The Healthy Enterprise

In this episode of The Healthy Enterprise, host Heath talks with Erin Morrow, Director of Product Management at Embark Veterinary, about how genetics and AI are transforming pet health. Erin shares her journey into product management, the role of dog DNA in better care decisions, and the challenges of building products in a fast-moving startup. She also dives into the integration of AI at work, the power of customer feedback, and creative marketing strategies—including collaborations with Disney. The conversation wraps with advice for aspiring professionals and a look at the future of technology in pet care.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Embark Veterinary and Its Mission
03:04 Erin Morrow's Journey and Background
05:57 Understanding Dog DNA and Its Impact on Care
09:03 The Role of Technology in Pet Care
12:00 Future Innovations in Pet Health and AI
14:59 Challenges in Product Development and Strategy
17:55 The Value of Fractional Leadership
20:49 Customer Feedback and Engagement Strategies
26:49 Embracing AI in the Workplace
30:12 Navigating Marketing Strategies
38:41 Innovative Collaborations in Pet Care
43:50 Advice for Aspiring Professionals

Guest Information:
  • Guest's Name: Erin Morrow 
  • Guest's Title/Position: Director of Product Management
  • Guest's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-morrow-68336829/
  • Company / Affiliation: Embark Veterinary https://embarkvet.com/
  • Guest's Bio: Erin Morrow is the Director of Product at Embark Veterinary, where she combines her passion for animals with cutting-edge technology to revolutionize pet care. With over 15 years of experience, she specializes in taking innovative products from initial concept through commercialization across SaaS, biotech, and educational technology sectors. Erin has a proven track record of building high-performing teams that consistently deliver products that users genuinely love. Her unique background includes a Bachelor's in Animal Science and Master's in Conservation Biology, giving her both the scientific rigor and deep empathy for animals and their caretakers that drives her customer-focused approach to product development.

Takeaways:
  • Embark Veterinary focuses on using genetics to enhance dog health.
  • Erin Morrow has a diverse background in product management and animal science.
  • Understanding a dog's DNA can significantly impact care decisions.
  • The company has tested over 2 million dogs worldwide.
  • AI and genomics are key to future pet health innovations.
  • Customer feedback is crucial for product development.
  • Fractional leadership can provide valuable insights and direction.
  • Engaging with customers through social media enhances feedback.
  • The importance of transitioning to a product-led organization.
  • Continuous improvement in product offerings is essential for growth. 
  • We're starting to use AI internally and for customer-facing features.
  • If you're writing an email, use ChatGPT for assistance.
  • You still need to check your work; you are the subject matter expert.
  • Finding the right tools is complex; experiment with different options.
  • Word of mouth is still our strongest marketing engine.
  • We collaborated with Colossus for our commercials.
  • Our partnership with Disney was a significant campaign.
  • We track brand awareness through customer feedback.
  • Collaborations in the pet care space are yielding positive results.
  • Follow your passion, but stay open-minded in your career. 


Creators and Guests

Host
Heath Fletcher
With over 30 years in creative marketing and visual storytelling, I’ve built a career on turning ideas into impact. From brand transformation to media production, podcast development, and outreach strategies, I craft compelling narratives that don’t just capture attention—they accelerate growth and drive measurable results.
Guest
Erin Morrow
Erin Morrow is the Director of Product at Embark Veterinary, where she combines her passion for animals with cutting-edge technology to revolutionize pet care. With over 15 years of experience, she specializes in taking innovative products from initial concept through commercialization across SaaS, biotech, and educational technology sectors. Erin has a proven track record of building high-performing teams that consistently deliver products that users genuinely love. Her unique background includes a Bachelor's in Animal Science and Master's in Conservation Biology, giving her both the scientific rigor and deep empathy for animals and their caretakers that drives her customer-focused approach to product development.
Producer
Meghna Deshraj
Meghna Deshraj is the CEO and Founder of Bullzeye Media Marketing, where she partners with eCommerce brands, healthcare institutions, and small businesses to scale profitably without outside funding. Under her leadership, Bullzeye has driven over $580M in annual growth and more than $1B in collective direct revenue for its clients. With a background spanning corporate strategy, IT, finance, and process optimization, Meghna brings a unique blend of data-driven marketing expertise and operational leadership. A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt with deep experience in program management and business transformation, she has successfully led global teams, large-scale integrations, and organizational change initiatives. Her superpower lies in marketing strategy and consulting, fueled by a passion for helping businesses grow through innovation, efficiency, and strong client relationships.

What is The Healthy Enterprise?

Join host Heath Fletcher on The Healthy Enterprise as he explores how healthcare leaders and innovators are transforming the industry from the inside out. Whether you’re a provider, tech entrepreneur, marketing strategist, or industry executive, these conversations deliver actionable strategies, innovative solutions, and human-centered insights to help you grow, lead, and make a lasting impact.

Created and produced by Bullzeye Media Marketing — let’s make something great together.

Heath Fletcher:

Hello there, everybody. Welcome to the Healthy Enterprise Podcast. Thank you for joining me again. If you're back for more and, if you're new, welcome. I'm gonna be talking to Erin Morrow, director of product management at Embark Veterinary, a company that is using cutting edge genetics to improve the life and longevity of dogs.

Heath Fletcher:

So we're gonna learn how AI and genomics are reshaping how we care for our four legged family members. So let's get into it. Hello, Erin. Welcome to this episode. Thank you for joining me today.

Erin Morrow:

So happy to be here. Thanks for having me here.

Heath Fletcher:

So why don't you start with sort of introducing yourself to listeners about where you've come in your in your journey to where you are today, and then tell us about Embark.

