169 | Growing the Largest Amputee Pet Support Network with Jim Nelson
Our guest today on the pod is Jim Nelson. After time in Silicon Valley during the dot com heyday and then growing a home-based graphic shop and marketing firm, Jim and his wife Renee had their life radically changed with their dog, Jerry, became an amputee. They bought an RV, hit the road and launched Tripawds. Today it's the largest online support community for amputee pets and their owners with over 15,000 members.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Jim Nelson Awarepreneurs interview
SPEAKERS
Jim Nelson, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience that is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guests and our topic, I have one request, you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to the show on, do rating and review. It helps tremendously. Thank you. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Jim Nelson. And our topic is growing the largest amputee pet support network after time in Silicon Valley during the.com heyday. And then growing a home based graphic shop and marketing firm, Jim and his wife, Renee had their life radically changed. When their doc Jerry became an amputee, they brought an RV, hit the road and launched tripods. today. It's the largest online support community for amputee pets and their people with over 14,000. Members. Jim, welcome to the show. Oh, it's an honor to be here. Thank you. So normally, I ask people a question, but I'm going to ask you a different questions. Because I like to mix it up, right? Normally, the question we asked were called aware printers, and we'd like to get to know somebody with an awareness practice or a wellness practice. But I want to ask you about a particular practice you write about in your book, Pete more nuggets we're going to talk about, you start that book off with a quote from Winnie the Pooh. And the quote is that some people talk to animals, not many. Listen, though, that's the problem. Talk to us a little bit about listening to animals and as a spiritual practice and as a wellness practice and as a mindset practice, because I know you do it. Talk to us a little bit about it.
Jim Nelson 01:51
Interesting. So I was all prepared to answer your question I always hear on your podcast. So thank you for catching me off guard. I think listening in general is one of the most important things we can do to connect with others. And, you know, I like to say we can talk to the animals and people think I'm crazy, but it's only if we know how to listen. And by listening, I mean, connecting I first realized it or was first taught it in a book about training German Shepherds by a group called the monks of new skete. And this is these are literal monks in a monastery, who are renowned for raising best, most well behaved, you know, guard dogs, training dogs, police dogs, German Shepherds, and it's about connecting. And what they do is they call it in seeing, so whether or not I can hear what Jerry was saying, or what I can currently, you know, here what my dog why it says, maybe, you know, some people may think it's mumbo jumbo, who knows. But when I look deeply into the eyes and connect on a certain spiritual level level, voices come into my head thoughts come into my head, and I hear them as voices of that character. And when we're having a conversation like me, we look in each other's eyes. And we have a better connection and understanding of what each other is saying. And that's kind of hard these days with the zoom and the COVID and all that but it's that interpersonal connection with people that makes communication and understanding so important. And that boils down to listening. You know, speaking too much, we learn more by listening than we do by speaking. Thinking of two Buddhist teachers like Joanna Macy and tick not Han both talk about interviewing, right, like really deep. Being in your case, you're not just talking about human to human but like human and dogs or human animals, connecting in a like listening with all your senses. I've heard it described. Totally, because we are all made of the same material and we are all connected. You know, we're all part of the blanket and depending on what species we are, people can listen to a tree. And Patrick McDonald, the creator of mutts who wrote that and use the Winnie the Pooh quote in our forward talks about that in his foreword about how, you know, we need to listen, listen to our cats and dogs or trees and fish and connect with everything around us learning how to be more present in the book, Jim, you're talking about so so Yun Rene, we're going along and you're living a you know, fairly typical entrepreneurial life, you go to Silicon Valley, you say Okay, now we're gonna do her own thing. You got this home based business, you got a graphic shop and marketing firm and you're going along, and your dog who at the time his name is Jerry Gee, Doc. Yeah.
Paul Zelizer 04:45
Something happened in in your life with Jerry that changed everything. Tell us a little bit about that. Sure. And just to frame it, I'll tell you that in that heyday, I was the epitome of the Silicon Valley marketing, communications management.
