I was walking my dog the other morning when a neighbor stopped to talk. Not to me. To the dog. We stood there for a few minutes, two people who had never spoken, connected by an animal who does not care about anything except affection. I have had that experience a hundred times. It came back to me the moment Terry James started talking on this episode of The En Factor.
Terry is the co-founder and CEO of Offleash’d, a social app that brings pet parents together through friendships, live events, and real community. He also co-founded Nibble and Wag, an affordable premium dog food brand. Before any of that, he spent 25 years as a wealth manager, then built companies in mortgage lending, real estate, and construction. He walked away from all of it to work in the pet world.
The easy way to tell his story is reinvention. Successful man follows his passion. That framing misses what actually happened.
The Business Was an Answer to a Human Ache
Terry didn’t start with a product. He started with a feeling he already understood. The pandemic exposed what he calls an epidemic of loneliness. People pulled behind their screens. Pet ownership climbed as people searched for companionship. The need for genuine human connection stayed unmet.
So he asked a different question. Not “what can I sell” but “what are people quietly going without.” The answer was connection. Pets, as Terry puts it, have a way of bringing people together holistically. They don’t see race or income. They just love.
That is the pattern I keep noticing in founders who last. They read a business as a response to a human need first, and design the product second.
The Market Gap and the Human Gap Were the Same Gap
Here is the insight I want you to carry home from this conversation.
The same instinct that lets a founder spot an unserved market is the instinct that lets them read an unspoken human need. Those two things tend to sit in the same place. Terry saw it twice.
With Offleash’d, nobody was serving the obvious desire for authentic community built around pets. With Nibble and Wag, his own members told him the truth: they wanted to feed their dogs healthy food and could not afford the premium brands. He listened, then built a one-pound bag priced under two dollars a meal so healthy food could reach more households.
💡 The takeaway: when you listen for the ache before you draw the blueprint, you end up building a better business and a more humane one at the same time.
The Pet Industry Is Shifting, and Comfort Is the Risk
Terry described the pet space as a market at a turning point. Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen X now make up about 74 percent of pet parents. They buy differently, communicate differently, and expect more transparency. A large group of women drives purchasing decisions. The Spanish-speaking community is the second largest dog-owning community in the United States.
Traditional brands built their foundation on habits that are fading. Terry’s read is direct. Stay planted in the old model too long and the market moves away from you. His approach is to lead the change from inside a slower-moving industry.
Collaboration Over Competition
Terry is deeply competitive. He said so plainly. And he still refuses to run his business as a zero-sum contest. His logic is simple: the goal is the customer, the member, and the pet. When those needs drive the decisions, everything else becomes secondary.
The needs of pet parents are too many for one company to meet alone. So he looks for partnerships, not battles. That is a lesson every early-stage founder can use.
Bet on Yourself, and Do the Work
Terry was honest about how hard this is. He called it the hardest thing he has ever done. He and his partners invested about 350,000 dollars of their own money before raising a dollar from anyone else. They bet on themselves first.
For readers without that kind of capital, his advice held up anyway. He believes in an undeniable work ethic and in falling forward. His words stayed with me: you have to look up to get up.
There is a quieter truth underneath his story. Building anything real can be isolating. That is why he keeps returning to community as the thing that carries a founder through. It is also why his work exists at all.
Why This Episode Matters
Terry heard the same complaint from pet parents again and again. I want better food, I can’t afford it. He didn’t nod and move on. He built a brand.
That is what entrepreneurs do. They hear what others hear, see what others miss, and serve the gap. His childhood dog, Jumbo, was his place of safety as a latchkey kid. Decades later, that memory became the reason he wants every family to have the same chance at that love.
I left this conversation genuinely moved. If you are working on something of your own, listen to the full episode. You never know who’s watching, and you never know who you’ll inspire.
Note: A first draft of this article was written using AI.