Erin Morrow:

Awesome. So hi. I'm Erin Morrow. I'm currently the director of product at Embark. I've been with the company for about four years now.

Erin Morrow:

I have about fifteen years experience across product and program management in the software and hardware space. I've been in biotech companies, SaaS companies, and education technology, primarily in startups, a little bit beyond, like, early stage, but I really love startups. It's just, like, a really great fit for my drive and, like, wanting to be on the ground floor and and enacting real change. I I have a bachelor's in animal science from Cornell, and I have a master's in conservation biology from Columbia. So I am an animal lover at heart.

Erin Morrow:

I grew up training and showing golden retrievers. I've ridden horses all through my life. It's still a passion today. And I've had the opportunity to conduct wildlife all around the world. I've managed tern colonies in Maine.

Erin Morrow:

I've studied the impact of elephant migration on how that changes habitats in on bird species in South Africa.

Heath Fletcher:

Wow.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. I run behavior experiments with captive African wild dog pack at the Bronx Zoo. It's been really fun and cool to, like, connect all these passions and interests into my product career. I I feel really grateful.

Heath Fletcher:

And now you've come to this point where you've taken all your tech and all your innovation and your warm fuzzy creatures, and now it's all rolled into one. So that's kinda cool.

Erin Morrow:

I know. I I sort of

Heath Fletcher:

feel some life sciences and some DNA and genomics in there. Yeah. Cool.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. When I saw the posting for embark, it was originally a veterinary product manager role, and I remember training my husband being like, I think they wrote this job description for me.

Heath Fletcher:

That's a rare moment.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. So Yeah. I mean, it's sort of hard sell when you come in being like, I'm your girl, but it worked it worked out in my favor.

Heath Fletcher:

That's great. Yeah. So so explain again. So it was called it was a veterinary. It was a veterinarian role or a veterinary role

Erin Morrow:

as opposed to Well, so Embark, it's a dog DNA company. And so we help people understand just, like, genetic insights about their dogs. It can be breed. It can be health risks, traits, age. The company itself was founded in 2015 by two brothers.

Erin Morrow:

It was Brian and Adam Boyko. They were geneticists, and they were really interested in the problem of how do we prevent diseases in dogs. And now it has grown into a multimillion dollar business. We've tested over 2,000,000 dogs around the world, and what I'm doing for my team is we're really focused on how do we translate those genetic results into insights for pet parents. And so the business drivers around engagement and LTV, but, you know, if you've been watching our product line and experience over the years, we've been putting out a lot of new products and experiences to try to get to that mission of, being partners in helping people live having their pets live happier, healthier lives together.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. So explain that a little bit. Just for listeners who are not familiar with how how understanding DNA will actually target that. Because when everyone's heard of the, you know, find your lost long lost relatives. We can make that connection and actually, you have a really funny video that couple of videos that kinda talk about that.

Heath Fletcher:

Right? But, let's explain a little bit more about how the DNA has an impact on on on the dog's quality of life, for example, and an owner's ability to, make decisions around that?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. The the primary customer we have is someone who has a mixed breed dog. They might have adopted it from a shelter or rescue or it was given to them and the background is unknown. And so you might look at the dog and say, oh, like, my dog looks like a chihuahua. But when you do the DNA testing, you might find that your dog is actually, you know, 30% chihuahua and might be, you know, 40% Australian Shepherd.

Erin Morrow:

Right? And just some of those traits didn't come through. And so the way that you care for your dog could be very different. And so you you might you know, Chihuahua is a toy breed and Australian Shepherds is a a sporting breed. You might think about different care activities, different nutrition.

Erin Morrow:

And so just building the deeper insights about your pup can unlock some of the care decisions that you might take. We also have another product that I was part of bringing to life, which is the age test. And so that one has a pretty obvious value prop. We can help you figure out your dog's age within plus or minus twelve months. But that one's great too for the dog that you might have adopted.

Erin Morrow:

The veterinarian says, oh, like, visual identification is only so good for age. Like, dog could be five years. It could be 10. Well, having a test that can show you what your dog's life stage is, if you thought your dog was a senior, you find out it's a mature adult, again, that's like gonna be an unlock for care, and you just have like much more tangible information that you can use in your dog's daily life.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. And for the vets too.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Exactly.

Heath Fletcher:

Right? That gives them a lot of insight as to how to treat or look after and then advise the pet owner.

Erin Morrow:

Right.

Heath Fletcher:

And I mean, this is not a small industry. I mean, we're talking about like 45 of homes in The US Yeah. Are homes to dogs. Like, that's that's a lot of, that's a lot of dogs out there. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

We don't we don't know a lot about because we they think they can't answer any questions. And so this is really the only way to get these kind of details.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Guessing only gets you so far. And, AI visual identification for breed is getting there, but there's nothing quite, that replaces DNA testing so far.

Heath Fletcher:

Very cool. So that's what was the, what was the most important part for you when you were looking at this role? Like what, what was, was it the technology? I mean, obviously the dogs because you had a passion for animals, but was it the technology that really intrigued you?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. My career started with a sort of fell into a a technology startup in New York City called little bits, and it was a sort of like an electronic Lego, like snap together circuits that we found our niche was really with educators and kids who were using these things for STEM learning. And so they could create inventions with these things. And so where my roots were in product were software, but it was mostly hardware and thinking through what is the experience that you start to build when you bring these pieces together. I sort of, like, learned as I went in the product space, But where I jumped to after a little bit was predictive index, which was truly like a SaaS cloud based HR startup.