Jim Nelson 05:00
I was the gung ho go to type of guy, I took that energy. And Rene and I grew a graphics, business and marketing communications business of our own for 10 years. And I was that, you know, hit them hard, get it done, make the money kind of guy. You're the grind. Yeah, I was the grind. We were non stop. And we were doing it from a rural location. But all of my clients were still down in Silicon Valley. And you know, this was the late 90s. So, we were doing I was doing a lot of trade shows. And I was down in San Francisco one time doing an installation at the Macworld show big, you know, big booth at the show. And events on that trip led me to, you know, agreeing to Renee that we needed a dog. At the time I was like, I have no time for a dog. We can't have a dog now we'll never have time to spend with him. And that dog at the shelter looks like a guard dog. He looked like a German Shepherd puppy and he was tearing up some stuff in his crate. So we got Jerry thinking he's gonna be this, you know, ferocious guard dog to protect Renee while I'm gone. And he ended up being the most loving, caring soul so much that he was once attacked by kittens. And, you know, afraid of cats the rest of his life. But he kept the same doing during those busy work days, and he'd patiently wait until five o'clock until he nudged at the door and he'd take us to the beach on Friday or encourage us to go to the beach on Friday. We did lots of hikes in the mountains. And we call them our chief fun officer. He was CFO, Chief fun Officer of our business. And at eight years old, we were on the Pacific Pacific Crest Trail for a long weekend, we came home and you jumped out of the truck hit the ground and let out this blood curdling Yelp I'll never forget. And we went to the vet because he was limping and the vet insisted it was arthritis. And after a number of weeks, we finally got another opinion. And we discovered the dogs get cancer. At the time, we didn't even know he kept saying it was arthritis. He's old age. We eventually took him to UC Davis, one of the best facilities in the country for canine cancer, and they just discovered the tumor and they said his leg has to come off the best approach to quality of life for him his remaining life would be amputation. We thought how does a dog live on three legs? How is he gonna you know, we're never hike again? How is he going to swim. But um, we went online, and there wasn't much help or support for what we were looking at just a lot of kind of negative information on some listservs until we went to YouTube and saw a great name named moose digging up a gopher with one front leg. And we thought if that dog can do it, Jerry can too. And on Thanksgiving Day 19 9096. Wow. Do those, what am I saying was 2006 when he came out of the hospital with a grin on his face, and I thought he was going to come out with a gurney and tubes and I looked at his face and not the big scar on him. And he just wanted to adapt and overcome. And that one thing led to another and it was a time in our business where we could either grow and expand and hire people. But I was getting kind of burnt out by doing things for other people just for the money. And Renee had this great idea and said, Let's sell everything. Let's get rid of the house. Let's buy an RV and let's travel Jerry's only got six months to a year if we're lucky. Let's spend all that time paying him back for everything he gave us over the years. And in 2007 June 2, we hit the road drove away from our sticks and bricks and burst out laughter and never looked back. We're still on the road traveling today. But I'm at that UC Davis I heard the vets refer to three legged dogs as tripods which I thought was kind of derogatory. So I registered the tripods doe name with a PA w in the middle to kind of reclaim it and empower it. And it was just a little blog at first to kind of document our travels with Jerry and now it's not just my little blog
Paul Zelizer 08:58
anymore right we're gonna talk about that in a second but a couple things he said that are really interesting to him. Anybody who's listening to this podcast knows I joke about my spiritual highlighter on a PA my spiritual highlighter. And he said, I went online and I couldn't find anything about right. And and my like social entrepreneur brain is like if you've got something a cause or an issue, and you're trying to find information and you know, it affects other people and there's not a whole lot there. Like, just circle that if you're looking right like you guys recognized an opportunity and started taking steps to help others like yourself say, Oh goodness, I want to do something there seems like there's got to be other people who are recommend this and that one thing led to another so I just want to circle that moment. That's such a critical moment in conversations with now we just published Episode 160 this morning right 160 conversations with real Smart entrepreneurs are doing deep, impactful work. And there's that moment in almost everybody's journey. And I just want to help our listeners, just recognize if you've ever said that or thought that you might be on to a really good life path from that moment forward.
Jim Nelson 10:15
I like the highlighter idea, it is so important to ask questions and listen to what's out there. Like we were saying, because had we just listened to, you know, the friends and family who thought, Oh, he's just a dog or put them down, or even the vets who said, we could just not him wake him up, you know, he was in a MRI scan at the time. And they said, Well, Your other option is we don't wake them up. And had we not seen that video and asked ourselves, why are we doing this? And what do we want to do? We never would have had beautiful life with him and the one we have now.
Paul Zelizer 10:48
So don't talk about the business in a second. But you talk about the life you have now we actually connected through somebody we are both in our orbit a guy named Bob wells, who you back a little ways here. He's one of the people who's helped me in life, and nomadic lifestyles get more popular, shall we say. And that's one of the ways we connect, so you guys packed up. And even though Jerry has since died, you have not stopped living a nomadic lifestyle. Tell us about the life you guys live. And then we'll talk about the business that helps support it.
Jim Nelson 11:20
Sure. Um, I thought Renee was crazy when she said travel in an RV at the time, we planned it as a sabbatical, we said, let's take a year off, let's budget and plan for a year off, we'll travel the country enjoy this time with Jerry and search for the next community where we want to quote unquote, settle down. And we did that we went around the entire country that first couple years. And you know, we did find a number of communities but also identified in that process that not one of them is perfect. And as our tripods blog turned into the community in the forums, and the chat and all that stuff, we realized we could work from anywhere. And this was before the whole digital nomad craze. I mean, now it's a thing, people do it and you Google it now and you'll find ways to do it and ways to make this whole
Paul Zelizer 12:08
website connect with other digital nomads, yeah,
Jim Nelson 12:12
so many of them and it's actually become an industry in very competitive with all the video bloggers and bloggers and podcasters about it. And I'm just feeling so blessed that we kind of got to do that before this timeframe. Because I in my mindset at the time, I would have been could have competitive and you know, making, you know, turning our travels into we have delivered dream blog, there's still you know, talks about our travels, but we would have focused hard on that or turned tripods into like, let's monetize this, let's do this. But Originally, it was just a plan to share Jerry's videos and show what a wonderful life he was living after amputation and of our dog can do it yours can too. But I started getting inundated with emails. And I had one type of dog one type of cancer and I put discussion forums on Gerry's tripod site. And that's when things really kind of blew up because I created this platform where others could connect and share their own stories.
Paul Zelizer 13:11
For suddenly, you see you decide, hey, we're gonna hit the road, we're gonna like, share a little bit about it, and suddenly start hearing stories from all over the place of other people whose pets are dealing with or facing amputation. So talk to us a little bit like how did it start to go from like, Oh, this is just gonna be a blog, and we're just gonna, like, take cute pictures of Jerry and us in the Grand Canyon or whatever. Right, exactly. And suddenly, it's like, oh, wow, you get inundated with these emails? And how did you start to build it out? You know, it's more of a support at work. And what were some of the phases along the way to
Jim Nelson 13:48
essential numbers, right? Oh, yeah. It's really interesting. And like I was saying, had you asked me 15 years ago, if I'd be doing this for a living, I would have just, you know, Laughed you out of the room. But Jerry's cancer was really you wouldn't
Paul Zelizer 14:00
have time to answer me because you're gone to a conference. Right? Exactly.
