Ep 026: Creating Human-Centric Product with Playfield

Today on The Heart-led Brand Podcast, we’re chatting with Ivana Tay of Playfield!

Ivana is the Founder and CEO of Playfield, a company that’s defining the "doggy and me" category by creating innovative human centric accessories for people who love their dogs and are constantly on the go. Their hero product is The Bailey Kit - a viral, patent pending dog walking system. And although Playfield has only been live for under a year, they’ve already been featured in British Vogue and is a brand with Victoria Secret Supermodel Taylor Hill's company, Tate & Taylor.

Before starting Playfield, Ivana spent 8 years at Google in the Bay Area and NYC growing major US and Canadian SMBs. She's also an angel investor and certified Pilates instructor. She's passionate about fighting the climate crisis, empowering more diverse builders and creators, and enabling accessible mentorship and education.

Episode Highlights:

Navigating the transition from the corporate world to entrepreneurship:

I would say there were probably a series of different moments that led to the path here. So at the time, I guess taking us back to like 2020, this was peak pandemic. I was still at Google and had been at Google for eight years at that point in New York City. And if you were in New York during the time of the pandemic, you would know, the city changed a lot and, quite frankly, I think I was also really burnt out from work. Having been at the same company for eight years, moved teams, but never really got a break in between, exacerbated by the pandemic, right?

So, fast forward, I ended up moving up to Canada with my husband, who is Canadian, and also left Google at the same time. I think it was a good kind of catalyst for me to make a transition, take a breath and figure out what I want to do next. I think there was a recovery point where my nervous system needed to recover.

And so when I moved to Canada, we didn't know anyone. I decided to do something totally different and actually became a Pilates instructor for a brief period of time. I also looked into the seaweed industry quite briefly. So I thought about making an alternative to plastic using seaweed, did some research in that space, but sort of pivoted from that. And then ultimately we got our dog Bailey in 2021 as well.

And then it just sort of clicked. It was like, okay, like I really enjoy spending time with her. My background at Google had been advising consumer brands. I was always very fascinated by consumer brands, so it was sort of this perfect intersection of well, let's build within the pet space.

I think there's a ton of room for innovation and I live and breathe consumer brands really well. Let's make something different and truly functional and innovative and do it really well. Those are kind of like the seeds for how Playfield got started and I built the business here in Canada.

How Ivana developed her hero product + utilizing customer feedback in the development process:

So there's the inkling of idea of generally within pet. But what do I think is missing? And then I really just sort of looked at my everyday life as a pet parent. I was using the Lululemon belt bag and I felt like things were falling out, or it was hard to retrieve my phone. Then I needed a separate thing to hold my treats, there wasn't a way to go hands free with Bailey. But I was using this bag day in and day out, and I was also using it to then, like, go run errands or go see my friends afterwards. So it was almost like a very simple but annoying point of friction that I realized I wanted to address and I felt like, okay, there just should be a better system. Like there should be a better bag out there. I can do this. But I didn't find anything that I really liked. And so that was the initial spark of, hey, maybe we can do something that doesn't quite exist in this capacity and build upon it and make it something really meaningful..

So that also prompted a hypothesis – this is a problem for me, this might be a problem for other people. So I started sketching out some ideas. I tried to make a prototype by myself. I had a sewing machine at home, but I wasn't very savvy with it. So I went out and Try to find a product designer, which by the way, I had no idea how to do this. So I did what I think most people did. I Googled, looked for product designers. I went to Upwork and tried to find folks there. I contacted a couple different product design firms and then ended up interviewing a bunch of people. I ended up finding someone through a site called Coraflot, it's like a portfolio for product designers. I met someone there who came from North Face. So he came from the outdoor bag industry, had done some really great work. He did some designs for Beis, the luggage company. I was like, perfect. I think there's great alignment here. So worked with him and we got just like initial sketches and collaborated quite a bit to make sure that it looked like something I really wanted to present.

Then I would print out those designs and go to dog parks and go talk to friends of friends and just get the idea out there and get feedback – what do you think? Is this a problem you need a solution for? But I would start very much with well, trying to understand what people did in their day to day before I presented them with my solution, because it's always easier to like fish out what the real problems were before you bias them with your solution.

Challenges Ivana faced in the early days of Entrepreneurship:

Everything takes longer than you think it will. Someone had told me this before – however long you think it's going to take, double that and then double that times two. And that was definitely applicable in many cases.