Erin Morrow:

And that was where I really cut my teeth in understanding, like, what a large scale, like, well run software agile group look like. And so between those two experiences, I think, like, Embark was a perfect fit for my skill set where I wanted to continue running in software development, but it still had a physical product, which had, like, a core, like, out of box experience that was really important to the user journey, but it also was like dogs are playful. People love talking about their dogs interacting with their dogs. So yeah, like there's I got to bring my playful creativity side plus my software side and like merge them in plus the passion. So that was a slam dunk.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a warm and fuzzy environment I know. For lack of a better word. Right?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. It attracts very, like, fun, mission driven, kind people who like the type of people who would have dogs.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. It's very interesting. I'm glad you brought that up because you've got, you have software product plus you actually have tangible products as well. So you kinda get a little bit to to play a little bit in both those areas.

Erin Morrow:

We do.

Heath Fletcher:

We do. As a product person. So that must be exciting too because you're because, yes, to sell the idea of the DNA and and that is less tangible than something you put in a box and

Erin Morrow:

Right.

Heath Fletcher:

Put on the shelves. And so, yeah, how do you find how do you enjoy that balance between those two?

Erin Morrow:

I love it. I mean, my I've been able across those four years, I've been able to work on so many different parts of the product. And now where I sit, I get to have, like, a more comprehensive view of the product experience and the customer journey. And, obviously, through those years, our priorities have shifted. Like, one of the things we spend a lot of time on is just improving our our road to profitability.

Erin Morrow:

And so, like, cost saving initiatives as a company objective are not sexy, but, like Mhmm. That's how you help the business grow and become more stable over time. And so as part of that initiative, I did spend time working with with supply chain managers to say, like, hey. How can we rethink our packaging to maybe cost less per touch or change the paper or think about, you know, simplifying the the structure of the components? And, like, you know, a couple cents builds up over time and that when you're selling, you know, many thousand kits a year, small changes like that really matter.

Heath Fletcher:

When you first came on board, I mean, you were how far were they into the DNA, product? Were the was it already fully launched or did you come in at a certain stage?

Erin Morrow:

The core product was, out into the world. So that was a breed ID kit and then a breed and health kit, which was run on the same microarray chip. We just package it differently for the consumer at different price points. Since I've been on, I launched the age test. We've also launched supplements in the fall of this past year.

Erin Morrow:

We have three options, multi, which is like multivitamin, allergy or joint. And then the other two, we have two white labeled brands. I help bring to life a telehealth and teletraining product that we launched six months ago

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, interesting.

Erin Morrow:

Which is super cool. It's like our first real subscription, reoccurring revenue product. And then the other one is we have a partnership with animal biome. So that's, like, microbiome testing, and we have some targeted supplements there too. So the it's been interesting because we still have teams who are working on the core product, but we're also building out this ecosystem around it that gets more towards the longer term care and longevity story.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Because having that DNA test is like a springboard for all these other things. Right?

Erin Morrow:

Right.

Heath Fletcher:

And is is, are you at the stage yet where you've got the the AI or the intelligence to say you get that data back and then you can instantly start recommending and aligning a health care program, so to speak, for a pet?

Erin Morrow:

Yes. I we're actively working on things, so I would say watch our company for things to come. I'll tease that as much as I can. But that's exactly where my team is headed at is translating those insights into into actual, like, personalized recommendations. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. That would be great. Yeah. That'd be a nice way to sort of package things up and say, hey, here you go. This is we got the package for you for this Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

For this dog.

Erin Morrow:

I I think we we have enough signals in the space of a one and done test kit is not the future. 23 and me being our most recent, you know, example in the field. Mhmm. So if you can't crack ongoing engagement in LTV, we can pack our bags. Right?

Erin Morrow:

And so that's been a strategic, you know, focus for us is thinking through how do we build value, meaningful value to the customer over time because we know your dog inside and out. Right? Like, we can help you think through Yeah. How does your dog transition through different life stages? When we're doing user research, that wasn't even a term that a lot of people were familiar with, that your dog actually has these moments in time where they have clear transitional periods based on their weight and their age.

Erin Morrow:

When is your dog a puppy? A young adult, a mature adult, a senior, and a geriatric? And even just knowing where your dog falls within one of those life stages that can be just, like, really helpful, for care and in talking to your veterinarian about what, preventative steps could look like.

Heath Fletcher:

There you know, when when pets or dogs, particularly, they they mature and age a lot quicker than adults. So is there is there a point in time where you would need to have a DNA test redone? Like, once they hit a senior stage, you would want to reassess that as things shift in a dog's life. I mean, that's only, like, a, you know, fifteen years time span. So is that something that gets done more than once?

Erin Morrow:

That's a great question. So that's getting to the heart of our two portfolio offerings. The DNA test, that your DNA will never change. Right?

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Erin Morrow:

But the piece that does is the age test uses a a technology called methylation, and and that's in the epigenetics world of science. That actually your methylation patterns in your cells do change over time. And so when you hear about companies who are doing, biological age testing or longevity testing, that's what they're doing. And there's a couple of different ways that you could do it, but you can have a product like that where you test at, you know, year one, recommend some dietary changes or lifestyle changes, and then you could retest, you know, a year or two later. I would say the science is slightly more advanced on the human space.

Erin Morrow:

The dog space, it's still emerging. So it's something we're, you know, thinking about and companies are exploring, but I think the science is still, the long term studies are still, to be seen on what the effective, mitigation strategies could be.

Heath Fletcher:

Interesting.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Where did you, when you when you came on and and over your time there now, have you have you hit some roadblocks or challenges that you hit along the way? And and if so, like, what did you how did you tackle them?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. I think the biggest shift, at least, like, personally that I've been ushering and and have felt is moving us to be more of a product led, product driven organization. With being a founder led company, what I've experienced is a lot of the early ideas and momentum are someone at the head at the top has an idea. The team scariest to execute. Right?