Jim Nelson 14:05
Jerry's cancer was really a blessing in disguise. There was a huge silver lining that we got to see, you know, above the clouds once we started to open our eyes to what was going on. We had planned for a year off. But I think his the lifestyle we were living and all the adventures we were moving all the time. I think that contributed to his longevity. He ended up living loving life on three legs for two years. So after a year, we're like, okay, we're starting to burn into the budget. You know, yeah, we had savings from the house and business but now we're just burning it up. And back to the RV lifestyle. We discovered a thing called work camping. We were able to stay at a number of locations and exchange for free rent if we offered services. So we lived on an organic farm in Florida for a while Hot Springs Resort in New Mexico.
Paul Zelizer 14:55
My favorite Hot Springs Resort Yeah. river bed.
Jim Nelson 15:00
And then, during Jerry's final days, we worked at our favorite gaming job on a ranch in Colorado, which we ended up going back to to work for summers, you know, eight years in a row. In the meantime, you know, we had this blog going and we had this community that Renee and I agreed, we never really wanted to sell to these people. They're, they're faced with so many extraordinary bills and troubles, and you know, dealing with their own emotions about their animals that we didn't, I didn't want to put that marketing hat back on and start pushing sales at them. But we had reviewed a number of helpful devices, harnesses that help people help they're, you know, try to punch in and out of cars and ramps and boots for traction. And I contacted ruffwear, the manufacturer of the webmaster harness, and I said, Hey, we'd love to sell your product, but I can't stock inventory. I live on the road. They said, well, you'll need to sell at least a dozen a year. And I thought, I can't promise that. Yeah, let's try it. And the very next day, after I put the store online, I had my sale. And we realized, okay, we can still, you know, help people with, you know, this, we call it the freemium business model, we can offer all sorts of free information and resources. But then for a certain premium, you can pay for things that will help you out. So we started with the harnesses and that sort of thing. And I talked about a scowling discussion forums. Next came with live chat that was free for members, we still don't charge for membership. And there's such a vast amount of resources we've developed over the years, because I'm on our own tripod Talk Radio Podcast, we interview experts, and veterinary orthopedic specialists and rehab people, we have a vast amount of valuable content that's available for free. But often people don't want to spend the time searching. So we started done developing information products, we now have three ebooks, specifically, you know, recovery and care for dogs and cats who have amputation. So these little products just kind of started trickling in. And you know, at first, we needed to make money to support the lifestyle and we put a bunch of irons in the fire, we tried to live our dream and working from anywhere route, but tripods is the one that glowed the hottest. So we blew on that. And now it supports, you know, us our lifestyle. And we judge success a little differently. It's not about the numbers, it's about the quality of life. So it's become a way to support our lifestyle, and still make us feel fulfilled about what we do. Nice.
Paul Zelizer 17:30
So let's talk just a second. Take a little detour with me, Jim. So you and I have different strategies and solutions. But one of the things I think, Bob wells, other members or other people we've interviewed on this podcast, there's there's made certain choices about lifestyle and having lifestyle be a key component in kind of the holistic design, including the business, but how does the business serve the lifestyle? And how does the lifestyle allow us to do business in a way that that the money is not driving, you've made certain choices. Listeners who've listened to a bunch of podcasts might know this, I live in a tiny house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I do have a place. But I travel like I do trail running trips. And before COVID, I do these extended like I called it the deep networking tour in San Francisco in LA in 2019, spent two and a half weeks in downtown San Francisco, and week and a half in LA and a week in Denver. And everywhere I go, I go meet with social entrepreneurs and talk what are you doing right anyway? So the structure is different. But the idea of being really conscious about the lifestyle and not making choices that kind of force us into certain monetization strategies? I haven't I haven't feeling you thought about that. Jim, what what would you say to one of our listeners who's kind of, you know, in that inquiry right now, I don't want to have to push real hard. But maybe they haven't really thought about the connection to what your lifestyle choices are, and how that influences kind of a longer term build, or I've heard it called, you know, slow, like they're slow money. They're slow entrepreneurship. And why is that important?
Jim Nelson 19:15
It's, I think it all boils down to purpose. And the Japanese call it Iki. Guy, it's our reason for being and at the core of it is how is what you're doing serving others. And I learned that kind of after the fact that we realized we started to do it. But when we first hit the road, I still had that marketing mindset I needed to know I was the man new leader, the founder and leader of the pack, I was the man I needed to figure out how we're going to pay the bills. And I was the marketing guy but we agreed we're not going to charge for things. So over time, we you know, we develop the information and with our primary product being information, we realized we could work from anywhere We had worked from a rural community, but working from the road, the lifestyle what really wasn't that different, except I could change my office view whenever I wanted to. But then through the lessons Jerry taught us and the people, we got to meet through him and seeing how he overcame challenges and just persevered, we kind of found our purpose, it fell into our lap. So Ours is a rare case, I would, you know, encourage anyone not to wait until their dog gets cancer, or there's a major life event that causes them to do something big. But my biggest suggestion is to ask yourself, why you do what you do? And if the answer is money, sit on it, sleep on it, write something down, wake up and ask again, why do you do what you do? And how does that serve other people? Because, you know, we're definitely not making the money I was making when I was serving Silicon Valley clients, but I have a much greater quality of life. Because you know, I'm able to make my own hours and I can wake up to emails, just with filled with gratitude of people who have found help to our resources.