But I would say, in the beginning, I think the hardest part for me was just knowing how to start. So coming from Google, my world was very much this tech bubble. All my friends were kind of in the same space. I didn't know a lot of people who had started companies, and I certainly didn't know a lot of people who had started companies for physical goods. I think just not having that community and not having people you can reach out to immediately made things a lot slower, so you're navigating a lot of things on your own.

I definitely then was like, okay, I need to find community. So I, I did that. Having moved to Canada in the pandemic, in the winter, it just wasn't easy to meet people. I joined a couple of really great groups. There was one on Slack called Lean Lux and that's run by Paula Munford. And there's just a bunch of creatives and startup founders and people in the consumer space, a lot of concentration in New York, actually, so that was really great. I tried to find community within Toronto as well. And there was a smaller group called The Journey. So I met people through that slack as well. And we would meet in person when things did open up. When you're a solo founder, as I am, it's so important to have people around you, right? If you need to just gut check something, or you're really not sure where to find the information, to have a roster of founders turn friends that you can reach out to and, and then vice versa.

Eventually I got to a point where we had been in Toronto, I think about two and a half years. I felt like there still wasn't a very strong consumer brand community. So I tried to start one and, um, we were pretty, pretty successful. Our first event had 35 people. Second event had 80 some people. And then of course I ended up moving from Toronto to Vancouver and had to start all over again, but such is life, you know? I think those are some of the main challenges that I encountered.

Tips for testing out different marketing strategies (without paying for ads):

I do think it's so important to have like, be very clear on your vision and trust in your gut what feels right for you and what feels authentic to your company and really just try to shut out the noise.

Like it's important to pay attention to competitors and just like have an idea of what's happening in the competitive landscape, but not obsessing with that and really kind of stay in your lane and staying true to who you are. Cause I think that's. That's how we were able to differentiate ourselves. Um, it's, it gets hard, right?

When you're like, Oh, okay. Like every brand is doing this trend on Instagram and they're going viral. Like we need to do this, but it's like, you know, is it, um, the right tone of voice for us? And so, um, yeah, it's a constant work in progress.

And so since you haven't been doing paid ads, where have you put your focus to like get your brand out there and like build hype around the product and try to, you know, expand your reach with having just.

So the reason I haven't spent on paid ads coming from an ads background, it's so important that you get your messaging right and you have the right creatives. So when we launched, I didn't really know what was going to perform. So I wanted to test out a variety of content. Um, so we. Did a lot of different formats, right?

Like a lot of different angles. We did product specific. We did kind of like broader, you know, like more fluffier messaging and tried to see what really resonated. Um, and for us, it was interesting to see, like we had one video, our first video that did decently well, um, was on Tik TOK and it was a two minute long video where I describe the product in excruciating detail.

Um, that video didn't do as well on Instagram, but I cut it. So it was shorter. Like a more just like flippier kind of version of it, and that did super well. Like it got over 100, 000 views. So I think it's so important to test formats in the beginning, just like constantly testing. Um, we do some, you know, we work with some, uh, content creators as well, like ones that are That we feel are aligned with our brand and ones who are actually like genuinely excited about our product.

And that's been super helpful. Um, we also started doing in person events. So I think the combination of these three things have helped us, um, get noticed by other people. Like we were tapped by British Vogue, which was really cool. And they had found us on Instagram as well. So I think these little things, um, do eventually add up to like a bigger picture and the way I see ads.

Like, inevitably, I think it's something we'll need to invest in, but it's a way to add fuel to an existing fire.

Ivana's hopes for the future of the pet industry:

Yes. I think higher expectations for companies now, um, especially in the food space, I would say, you know, I think there's a lot of just misinformation. There's a lot of differing opinions within the pet space. And I think this generation of pet owners. Demand more. They want more clarity. They want to be better informed.

They want their dogs to be happy and healthy and live longer. I want the same for my dog, right? And, and for all the other dogs out there. So, um, I'm hoping that that comes from kind of like from the consumer, uh, angle and to help inform companies that way. Um, and I also hope that there's more, I don't know the answer here, but like more to help animals in need.

It's tough, right? The shelters are really crowded. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's a really big problem. Um, but I think I've met a lot of founders who care, who genuinely care. And I think, you know, having that level of compassion and empathy is important in leadership. And it puts us in a position where in the future we might be able to do something far more meaningful.

Um, especially as like a for profit company.