Erin Morrow:

But there's not, like, a clear vision or strategy what's driving that, and it's hard to track over time what deals you're moving. And so, part of what I've been trying to bring to the organization, I think we've been made really big strides this year, is just getting to think about what is the customer journey? Like, what is the strategic vision? How do you get a better sense of the customer problems and jobs to be done? And then mapping your strategy and road maps to that, and that in turn has clear business value and customer impact.

Erin Morrow:

And so I think just the these are philosophies that have been brewing for a while, like Marty Kagan and his books empowered and inspired really great resource resources for folks. We also worked with Ben Foster, who is the former CPO of WHOOP. He came in in a fractional capacity this year and helped really, like, push forward this more, like, product led strategy. Mhmm. So I think we're in a really good spot, and we have great executive alignment and vision that aligns to this.

Erin Morrow:

But it it's a slow change. Right? Like, it takes time.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that you brought that you brought in something someone fractional. Yeah. Because that that conversation comes up a lot. And in a lot of cases, it's about, well, when would I bring in someone like that?

Heath Fletcher:

Or how do I how does that actually look like? So for you and what was the role that that person filled? Was it fractional?

Erin Morrow:

It was a fractional chief product officer role.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. So maybe maybe just for that sake of that particular component just touch on how you made that decision to have that person come in and how long that lasted and maybe just a little bit on that.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. So Ben came in for, a couple months between January and March was really when he was doing most of his time consulting closely with me and the executive team. Where we needed his leadership was we had spent the time over the summer with the executive team creating that three year strategic vision. And we honestly, like, for me, it's the gut checks. It's like someone who's been in in the field for a long time, has done product led transformation, has worked in software companies that are, like, taking your specific trajectory that we were on.

Erin Morrow:

And just to be like, yeah. These ideas are are good. Like, he didn't he didn't, like, do anything wild. Right? But, like, just to hear and get that gut check, like, yes.

Heath Fletcher:

Just reinforce what you've been thinking. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

And and to challenge myself and my engineering lead to say, okay. Like, let's sit together and actually think of what are the teams that are gonna do the work? How do you structure the road map? What's in? What's out?

Erin Morrow:

How do you present this to the board? I found very valuable, both professionally and and personally, to have someone at that caliber come in. But it's also great for the company, to just not like, some things we were swirling on for a couple years just to have someone be like, yes. Like, who didn't have any political ties. Right?

Heath Fletcher:

That's right. I was gonna say just be because they had an outside perspective coming in, they have they don't have any. They're not jaded. They don't have any history. There's no it's just getting an out an objective outside opinion to either validate what you already knew, which is which has value too, but also to identify some some areas that maybe got overlooked.

Heath Fletcher:

Right? But

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. And we ended up doing some additional levels of customer research just to validate some features that we were thinking about. And, again, like, the results were not wildly off what we had in mind, but just to have that extra

Heath Fletcher:

Just to have that.

Erin Morrow:

Check to then put that together for the team and for the board was really empowering.

Heath Fletcher:

And that was for a finite period of time.

Erin Morrow:

Yes.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah. So, see, that's a great example. I think some people kinda think, well, I don't wanna bring on a, you know, a fractional person, you know, long term, but, you know, you can do it that way. You can package it up.

Heath Fletcher:

I just need you for sixty days, ninety days, whatever it is, just to provide that kind of insight. I think that's so valuable for listeners who you're who are considering either doing that for themselves or actually becoming a type of fractional, consultant.

Erin Morrow:

I think it's empowering for the teams too because having someone fractional can come in to do the gut checks, help guide the strategy, can get the executive team aligned, but it's in partnership with the teams who are there. And then there's the teams know that person's leaving. Right? And so it you automatically can maintain ownership. There's no feeling like, oh, this person's stepping in on my role.

Erin Morrow:

They're really there to just be, like, an in house support person, And that I think was a positive choice for our company.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Good decision.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Absolutely. So, where do you do you draw on your work history in your leadership? Like that you've you've had a lot of really interesting experiences along the way. What have you pulled from that?

Heath Fletcher:

And what are you using now today in in your leadership role?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. I think some of my personal, like, and, like, superpowers definitely were instilled in that little bit, you know, early startup space. I like to say one of my PM superpowers is, like, customer obsession. And so that translates into, like, making people love. That's the output.

Erin Morrow:

And, like, so at Embark, we we measure this thing called helpfulness. Like, we have questions in app that are like, was this content helpful? Was this feature helpful? And, like, the stuff we've launched, it tends to be, like, 95% helpfulness. Our NPS is 70 plus, which is, like, fascinating class.

Erin Morrow:

So, like, people really love what we make. And a lot of that too in working with the diverse group of hardware and software folks in that, like, playful invention stem space where, like, it's very human centered. It was very design thinking centric. And I was working with just, like, I think the smartest, most creative people I have ever encountered. It was industrial designers, architects, engineers, people from, like, all these different stem backgrounds coming together to build these products.

Erin Morrow:

And

Heath Fletcher:

Cool.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. I just I've I infuse that into my every day. For example, our one of our designers just ran a design sprint, the the book sprint. It came out of Google. If you're familiar with that, that's a great resource.

Erin Morrow:

Just like a five day Sprint where you bring cross functional folks together. You just jam on an idea and at the end of it, actually have a prototype that you've tested and you can like have alignment run.

Heath Fletcher:

Wow. Cool.

Erin Morrow:

And so tool. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Google five day Sprint. What you

Erin Morrow:

call it? Book up here. It's just called sprint. How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five by five days by nap, but it's a great resource.

