GoKawiilListen to this post
Key Takeaways Ken Ehrman turned to industry connections to help launch the wireless, GPS-connected Halo Collar.
After several years of aggressive fundraising, the company’s focus shifted to profitability.
Now, Halo Collar is seeing rapid growth, heading for $140 million in annual revenue this year.
In 2018, Ken Ehrman’s niece’s dog, Ruby, escaped her invisible fence and was fatally struck by a car. “It was a real tragedy,” Ehrman tells Entrepreneur. “My niece was 11, and it was her first experience with death. She was hysterical. We all were. They had just rescued Ruby a year earlier.”
Image Credit: Halo Collar. Ken Ehrman, left; Cesar Millan, center; Michael Ehrman, right.
That’s when a “light bulb went off,” Ehrman says. The problem with invisible and traditional fences is that once a dog is out, they’re out, because it’s only one line of defense. Additionally, with a quick Google search, Ehrman learned that about 10 million pets go missing every year.
Ehrman started to think about applying GPS to the issue. “You can’t get out of GPS,” he explains. “There’s no line you can cross. You can continue to have the dog be alerted to the fact that they’re where they’re not supposed to be until they stop or turn around.”
Drawing on an IoT background to start a business
Ehrman’s more than two decades in the Internet of Things industry up to that point put him in a uniquely strong position to use GPS to improve pet safety.
... continue reading