Some of you may be wondering, “What on earth would I need to buy dog goggles for? Would my dog be going on a swim anytime soon?” I am very sure that if someone suggested such an idea to you a few years ago, you’d turn that idea down like a bad request. But who knew that something that sounded so “unrealistic” would turn out into a million-dollar business? Well, Roni Di Lullo actually pulled that off.
She originally created the goggles for dogs because she wanted to help protect dogs’ eyes from drying out and protecting its eyes from the sun and called the dog goggles, ‘doggles.’ Quite creative, right?
Surprisingly, in its first year, the business sold a whopping $100,000. And at 2015, sales had already gone up 30X with over $3,000,000 in sales.
It all started in 1997 when Roni and her husband, Ken Di Lullo when their dog started missing the Frisbee game of fetch during a visit to a dog park near their home in San Jose. Then she realized that her dog also squints while exposed to sunlight. This caused her to adjust sports goggles to fit the dog and she noticed a spiked performance in the dog’s frisbee performance. But seeing a dog wear goggles wasn’t something that you see every day, so that caused a lot of chatter as people were amused and also loved the idea.
She consulted eyewear manufacturers about developing prototypes that would fit dogs and not cause them discomfort while wearing it. However, their prototypes didn’t really fit. But in 2002, a Taiwanese company agreed to make a custom product and 30,000 pairs of the doggles were ordered. DailyCandy and CNN picked up the astonishing news and shortly after, PetSmart was interested in stocking them in its stores. That was the motivation Roni seemed to have been looking for as that caused her to really go all in on the business of helping dogs’ sight.
And in 2004, when supply packs were being organized by Linda Cunningham. Those packs were to be sent out to the US Army dogs in Iraq. But in the course of her research, and as time went by, she realized that military working dogs suffered from eyes drying out and causing them a disease that makes them unable to cry because of the effect.
She contacted the Doggles company and worked with them to provide over 100 pairs of doggles for the military working dogs. News spread about the venture and how interesting the story became, and Doggles were featured on CNN about equipment that was sent out to military dogs in Iraq mid-2005.
On MSN Money, a list of “ideas that shouldn’t have worked but made millions” was created, and Doggles ranked number 6 out of 10 on the list. And in 2004, when it all started, it was already being sold in 16 countries and already found in over 4,000 shops which also included prescription lenses for those who were interested in that option.