Heath Fletcher:

Nice. Okay.

Erin Morrow:

So, yeah, just like frameworks like that. I I saw really work well in action, and it it all comes back to the customer. Like, what is their problem? What are you trying to solve? How do you make someone's life better?

Heath Fletcher:

So you get a lot of customer feedback then?

Erin Morrow:

We do a lot of customer feedback. I also Is

Heath Fletcher:

it hard to get it? Because I you know, a lot of people think, oh, god. It's really difficult to get customer feedback. But

Erin Morrow:

We do. So we have in app feedback so that, like, helpfulness widget that is, like, it's not in your face. It's just on the page. People can interact with it, if they choose to. Then in our post purchase flow, we have a, leads us nicely as our NPS tool.

Erin Morrow:

So you'll get an email from us. We'll also, like, ask for a review, which goes on our website. But then there's, like, some sneaky channels, I'll call it, where we have our own embark DNA discussion on on Facebook.

Heath Fletcher:

Okay. And

Erin Morrow:

we don't we're not in it, but I I'm I'm reading every day and it's sort of like its own. You get so much data in real time of like

Heath Fletcher:

just the community of people.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Thousands people and there's a bunch of super users people play their own guess the breed game where they're going in and being like they post their dog and people guess and then they get like we have a feature and product and people use the Facebook more. It's like, know, just go where people are. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

People love to talk about their dogs. That does make for an easier job for me and my team when it comes to product feedback. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

And it also helps, you know, to determine what's work, what's not working too. Right? So then you get it gives you a bit more evidence for when when you say things like, we're pulling this product or, you know, this one's not as profitable as we think it should be, and this is why, you know, you have that you have that evidence.

Erin Morrow:

We'll even see We also have our customer service channel, which is, you know, we can pull trends and percentage volume of different different tickets to understand where we might be seeing friction. But in that Facebook group, for example, I'll get real time feedback. We recently update our sign in, sign out flow and I saw a couple posts where people like, I can't get in. What's happening? And so I like, I screenshot that.

Erin Morrow:

I send it to my team like, this is a bigger issue than we're seeing. Right? And then we've worked on solutions for it. So it's just a nice to have like a real time check.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Those glitches that just come out of nowhere.

Erin Morrow:

That

Heath Fletcher:

broke. Why did that break? Yeah. Makes it crazy. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Such as life in the world of tech. Right?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Happens happens to the best of us. That's why you always wanna have some percentage of your roadmap that's attributing to bug fixes. Actually Fun fun fact. Our internal bug channel is called poop patrol.

Heath Fletcher:

That's where you attend. I used 10 at request poop support.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Instead of text. We haven't gone there yet. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Love it. What so you're are you using AI as well? Is this part is that part of your analysis process?

Erin Morrow:

We yeah. We're we're starting to use AI internally and for customer facing features. For internal use, we're we're just trying to encourage everyone to use it in their jobs. Right? Like, we if you're writing an email, if you're writing a presentation, use ChatDuty, use Cloud either for I I mean, we've seen people just create whole presentations just by a prompt.

Erin Morrow:

Right? And you can download it to Google Slides. No shame in that game. I've used it for workshop planning. I have a two hour workshop.

Erin Morrow:

I have a clear objective. I'll go through. It'll tell me everything I need to do, all the points. I recently used Claude. I put in my board slides, and I said, you know, act like a board of directors, ask me questions, challenge my assumptions, and, like, in the I tweaked my storytelling and the session itself went super well.

Erin Morrow:

So I think it, like, it paid off.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. I do you do you still feel people have a bit of guilt using it? You know? Like, it's the like, they're not really doing the work, but yet they

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. It's interesting. We recently my VP of engineering, Jay Z, and I recently ran a lunch and learn, and he did that. Actually, he created a whole presentation about presenting AI, and he said, I you know, just to be, like, transparent, I made this presentation with AI. And, like, it's interesting to see people's reactions.

Erin Morrow:

Some people are like and other people are like, alright. And so there's still yeah. There's still so we're trying to, you know, by bringing it to a lunch and learn thing, like, it's okay. Mhmm. But I will say what I was clear in that presentation is, like, you can't just blindly trust it.

Erin Morrow:

You still have to use your brain.

Heath Fletcher:

Of course. Yes.

Erin Morrow:

And so

Heath Fletcher:

Still needs an operator.

Erin Morrow:

You still need to check your work. You are still the subject matter expertise. Like, you can't just, you know, you can't just let it fly, but it can accelerate your thought processes, get your gut checks. And at the heart, even when I'm thinking about bringing AI into the product, it's not like I'm trying to replace people's jobs. It's just helping us make features that, like, make our jobs easier, faster, and more personalized in a way that like deterministic logic can only get us so far.

Erin Morrow:

But if we can like supercharge this thing and get someone a better quality support, like I let's try it.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. There's so many mundane things that we do on a daily basis that if we just thought about for a minute, you could probably offload so many of those and would free up your not only your time, but your just your your headspace to maybe focus on other things, you know? And I think finding those tools is the next level of complexity. It's like, well, which tool is gonna work? And there's so many tools to choose from, you know, do you, you know, do you have your do you have someone that's in charge of your tech stack that kinda goes, yeah, this tool works, this tool doesn't, you know?

Erin Morrow:

We we do sort of our VP of engineering is sort of that, like, AI guru for the company. The one thing that we definitely advise on is, like, what is appropriate use for AI within the company. We just wanna be careful about feeding in, you know, confidential information about employees. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

Things like that, but it's just, you know, would feel Proprietary information. Proprietary information. Stuff. We also shared just a part of that lunch and learn. We shared, like, a couple tools that we were using.

