These Co-Workers Turned a Viral TikTok Into a Dog-Friendly Side Hustle. It Made $456K in Year 1 — Now On Track for $15M: ‘Should Have Quit My Day Job Sooner’

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Pavan Bapu, 40, of Chicago, Illinois. Bapu and his co-founder Luke Wilson started their side hustle Houndsy, which sells dog feeders that don’t require people to bend down, in 2021. Houndsy generated more than $450,000 in revenue during its first year and is on track to surpass $15 million in 2026. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
I worked as director of growth marketing for a hardware and software company that makes computer-controlled carving machines for small businesses.

A viral TikTok video inspired co-workers to start a side hustle

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
I started a side hustle with my co-side-hustler Luke Wilson in May 2021. He worked at the same company as a senior product manager. One day, he casually shared a TikTok video of an original dog feeder he built that garnered over 15 million views. 

It stored a large bag of kibble and effortlessly dispensed perfect portions of dog food via gravity with the simple crank of a lever. No wires or batteries. No loss of the feeding ritual and bond between dog parent and dog. It turned the two-minute process of walking to the bag, hunting for a scoop, guessing the right amount and bending down to dump it into a bowl on the floor into a two-second one. Just crank a lever and dispense perfect portions of kibble into a stainless steel bowl.

I watched the video over and over again on a continuous loop for 30 minutes. I realized that Luke had single-handedly created the most convenient, consistent and beautiful way to feed your dogs. Luke would build these kibble dispensers; I would sell them. A side hustle was born.

Luke left his 9-5 role in 2022 to focus on Houndsy full-time, and I did the same in 2023.

Bootstrapping the side hustle with $20k, then Kickstarter

What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? How much money did it take to launch?
We were extremely frugal operators and spent less than $20,000 to get this bootstrapped business off the ground. 

Knowing that organic TikTok could serve as a free acquisition channel to generate awareness for our product, we created a simple landing page using a codeless builder to collect email addresses from potential customers. Over time, we posted videos on TikTok demonstrating how our kibble dispensers are the most convenient and beautiful way to feed your dogs. Those videos attracted enough views and visits to our landing page to generate about 70,000 email addresses.

With potential customers on hand, we needed to prove product-market fit. Will customers actually take out their credit cards and buy our kibble dispensers? We decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to find out. Luke built a set of polished, production-grade dispensers. I produced the content to launch our crowdfunding campaign. Without spending a single cent on paid advertising or agency fees, we emailed our 70,000 prospects and generated $160,000 to bring Houndsy to life.

Using resources like Kickstarter, Shopify and Upwork

Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business? 

• Kickstarter: Crowdfunding platform that took a small fee in exchange for helping us prove product-market fit for our kibble dispensers and generate enough cash to launch our company.
• Shopify: A freemium ecommerce platform with intuitive, codeless tools that helped us sell and ship kibble dispensers after our Kickstarter campaign.
• Upwork: A global network of contractors ranging from design to development that cost-effectively filled in resource gaps to launch our business.

If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
I should have quit my day job sooner. I was stretched too thin between my day job and our side hustle, and my wife and toddler felt it the most. Had I made my side hustle my full-time job earlier, I could have grown the company faster and spared myself from panic attacks, sleepless nights and being in the dog house with the wife (pun intended).

Rigorously ‘torture’ testing for side hustle success

When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t? 
There’s no “UNDO” or “Command-Z” when you sell hardware-based goods. Everything you ship needs to be as perfect as humanly possible or you eat the cost. We inspect every part individually and as a system, rigorously running torture tests to make sure they actually stand the test of time.

Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong — how did you fix it?
In our first year, I wanted to make a change to our website that required me to modify the source code (generally reserved for developers). I can’t code, but I convinced myself I could with AI (circa 2021, before AI got good), and I accidentally changed something that prevented anyone from checking out. I took a moment to appropriately yell some obscenities, searched Shopify documentation on how to reverse changes and pushed an older version of our website that wasn’t broken. Phew!

From $456k in year one to $15M this year

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn?
Almost right away. In our first year as a side hustle, we generated $456,000 in revenue. Year two, we grew 273% to $1.7 million.

What does growth and revenue look like now? 
Lifetime the business has generated $15 million over 4.5 years, and we’re on pace to do $15 million in 2026. We generated about $2 million as a side hustle and another $13 million after leaving our day jobs and going all-in. 

Balancing a 9-5 with the side hustle before going all-in

What does a typical day or week of work look like for you?
When we started the side hustle, I worked from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and put in at least 16 hours over the weekend. So, 20 hours a week on top of the 40 or so hours from my day job. We only had three priorities: sell kibble dispensers, ship kibble dispensers and support customers who have or want kibble dispensers. I’d spend my time in sales and support producing organic social media content, running paid marketing campaigns, optimizing our website for conversions and responding to customer inquiries. Luke handled assembly and fulfillment of products.

Today (no longer a side hustle), I spend 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. working on Houndsy as CEO. I manage people far smarter than me who handle sales and support. My 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. is now reserved for my family.

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Seeing how our feeders have improved the lives of dog owners and their pets. While we created Houndsy to produce the most convenient, consistent and beautiful way to feed your dogs, we didn’t realize how profound our impact was on the disabled community. 

We’ve received emails from paraplegic customers telling us they fed their dog on their own for the first time in their lives. Knowing that we created something that never existed that improves the lives of others is what it’s all about.

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Don’t chase the money. Chase a defensible solution to a meaningful problem that people are willing to pay for, and the money will follow.