go.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
To thrive and succeed as a female entrepreneur, you 1) need to have confidence in yourself and be willing to take risks, 2) be willing to reach out to others who have been down a similar path that you are taking and ask for help, 3) be passionate about your company/products, 4) do your research, and 5) be or get good at selling yourself and your company to potential investors.
When I first started my company I had a partner who rarely did research on products and he talked me into moving forward on a couple of products that just didn’t have the science behind them. We lost money on these products because as I became more educated I refused to sell these products because I couldn’t back them from a scientific standpoint. I learned to do my own research and never be influenced by someone, whether it is a partner or a friend, who doesn’t.
I am a risk taker by nature. Once I have mastered something I am typically looking for my next challenge. I was recently asked by a mid-sized company to give a keynote presentation to their workers who are spread all over the world. Many of these employees were young women and my main points to them were “be willing to take risks!” and “be willing to step out of your comfort zone”. You will never get ahead if you aren’t willing to do these two things.
As I noted above, I am an introvert who has learned to be successful in an extrovert environment. You will have to learn how to meet people and interest them in your ideas and company “sell them”; whether you are asking for advice or investment. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by great people willing to help me but if you don’t have those people in your life, consider hiring a coach to help you. It will be worth the time and effort.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
My goal with this company is to help pets live better, healthier, and happier lives. When I receive an email from a pet owner telling me how much we have helped their pet, that is all the thanks I need. It does my heart good to know that we have made a difference in their pet’s life and by extension, their life.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
This isn’t new and I likely won’t be the person to inspire the movement; however, I am 100% committed to providing opportunities to women and minorities to succeed in business. We need more “boot camps” for women — ones designed for women where they don’t have to leave their kids with someone else. Some of these can be virtual but networking is important so we need ones where women can bring their kids because there is daycare provided and funds available to help offset the cost.
We are very blessed that some very prominent 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 with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I love Shark Tank and am always putting myself in the place of the participants and asking myself how I would do on that show. Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner I especially admire because they are successful, smart, tough women who can hold their own with the men on the show. I would also love to meet Richard Branson. He is an incredible businessman who seems to have fun with his job and company. A few years ago we were at a safari camp that he owned and everyone who worked there seemed to love and respect him. That’s my ideal business person.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Note from Susan von Seggern, publicist for Dr. Fossum — Hey Candice, I didn’t see a spot on the uploader to put the link for the company, but we’d really love that link to accompany the piece, it’s https://drfossums.com/. Can you make sure it’s included? Thanks!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Dr Theresa Welch Fossum of Dr Fossum’s Pet Care On The Five Things You Need To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.