Erin Morrow:

I go to Claude. It's more of like an analytical, you know, powerhouse. We we have engineers who use it for coding and more just, like, computational analysis. But I just think the depth of answers it gives is more what I'm looking for, whereas chat GBT tends to be more I found it's more creative if you have to do, like, branding or illustrations or, like, just general questions. So I I would say, like, if you you haven't found a favorite, like just experiment with a bunch of different things and you might find that you have a couple tools that you go to depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Heath Fletcher:

Good advice. Good advice. Okay. Let's talk about marketing now.

Erin Morrow:

Mhmm.

Heath Fletcher:

Because just before we got on the call, I was watching some of your a couple of your videos Yeah. Which I said, or I thought were really well done. Yeah. And it doesn't so tell us about this your marketing process. What what how do you approach your your marketing of your products?

Erin Morrow:

Interesting. We're interestingly, word-of-mouth is still our strongest engine.

Heath Fletcher:

Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

Erin Morrow:

You know, and, like, maintaining NPS and shareability is always top of mind. We've experimented with a lot of different media channels over the years. So those commercials you saw were a collaboration we did with Colossus, It's a super talented agency. Definitely check them out if you haven't seen them. The two that we ran were the first one is a breeder veal where it's a golden retriever, and they find out in doing the the breed testing that there's some cavalier king Charles in his background, and then it sends the couple on a spiral around the fact that their dog might actually be a king.

Erin Morrow:

It's very cheeky. A lot of bad English

Heath Fletcher:

adopting some terrible English accents. And

Erin Morrow:

The dog's just very embarrassed by the whole thing. And the second one was a really cute one around finding we have a feature relative finder. So all the dogs in our database, as we run new dogs, we might match you with your dog's sibling or mother or we can actually tell you now directly, like, we think this is your dog's mom, which is so cool. So the commercial is they someone finds out they have a sister in Albuquerque, and they but the people don't know. And so they this couple shows up with their dog, and they burst in the door, and like we are here and the woman who owns the house is like, who are you really poor family, you know, and so both of them Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

Are

Heath Fletcher:

They're sisters.

Erin Morrow:

Right. It's very cute. We're sort of poking at ourselves in both of them, but I think it did it did the brand justice, and that's playful. It's silly. It's fun.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. And so those we we aired those over national TV channels. We we aired it during a couple of the presidential debates when that was happening and and those did really well.

Heath Fletcher:

Wow. And they performed well and and and ads too, obviously, on social

Erin Morrow:

media. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

They must perform quite well. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

They we also worked with them on a a brand refresh. One of the things we noticed as this DNA space is becoming more, I would say, dense with competitors, everyone sort of had the same brand, like, similar brand colors. It was just like a picture of a dog and the kit. And so we did a they did a really lovely job infusing our logo into all of the designs. And so we sort of if you look at some of our brand assets, you'll always see a cut of the logo, the yellow Embark dog, and all of our assets, which I think has helped with us stand out.

Erin Morrow:

The other cool thing that we did was we did a partnership with Disney last fall.

Heath Fletcher:

Wow.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. In in connection with the inside out two movie coming out.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

So that was like, know your dog inside out.

Heath Fletcher:

That's great.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. So that was really fun. The whole company got to go to a screening in Boston. We rented out the whole theater, And then we did a camp we did a sweepstakes for folks who could sign up and the winning ticket was you go to the premier in LA and see the movie. Oh,

Heath Fletcher:

wow. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And so how do you I mean, are large campaigns.

Heath Fletcher:

Large. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

It's

Heath Fletcher:

quite large. And and how do you evaluate that the return on that? I mean, it all sounds really cool and Disney and all that and and

Erin Morrow:

Right.

Heath Fletcher:

How do you how do you evaluate this? Like, oh, we'll definitely do that again. Or, well, that was a cool once in a lifetime thing. Great experience, but we're not gonna go there. How do you evaluate that for the company?

Erin Morrow:

We I mean, the primary twofold of, like, the primary mechanisms. We do have a how did you hear about us question in our kit activation flow. So we can can get a sense of, like, long lead times if someone did hear about us through Disney or one of these bigger commercials, we can get that. The other thing that we look forward is we do a yearly brand tracker. Mhmm.

Erin Morrow:

And so both of those plays were really about just category awareness. And so we can track year over year the percentage of folks who have heard of DNA testing in general and then Right. Embark specifically. And we did see over the past year, we did have a positive increase on both of those numbers. So it's hard to tie it directly back.

Heath Fletcher:

Directly. Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

But we do think that investing in some of the awareness categories during that time were successful.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, I guess with the Disney one, you tied in kind of a comp a contest too, right? Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. So we had immediate leads from that that we work to convert, but then

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

Some of those people might not come through for a while.

Heath Fletcher:

Yep. Yeah. Becomes more brand awareness.

Erin Morrow:

Right.

Heath Fletcher:

But huge coverage. I mean, that's that's that's pretty significant.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Other avenues, other things that you that you work on in the marketing space to get embark out?

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. One of the things we're trying this year is we've been aligning with, brands in the pet care space. We recently have been partnering with Ollie, which is a fresh dog food. Mhmm. And then we did a campaign with Fi, which is a a wearable color.

Erin Morrow:

And those have been gift purchase campaigns. Mhmm. And so you're typically what's been happening. Well, actually, we did both ways. So for Ali, they've been primarily selling giving away our kits with the

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Erin Morrow:

And then on the fi side, we gave away their collar with a gift of purchase. And then we are seeing good traction both on the acquisition and the retention side. These are, like, early experiments, but we're we're excited to see where they go because I think, like, what one of the things we know is people have very busy lives. Mhmm. And their pets, you know, if they don't have children, it's their baby.