Paul Zelizer 21:11
So walk us forward a little bit. So you start getting these emails, and you're like, Oh, I get it. All right, we don't have to charge for everything. We can be really generous in this way. And then we could tell people about things like products or help them find information and this thing starts to grow. So that was a group 2007 2008, something like that, when you first launch? Like when did it start to like, click in Oh, there's an I would call it there's a there's a business model that has integrity for who you are and what your values are. When did that start to sort of coalesce?
Jim Nelson 21:41
So that started taking shape? In like you said, you know, it was probably right around when Jerry passed, or slightly after he passed, when people asked, Are you going to keep the website going and ran and just said, all we have to, you know, it's Jerry's legacy, legacy. We started attending at the time, there was a social media blogging conference in the pet industry called blog pause, and we attended one and then at the next one, I spoke about how to build community online. And the next one I built, I spoke about how to monetize blogs, and I presented tips about it still, at the time, it wasn't about purpose. It was about drop shipping and manufacturer relationships, and e commerce and WooCommerce. And that kind of thing. But at one of those conferences we were, we were kind of the newbies, and we were at a mixing event. And we saw this woman dining alone. And we sat down with her and she was very straightforward. She was you know, kind of had a powerful aura about her. And she said, Oh, what's your business model. And Renee just like, drew a blank and looked at me. And I thought, we don't really have one. This isn't like our first business where we had a business plan and all that. And I looked at her and I just said, Well, we operate on the freemium business model, we offer numerous free resources. And for a premium good book, and no pay to get value added tools and tricks and things like we were, it's really starting to take off once I built out the tripods blogs network that it really first took off when people could join the discussion forums and communicate with others. But after that, I installed the live chat. And then once I built your network where people could create their own free blog to document their journey and share their photos, it really kind of blew up. And that's when we attended the conference. And I realized, hey, we have a business and it is ethical, because it's free. And if you don't want to pay anything, you don't have to, but if you pay us, you know, a little bit a year, your blog all of a sudden won't have any ads on it. So the geek in me was automating all this stuff behind the scenes to make it you know, easy to quote unquote, make money by, you know, automation and delivery of information products like ebooks and setting up the blog. So if someone starts subscribing all of a sudden, they won't have ads or they'll get more upload space and that sort of thing.
Paul Zelizer 24:06
So listeners, if you've listened recently might remember in terms of a freemium business model, another example, Mark Weinstein, who is the founder of the ethical social media channel, or platform called me up. And same thing, they are very passionate about the freemium business model. And so if you want another example, but Jim's talking about go check out that episode opening link in the show notes. So let's do this. Jim, let's take a quick break, springs, community and support I want to say thank you to our sponsors. And I want to come back and ask you some more questions, of course. So aware partners is a community sponsored podcast and what that means is we have over 300 members in the aware printers community, like Jim is saying, the podcast is free, right? Anybody can listen to it. You can post on our social media pages and we'll do our best to answer your questions. But for people who are Want to do a deeper dive and get some real concrete support about how do you grow a venture like this, we have the web printers community, we do things like we have a podcast success team, if you want to do like Jim's doing come learn how to be a guest and find just the right podcasts that are right in air quotes for your particular brand. And for who you're trying to help and get the word out, we'll help you find them, pitch them, and really become a fabulous guest. If you want to learn how to use LinkedIn to grow a social impact kind of a business, we have two LinkedIn pods, we have 12 to 15 people who are really digging down and giving each other support, liking and commenting on each other's posts. We also have one for Instagram, etc, etc, etc. You need somebody who can build a website for this kind of brand. Fabulous people who understand, have great examples and can do it at affordable price. So that's what the word printers community is all about. If you could use a little more support, go check out the web printers community at web printers.com. forward slash community and thank you aware printers for sponsoring this podcast. So Jim, you guys started getting going and you say, oh, okay, we got a business model, freemium, right. And those those blogs, if I understand correctly, have over 14 1500 of these are individuals who are documenting and like you said, posting pictures and telling stories, and they can look back on their own, but also other people can look back on their journey and like how,
Paul Zelizer 26:34
how was that deep dive place to record your journey as a pet owner who's facing and then dealing with an amputation? Like, how did that give this brand? I'm going to do what you did it gave this brand legs right?
Jim Nelson 26:51
Yes, it is. Three of them. Yeah, exactly.
Paul Zelizer 26:56
Like what? Talk to us a little bit about, you know, what did you start to notice as you turn that feature on? And how did that sort of allow you to build off some of these other aspects of the tripod brand.
Jim Nelson 27:11
It was really a beautiful evolution because we launched the vlogs. Because Ryan and I realized you're looking back at the progress of you know, the tripods news blog, which was just in the early times, videos of Jerry, you know, running around and you know, traveling the country, then we started documenting his nutrition plan to help other people and remind us what we did. And then when it came to end of life care, we started, you know, addressing those difficult situations. And some of those old blog posts are still, you know, just this morning, we had comments on a very old blog post about metastasis and cancer and what can I expect, and it was such a valuable resource to this person. And I was able to point them to three other blog posts. And the big deal about it was, you know, Jerry was a German Shepherd mix with missing a front leg from osteosarcoma. But we have a blog, you know, Maggie, the tribe pug who had mass cell cancer, and that Karen has shared such amazing detail about the same journey and treatment plans and results, to give people an idea of what they can expect and what it can do and what they can expect. Of course, every dog is different. But we've got, you know, Great Dane Boggs missing the front leg and rear leg pugs and everything in between. and now we have more than 103 legged cat blocks. Because you know, it cancer in cats was a little more rare. But a couple years ago, one person started a blog. Next thing you know, there was three, and now we have over 100, cat blogs about recovering care for cats. And now there's a cat ebook, so it really evolved organically. And it was just beautiful to see this progression. And we'll see our membership, you know, we have 15,000 plus registered members at tripods. But it's very migrant, people contract, people come and go, and most of them will come after the amputation need a lot of help and information and then disappear. And those people may come back in a year or less, and their dogs reaching the end of the journey. But some have stayed around from the beginning. And what's most beautiful is to see these relationships that have built and we've had members pitch in and buy an air conditioner for another member they've never met who lived in a hot area of the country, and you know, wasn't wealthy by any means. And they pitched in and shipped an air conditioner to her. And there's groups of people that they actually did meet again, recently, socially, distance but there's like a dozen or so that kept gathered every year for the past few years and to see that grow. You know, all just from some marketing guy wanting to tell the world about his three legged dog. It's really been humbling and really enlightening.
