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This week on How Success Happens, I sat down with Bryan Reisberg, who you may know as Maxine the Corgi‘s better half. Together, they’re one of the most successful dog–influencer duos on the planet. Bryan and Maxine have grown an audience of roughly 7 million followers and turned a simple subway problem into a booming pet brand called Little Chonk, home of the internet’s favorite dog backpack and fast‑growing pet wellness products. In our conversation, Bryan explained how love for his dog, obsessive persistence, and clever partnerships turned his idea into a real company.
And we’ve broken his best insights down to help you bark up your own personal success in three, two, one!
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Three Key Insights
1. Start With a Problem You Can’t Ignore
Little Chonk didn’t start as a business plan; it started because Bryan was sick of hauling Maxine around in what he calls “a piece of shit” dog backpack that was unsafe and uncomfortable. New York’s MTA had ruled that dogs had to be in carriers, so he tried every bag on the market, hated all of them, and realized “literally thousands of people… wanted something better.” He and his co-founder spent two years designing a backpack despite having “no product design background” and launched on Maxine’s sixth birthday; it sold out in four minutes and has since been rated Best Dog Backpack by outlets like Wired, Good Housekeeping, and Men’s Health. As Bryan put it, “Money was not a thing that I really cared about, it was impact… I just need to solve a problem for me,” and it turned out to be a problem for a lot of other people too.
Takeaway: Look for a painful, personal problem you can’t stop thinking about—and build the solution you wish already existed.
2. Overdo the Things That Matter
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