Erin Morrow:

But if they do have children, you know, I'm a mom. Like, I don't have a lot of time. I work in a dog company. I don't have a lot of time to think about what new foods or what new experiences I'm gonna try for my dog. So the more we can combine with just, like, people are already top of mind and starting to think through what is, like, the comprehensive story with some of these companies, I think we're we're hitting new audiences in ways that we might not have before.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. That cross pollination's a really smart idea. Yeah. Especially when you're, I mean, it's connected. But yeah, they're very very complementary in that

Erin Morrow:

in

Heath Fletcher:

that field. That's really cool idea actually. The Ollie is the food and then the dog the collar is the is the it's a finder chip.

Erin Morrow:

So if I they have, like, a multi value prop for their collar. It can be a finder. It can also just be, like, an exercise tracker.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh. Oh, no kidding.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. So it's sort of like Strava for dogs. Wow.

Heath Fletcher:

Over there, are we?

Erin Morrow:

Yep. Which is cool. Like, there's a

Heath Fletcher:

It sounds yeah. It is cool.

Erin Morrow:

Excited about wearables because I think when you start to get into the world of behavior, if you're, like, you know, if you're thinking about longevity and tracking over time, if you are you know, I wear my Fitbit all the time. I'm obsessed with tracking my sleep and my steps. Like, you can do the same for your dog. And if you're noticing maybe your dog was drinking less that day or is having changes in sleep, those could be early signs for maybe some issues that are popping up.

Heath Fletcher:

Stress. Yeah. Things like that. Right? Mhmm.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. That ties in back to what you're talking about with the Teladoc and telemedicine is that, you know, there's your accessibility. This is your data when you're collecting the information. And then next is the is the advisement or what to do now, you know, or the the alert. Oh, your dog is struggling with dehydration or, you know, the various other things that could trigger an alert to either the vet or the pet owner to say, you better get this looked at.

Heath Fletcher:

So it's kinda like a full holistic sort of health and wellness and preventative medicine approach, which is really cool.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. I I mean, as much as I love the digital solutions for a lot of things, at the end of the day, it's just it's nice to talk to someone. Like, one of one of my, direct reports actually uses the teletraining service because she has has a new pup, and she was like, it's like therapy to me. Like, I go, you know, once once a month, every other week, whatever makes sense for her, and just to talk to a trainer about like, hey. This is what I'm working on.

Erin Morrow:

This is what worked. This is what didn't. She feels because a lot of, like, when you're a first time dog owner, a lot of what you want is just validation and, like, reassurance that you're doing the right thing. It's like it's like raising kids.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Exactly.

Erin Morrow:

And so if you could talk to someone who just like, like, yeah. No. No. This is totally normal. Maybe try this next time.

Erin Morrow:

That feels really I feel like a better pet parent when I walk away from a conversation like that.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. And like you said, particularly with young dogs, pups because they're so they're most of us. I mean, we had it. We had our, ours is 11 and we've had her since she was two months old and I don't know. I'd probably do things a little different if I did it the next time, but no, you just don't know and there's only so much information that you could.

Heath Fletcher:

There's I mean, there's a lot of information, but you never know what information is right and making the right decisions at that time in their evolution or their growth journey is really important for, you know, particularly when it comes to training the dog, for example.

Erin Morrow:

But And every every dog is different. Like, going back to the breed insights. Right? Like, I grew up showing and training golden retrievers, but now I have the past two dogs I've had have been sheltie, like shepherd collie mixes, and those are just very different dogs. So the things I try with them are are, slightly adapted from what might have worked a couple years ago.

Erin Morrow:

And even just, like, over the years, training techniques have changed. Positive reinforcement is a really big, focus right now. Like, I remember being younger, and I the way I was taught was, like, you put a a chain collar around your dog's neck, and you would, you know, negative reinforcement. You would give them a little tick around the neck when they did something wrong. Now it's all treats and positive and praise, and it's like, your dog is much happier.

Erin Morrow:

You feel better as a pet parent. And so, you know, you can say there's a difference between a new pet parent and an experienced pet parent, but it's also the time that has elapsed in the dog that you have. It's not, you know Yeah. One size fits all. There's always stuff to learn.

Heath Fletcher:

Always. Always stuff to learn. Yeah. And it's a growing industry. So you've got a got many people to help through their through their dog parenting journey.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Your dog, I noticed earlier knows how to open the door.

Erin Morrow:

I know. I was just, actually, good timing, Ollie.

Heath Fletcher:

Good timing. Yeah. That was your cue. Good

Erin Morrow:

dog. He yes. That's one of the magic tricks of being in a a recorded meeting with me is, like, you there's a ghost that moves behind my chair. It's my dog.

Heath Fletcher:

What's his name?

Erin Morrow:

Ollie.

Heath Fletcher:

Ollie. Oh, that's Ollie.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. That's Ollie.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, that was funny. Yeah. I saw him sleep by earlier and then the door opened and then out he went. You know? And he just came back right at the right moment.

Heath Fletcher:

That was perfect. So give me maybe give a little bit of advice to me to somebody who's entering, you know, either the tech industry or in the pet industry and attaboy, Ollie. Get in there. You gotta get your voice in there too. You who are looking at, you know, maybe taking a journey in this.

Heath Fletcher:

You're following in your footsteps, so to speak. Any advice or or, you know, yeah, any advice or guidance for them entering this market?