Paul Zelizer 29:53
So people started documenting things and that gave it more depth
Jim Nelson 29:57
right. We're very much so
Paul Zelizer 30:00
Again, just trying to generalize a little bit, Jim, tell me your marketing guy, and you've been at this a while now. There's something about depth that how to describe it. I'm trying to think I'm thinking of the where printers, community 300 members, I'm thinking of people listen to this podcast. And like when this podcast started getting traction, it's not, I am a huge fan of podcasting, but it really isn't about podcasting. It's more about depth, give people a way to kind of unpack. And there's the, there's the information, try this kind of brilliant talk about some of the devices, this kind of baster, this kind of boot and this kind of nutrition, and maybe there's some kind of therapy treatment and, and these might be helpful, right. But there's also something about like people telling their stories in proximity and sharing their journey of, you know, this was a good week, or this week really sucked. My dog was really hurting. And I was feeling really powerless. And that just sucked. Right? Yeah, community of other people who are going through that, like, there's no replacement, there's no amount of information that can replace that kind of depth than genuine just like, here's the journey we're on even if the journeys are different is am I like blowing smoke out of my budget?
Jim Nelson 31:22
No, no, no, you nailed it on the head with the word community because it I liken it to my love hate relationship with social media. But what we have, we've built a community and someone asked recently, you know, how do you define community. And I said, you know, it's a safe space where people can connect and engage with others around a certain topic. And there are communities for, you know, model railroads and muscle cars, and trains, and whatever, whatever it may be for aware printers. And when you build a community around a tragic event that people tend to share, there's, I believe, an even stronger connection. And I'm sure there is communities in the human cancer world. But the art people get together and meet others who have been through the same sort of tragic event when their immediate friends and family may be saying, Oh, it's just a dog. So when they are able to connect there and communicate and share information that helps others in a hierarchal form that's searchable and offers, you know, easy access to that information and resources. opposed to Facebook, where they get like some hugs, kisses, he'll be fine. Oh, he'll be fine. Oh, my dog Good to Great. Here's a video. And that's all true and good. But every dog is different. And everyone's story is different. And it comes back to the listening. And there are people out there who kind of bypass that, you know, social dilemma that that's going on right now. And right for the listeners, whether they're just documenting their journey, or they want to help others, they really put thought into it and say, you know, I used alfalfa and Canaan immunity, and we did metron omics. And these things are out there for other people who are questioning it because they're distraught. And they search for answers. And when they find them, there's a much bigger connection.
Paul Zelizer 33:18
So if you're listening and you're trying to grow something, go find your version of that, what Jim just said, write a place where you get to where somebody gets to share the genuine, the real real, I've heard a call of your particular issue, it's going to go so much better than if you just throw information out not that the information or the products are bad, you want those to be good, and they're necessary in certain key moments. But when I see a social entrepreneur who finds their version of what Jim just said, those folks are doing fine. And the folks that emphasize the product and the service and the information but don't find that way to put people in genuine connection with each other and get them sharing those folks have a much harder journey has been my experience and 13 years.
Jim Nelson 34:08
So true.
Paul Zelizer 34:10
So let's let's talk a little bit about how it works. Now as an enterprise you got traction we just unpacked how you got traction over 15,000 people right and there's there's some very specific things that you're doing now. We've already touched on them I want to go a little deeper that we started with the buck let's talk about be more dog What is it? Why'd you write it? What? Sure
Jim Nelson 34:32
I'll get to that in just a second but to answer your your question, that was all great and we were making this thing work but we really stern weren't making a lot of money. And I don't mean like a lot of money. I mean like money that was able to keep our lifestyle and our retirement savings and all that because we were doing it on our own. And what we were building was becoming expensive. So
Paul Zelizer 34:54
it's gotta be like major hosting costs, for instance, because a lot of people putting A lot of time and energy and movies and pictures. And that's all a lot of server space.
Jim Nelson 35:06
Long ago, this became a dedicated server I managed, it's not some GoDaddy account. So those things started building up. And we realized we are a public benefit community. And one of our members was a lawyer, and helped us, you know, form the tripods foundation. So what the tripod foundation does is absorb the costs of offering the free resources. And I and Renee and I always went back and forth about how are we going to do this when we know we do, you know, make money from these certain sales. And we did the research, we found so many organizations out there that have, you know, a nonprofit arm, and we legally and open, you know, 100%, identifying who we are and who's doing what, we created the foundation to keep it all free. So all these resources remain free. And what that did is allowed the charitable contributions to grow, we started funding a toll free tripods helpline. So now people can just call a toll free number and talk to people who have been through these things. And now we're offering direct assistance programs. So anyone with a three legged dog or cat, we'll reimburse them to consult with a certified rehab veterinary specialist just to get them to understand about weight management and exercises they can do. And our ASAP program, our amputation surgery Assistance Program, is helping families in need help pay for those unexpected surgery costs. So it really became we really became aware printers, when when we kind of partnered with the tripods foundation to make what we're doing free and available, and freeing up our own resources to focus on, you know, the income generating products like at first start ebooks and our information products. And eventually, it took more than 10 years to write be more Doc, and it's called be more dog learning to live in the now. And the subtitle kind of enjoying everyday to the fullest on the road to happiness.
Paul Zelizer 37:08
And can I just stop you just for a second? You can hear it in the title listeners like you and Renee are spiritual people like your spiritual entrepreneur, let's live there, we're gonna get into like you're also really grounded entrepreneurs, but you're thinking about how humans live a good life and be of service to others and get out of some of the kind of crunchy constricted ways that modern economies tend to encourage human to live. Is that fair to say, Tim and my outing you in a way you don't want to be?
Jim Nelson 37:47
No, it is so true. That it's why the book took you know, it's the stories 20 years in the making, but it took 10 years to write because at first, you know, we were writing a book and I thought oh, we're gonna get into publishing and we'll publish your book and we'll sell books. And then it became this tome. Our first draft was twice the length and I and I didn't want it to be what we did on our summer vacation type of book. And as we started to look at all these, you know, experiences and events we did while traveling the country and we identified the lessons Jerry had taught us during all these things, things like resilience and acceptance, you know, perseverance, loving kindness, awareness and gratitude. Those are the messages is that we finely crafted and put in to be more dog.
Paul Zelizer 38:32
You have the book and it's a great book, we'll put a link in the show notes. Even if you don't have a dog or even if your dog's not an amputee, go read. It's a fabulous book. It's way more about life and, you know, making choices based on your values and setting up a business that has an intention of being of service rather than here's Yeah, like you said, here's what we did in summer vacation or here's the you know, 10 steps that happen before and after when Jerry got amputate his leg and it's in there but that's not the focus of the book. It's it's so much about humans living a quality life Well, all beings living a quality life on planet earth so can't recommend it enough in addition to the book now, we're not doing this chronologically but um, like you said, you have these information products you have three books give us a sense of like, what they are and what are the topics they cover?
Jim Nelson 39:25
Certainly and that kind of this the stem they originally stemmed from the fact that we had developed this fast amount of resources and you know, every new person that would join kind of is frantic and searching for answers and you know, they didn't want to spend time searching or they found it difficult to navigate forums. So Renee and I, you know, took our most, our best of all of the the fast answers to canine amputation recovery and care. And we wrote three legs and a spare because dogs really are born with three legs in a spare and you know, they get long most investment already. Get along, just Find on three legs by living that what we call the new normal. But there people are the ones that have a hard time. So, you know, we're helping the people more than the pets, animals adapt and overcome relatively quickly. The people want fast answers. So we put all this free information in the best of in an ebook that, you know, people can download and read on their device and, you know, have direct access with hundreds of links and videos, to the information available on the site. Just recently, we came out with the fourth edition and did a basics version, because over the years, people have asked, Can I get a printed book? And our answer is, well, the main benefit of this ebook is all the links it contains. But still, people like to read a book and pick up a book. So we just launched on Amazon, our tripod basics series, which is a distilled down version of what you need to know. And it includes a coupon to the premium ebook that you can get after that first one, the next one was kind of natural, because we started to learning about rehab as the as the foundation, we started going to veterinary conferences, and we launched the podcast and started talking to experts, because unfortunately, there's a lot of vets out there that say, Oh, just go out and be a dog, he'll be fine. And that's true to an extent, but it's our responsibility to moderate their activity because the dogs just going to be a dog, he's gonna wear himself out and he can come up with you know, osteoarthritis is a common in a three legged dogs. And the longer they live, the more prone they are to know hairline fractures and things like that. So we focused an entire second ebook on rehab and exercises you can do filled with links to podcasts, interviews and videos with experts, because tripods is all about providing qualified information from reputable sources. Because so often it's back to that love hate relationship with Facebook, people say oh, there'll be fine, there'll be fine. Oh, I use this CBD I use that, you know, but we talked to the people who make the CBD products and get it from the scientists and provide that quality information. And being the marketing guy, I took those two ebooks, packaged them together and sell it as the library for less than the cost of both books combined. And it's those little kind of things where my marketing mind keeps, you know, coming up by creating bundled products or add on products. So you like, you know, we recommend this great harness that helps functionally for your dog. But during checkout, maybe you want a three part badge to put on it to kind of show your tripod pride. So bang, there's another five bucks there. So it's this fine line between, you know, helping people and making money and helping them feel good about it and helping me feel good about it. And when I met you, I discovered there's a name for that. And I realized we're aware printers.