Erin Morrow:

I would say follow your passion, but stay open minded. I the career trajectories today are not what they were of the past. But I think if you're connected to whatever is your personal value set and mission, you're gonna find ways to work with amazing people on problems that you think matter. And I always look for a company that, you know, has that culture of people who just, like, wanna roll up their sleeves. And so I think that's why I'm attracted to startups.

Erin Morrow:

It's like people genuinely are there to make a difference. And having a culture that supports that only leads to both, like, positive interactions. You wanna work with people every day that you really like.

Heath Fletcher:

Like, I wanna be Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

I wanna be taught, like, working for a company that has a clear vision and feels like the time I'm putting in is positively impacting other people.

Heath Fletcher:

You know, I have here I hear that often. A lot of people now have actually had some sort of experience with a start up. And it it and and they've said similar things that I just I love the environment of the start up. They didn't like the paycheck of a startup, but the experience of the of a startup is what it's kinda sets the course for their career trajectory. What is it about a startup?

Heath Fletcher:

Whatever role it is, what is it about that that teaches, gives somebody something that they can really lean on in the future?

Erin Morrow:

You have to be scrappy. You have to be adaptable, and you I mean, it's cliche, but you really do wear a lot of different hats. And so it's great for someone who's just starting out who might not know you might have a sense of where you wanna go, but you might be asked to do things that, like, you didn't even have a concept of in the past.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Erin Morrow:

And I think just being open minded to the opportunities that come your way and just, like, giving it your best. I think one of the things I've learned through my career is, like, no one really knows, like like, how to do things well a lot of the time. Like, everyone's just sorta faking it till they make it and, like,

Heath Fletcher:

just Teetering on impostor syndrome.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. And you just need to get over that. Right?

Heath Fletcher:

Like That's right.

Erin Morrow:

And it's one of the hardest lessons of just yeah. Like, everyone's just sort of figuring it out alongside you and, like, you have an opportunity to shape things. Like, don't let people think they're smarter than you just because, you know, they have a better CV. Like, if you have cool ideas and, like, you have a team behind you, like, try stuff. Like, you're gonna fail.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. And that's okay. And I think, like, that's the startup environment that fosters that because everyone's, like, you're all just trying to build something cool and figure it out together. So I I really love that type of environment.

Heath Fletcher:

Funny. It's one thing that my son I was talking to my son about career and work and stuff and it was a bit of not a surprise, but it all kinda brought to light for him. And it's like, you know, when you come out of university, you don't actually have to know how to do any particular job. You have a lot of really collective in in information. You just haven't had a chance to apply it.

Heath Fletcher:

So when you get your first job out of university or whatever, no one expects you to know how to do that job. So you get on the job training where you get to apply what you learn, but without that training, there's no expectation. So just go and try anything, everything, and and see what what float your boat.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. It's the soft skills that are gonna make your break. Yeah. It's fine. Especially in the AI world where everything's, you know, gonna be automated, but, like Yeah.

Erin Morrow:

Be able to think critically, talk to people have influence your organization. Right? Be a good collaborator.

Heath Fletcher:

Probably

Erin Morrow:

creative. Those are the things that people are going to be hiring for. Yeah. And so the more that you can practice that in safe environment, you'll have a leg up.

Heath Fletcher:

And be nice to work with.

Erin Morrow:

And be nice to work with. Yeah. No one likes to, you know, have you ever read build by Tony Fidel? No. His one of his quotes is that he doesn't hire assholes.

Erin Morrow:

That was, like, one of his hiring policies. And I

Heath Fletcher:

think I've heard of this. Yeah. I think I've heard of this.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. He that's a great read. He has a very strong, I would say, unique perspective on passion and just but creating quality products that customers love that really resonate resonated with I

Heath Fletcher:

might have sounded heard another one, like, don't work with jerks.

Erin Morrow:

Yeah. Something like that. I think it's good life lesson.

Heath Fletcher:

It's a good philosophy, 100%. Awesome. Well, this has been great, Erin. I'm really glad we had a chance to do this. Do you have any, you know, last thoughts or things you wanna share with listeners before we wrap it up?

Erin Morrow:

I I think this has just been a pleasure. And, if you haven't checked out Embark, please do. And if you wanna connect with me, I'm on LinkedIn. Send me a note if you'd like to to chat. But, you know, I'm I'm excited to be where I am.

Erin Morrow:

Like, product management is such an exciting field, and AI is just starting to shape, I think, where this field can be going. But I'd be curious to see how the current trends continue.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, thanks, Aaron. And absolutely, if you need to get people should be getting their pet DNA tests and find out if they have royal blood in their dogs. Thanks a lot, Erin, and we'll talk again one of these days soon.

Erin Morrow:

Awesome. Thanks for having

Heath Fletcher:

animal health and learning from Aaron about how testing over 2,000,000 dogs and turning their genetic insights for Embark is redefining how how that industry understands and can support canine health. Really cool. We've kind of adopted that from the from the human side of things, and I think Erin really leaned into her biology background into where she's at today in in tech and canine care. So a few things that she leaned on was that her how much she took away from her history in startups and what evidence and and learnings and experiences she brought to the table from that. You know?

Heath Fletcher:

And I think that was very valuable for those of you that are entering the market. I mean, I think startup is a great place for to get some experience. Yes. Scrappy. You gotta be scrappy.

Heath Fletcher:

And I think wearing many different hats is a really great insight as to how any kind of business is actually operated and and run. Aaron also indicated that AI does hold a lot of promise for delivering more personalized care for pets in the future, and she reminds us that success isn't just about innovation. It's about adaptability, collaboration, and building a culture of people who actually wanna be part of it. So great advice from Aaron. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll see you soon.