Paul Zelizer 42:51
And it's really fun to me, too. So So you got the book at the digital products. And you mentioned the harness and the Gary couldn't understand tripods without talking about, you know, the physical products for this niche market. Talk to us a little bit about like, what are some of them? Somebody's never seen, you know, an adaptive vest or these booties that you're talking about? Like what what is it? And what are some of the ones that people purchase them almost
Jim Nelson 43:19
certainly and there's there's a certain misunderstanding among some people about what a harness does or doesn't a lot of people refer to them as a vaster a brace and a harness on its own isn't going to help an amputee animal in any way. It allows us to help them when needed. So you know, we travel with a fifth wheel and have a big truck Dodge Ram truck. So getting Jerry in and out of that truck. We discovered the ruffwear harness was really helpful for hopping him in and out of the harness in and out of the truck, and more importantly, out of the truck because he's only got one leg jumping out of that truck onto the ground every time with one leg we need to help him down with a harness. So I told the story about how we you know starting started selling those harnesses. But in further researching these items, we realize there's boots dog booties, and one challenge amputee dogs have in particular is traction. So traction on slick surfaces and everyone has hardwood floors and their dogs will tend to splay out or faceplant because they have an adjusted gait especially right after surgery. They have you know, they need to get used to their new gait and the number one thing they can do is carpet runners. So yeah, we're affiliate for Amazon and all sorts of things so that we can sell you know things offer things to people that will help but there's carburetors and then there's traction socks that are like hospital socks that have little rubber things on the bottom, or the boots when you go help trail hiking because you really want to protect those remaining limbs when you don't longer have your spare. As dogs get older, there's ramps and steps and things to help them get in and out of an SUV. And then there's nutritional products. So we are advocates of Anything that we sell on our tripods blogs, whether it's gear or nutrition or gifts, it's items that we've either personally tried and can recommend, or that members of our 1500 bloggers have said, hey, I've used this. And these are the results I got. So it's not just this Clearinghouse is trying to sell everything we could possibly find. There's harnesses that we don't sell, we use, we saw easy to organize T and refer harnesses, because we've used those, and we know they're best for their intended purposes. And we will offer them and will offer value added services with them by developing videos on how to size them appropriately and how to put them on. So they don't twist around the torso of a front leg and PT. And it's all about, you know, adding that value add to the people to Yeah, they could go buy this from Amazon, and so many of them eventually end up doing that. After but Rene will stay on the phone with someone with a German Shepherd for half an hour. And you know, they'll end up getting a harness or you know,
Paul Zelizer 46:02
they're getting the right thing, right and know how to use it and for their situation, people. So appreciate that, and
Jim Nelson 46:09
the customer support, because when they go buy it from Amazon, you know, sure, go try and contact Amazon when you can't figure out how the buckles fit.
Paul Zelizer 46:17
Right? Yeah, I'll just call that phone number that doesn't exist, or emails where there is no human or you get to make a sample response. So you guys are real human to not only use this with your animal, but you've literally been in conversation with thousands of people and really understand which product for which situation, which is a good fit with maybe sizing how you use it, how you combine different product, you guys have figured that
Jim Nelson 46:47
out? Right? Oh, for sure.
Paul Zelizer 46:48
Yeah. Cool. So again, we'll put a link and you can go take a look, another piece is the nutritional piece. I don't think I've ever talked to somebody who's focused on nutrition for animals, but how does that fit into the specifics of the tripod spread?
Jim Nelson 47:08
So did you know there are veterinary certifications and agencies and organizations strictly about you know, nutritions? There's a certified veterinarian nutritionist that you know, everyone in, you know, everyone should whether they have an empty dog or not. If you have questions about what you want to feed your animal, talk to someone who knows don't go to social media and hear what anecdotal evidence people have and say, Oh, I feed him this lecture
Paul Zelizer 47:33
and to once read an article that she once commented on or saw YouTube like, Yes, I've read the review, right? I love you and Sally, but maybe I'm not gonna like put my dog's well being in your hands. Right?
Jim Nelson 47:46
Whereas Renee, she's the writer and Content Developer of tripods. And what you're talking about here is the tripods blog. So the tripods news blog, the tripods Foundation, tripods, gear, gear, tripod, nutrition. tripods.com is where she writes, you know, in depth goat does the deep dive on, you know, particular foods, weight management is a huge deal. On three legged animals, you know, a pound on a dog is five, you know, five pounds based a pound on human is basically five to 10 pounds on a dog, depending on the size of the dog. And when you lose that spare leg. Weight Management is so important. We've interviewed so many that said, What's your number one tip and they say weight management, you got to keep them slim and trim. So the type of foods and the type of treats you know, nutrition, we talked about using green beans instead of dog treats from Costco, that sort of thing. But then there's the whole realm of supplements. And you know, people again, turn to social media and say, What should I give my dog? Well, we'll ask that question. And we'll go to the source and we'll talk to experts at Colorado State University veterinary teaching hospital. And you know, we will get this information from the reputable source who can say yes, these are the things fish oil is the number one thing you want to start with, you don't want to jump into a glucosamine supplement. So we'll get that information and process it and digest it. And we'll publish full transcripts of our podcast interviews for people that want to read. And on the business side, it's great SEO, but it's you know, we get we dive deep and don't just say, Oh, goodness, and then we have the 1500 blogs about people you know, documenting what they've given their dogs and for instance, why it is a vegan why it is a wolf looking German Shepherd Dog, but we did our research and we interviewed Dr. Ernie Ward, who's the veterinary advisor for wild Earth pet foods, and they are a brand that has come out with a plant based protein, high protein, dog food, and it's not about being vegan, it's about giving him the best quality protein that's the best for the planet. Like 25% of the pasture land, raising meat on this planet is going to pet foods. I mean if we just You know, cut that by a fraction. That's what Wilders is all about is like saving the planet while giving pets. You know better stuff. And I want this to be an ad for anything by any means. But you know, those are the things that we discover by talking to the experts and sharing that type of information with people who need it.
Paul Zelizer 50:17
There's something about building a platform and again, for our listeners, there's often times people have this aversion to what they feel like marketing. Paul, I can't do mark, I'm, you know, marketing averse, right? There's something about if we can let go of trying to sell all the time, I want to ask your opinion as a marketing guy, and as somebody know, a social enterprise that's touching a lot of lives just like you guys do it. You've done it with your blogging, and now you do it a podcasting. People know listen to this podcast, my name is Paul, I'm podcast obsessed. And one of the reasons why it's because what you're saying right there, Jim, being able to have like, in our case, social entrepreneurs who are listening to other social entrepreneurs, we're not studying our book, we're saying this is Jim Nelson, and his wife, Renee, thank you, Renee, by the way, for lending us, Jim, and see you, and thank you for your contribution to this fabulous social enterprise. Here's Jim and Rene and they built the thing, we're going to unpack what they built, we're going to tell you the real real, like, you know, just like boom, they're doing one thing and the dog got his leg amputated, and now they're in an RV, and you know, they had enough money for a year, and then it was time to like, find some other ways and boom, and then there's and then how do you do it. And when you sell real world advice, and getting it out of the, you know, hypothetical, or somebody who isn't really earning a living in the space, kind of pontificating, but it's not really based on anything. You're doing that. And the same thing with nutrition and therapy, different harnesses and other things, isn't that a sacred thing to him when you can go to the best of the best. And you can say, Tell us what you know about this thing. And then you can go back to your community and say, Hey, community, here's what the best of the best Think about this. And by the way, it's free.
Jim Nelson 52:08
It is, and it feels awesome. And on the business side of it, it's a really fine line. Because I go back to those early blogging conferences where we met that woman at the social thing, it turns out, she was the keynote speaker the next day. And ever since then, we have stayed connected. And she is a coach of coaches and has a mentoring program that we belong to. And Renee and I have always gone back and forth. Like I was a little more edgy on the marketing and wanting to push the books on people and have pop ups to show you know, hey, we got this thing for you. But when he was like, No, I don't want to work so hard. And it was this woman, Lena West who said, you know, you got to take care of yourself first, you know, you have you have to make money, what you're doing is a good thing. And it's okay to make money from it. And I'll tell I'll come back to the original question that you normally ask when you kick off a podcast because it comes down to self and service. So you asked about like your daily practices, usually. And I was gonna refer to the monks who live in the ashram, who live by and teach what they call self and service, the first half of the day, they wake up, now they do their meditations, they eat, they exercise, and everything is focused on themselves for the full meal, basically, first, you know, four to eight hours of the day. And the second half of the day, they're going out and washing lepers feet in the streets and that sort of thing, and doing the cert whatever service it may be. But it comes down to self service. And these days, you know, putting your own mask on first means something a little different.
Paul Zelizer 53:40
Right? It's important,
Jim Nelson 53:42
it really is important. You know, Renee, and I, you know, we've run a few marathons, and we wake up early, and we go for a run and we come back and we'll do our meditation, before we dive into the work. And the first thing we do when we work is kind of like serve other people and and then we'll go and work on the products and that sort of thing. But it's all about self and service. And when you can, the best way you can do that is to be able to serve, you know, reputable qualified information that actually helps other people
Paul Zelizer 54:15
can make a cocktail day, but I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna talk to the doctor to do that to our audience. If you've been at this, they've literally been at the forefront of this conversation and building a community in this world of amputee pets and their human when you look ahead, right? Got the largest community of its kind research I know of seems like at least the you know, often in the world, like it's going along get different revenue streams happening like things are working. And you have a I have a sense you and Renee are not just like Well, let's put her feet on the coffee table. And yeah, we're done now, right? Like, yeah, high five. Good job. We're like, like, what some, when you look ahead to what's happening in your space, and particularly these very poignant times, what are some of the things you and Renee are wanting to grow into? Or what's something that you're working on that's not yet visible if you went to the website?
Jim Nelson 55:17
Sure, it's changed quite a bit ever since the beginning of this year when COVID-19 has kind of put the brakes on a lot of things, because we had originally planned to do many more conferences, more events, start having, you know, tripods gatherings more often, we had to call them tripod parties. We had one in Virginia, and you know, there was like, 30, plus, people showed up with their three legged dogs. And it was really a beautiful thing. But we'd love to do, like, more, you know, retreat type things and have multi day sessions and, you know, start doing our own little conferences. But that has been put on the backburner. And what Renee and I are working on long term is ways that we can focus more on the foundation. So it becomes more self sustaining, so that it can go on and live and thrive. When we're done. We don't ever see ourselves retiring. Because we love what we do. And, you know, people tell us why you work so hard. It's like, well, because our work is fulfilling, and it makes us money. So that's great. But there will be a day when you know, I would never want all these blogs out there. And I promise people if you start a blog and tripods, it will never go away. It'll be there forever. And I want that to go on forever. So we're going to focus our efforts on growing the foundation in ways that it can sustain itself without us.
Paul Zelizer 56:38
Jim, thank you so much for being on the show system. Fabulous talking to you.
Jim Nelson 56:43
It's been fabulous talking to you as well. I certainly appreciate it. We love getting the work word out there about be more dog that's yet another website at be more dog net. But there's also other books out there in the work like tripod, spokes dog, Wyatt Ray, he's always when I listened to him, he's saying, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, everything Jerry, so it's a
Paul Zelizer 57:06
nice watch, love lots of links for this show. And just look in the show notes for the website and the park and all the good things that we talked about today. I just want to say thank you so much for listening. And if you have an idea for an episode, we love listener suggestion. This listener suggested topics we had one today. Jim heard us with Bob. Well, the new Bob was like we should talk. So if you've got an idea of a guest or topic, please go to the website. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, we doubled it. And as a result of COVID we get so many interesting stories. Please, if you've got one, go to the website where printers.com go to our contact page and tell us your idea for an episode. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these appointed times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're having.