We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jonathan Willbanks. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jonathan below.
Jonathan, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. We’re excited to dive into your story and your work, but first let’s start with a broader topic that might be stopping many of our readers from pursuing their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. How have you managed to persist despite haters and nay-sayers that inevitably follow folks who are doing something unique, special or off the beaten path?
It comes down to faith in myself and my vision, and conviction that the work we’re doing matters. And on the rare occasions when that confidence is strained, I fall back on my responsibility to my stakeholders (family, customers, employees and investors) who are counting on me to deliver.
I’ve put my reputation and wealth on the line to launch a pet longevity company in the supplement space because I believe we’ve developed a powerful new way to meaningfully extend the quality and quantity of dogs’ lives. I’ve seen it work in my own dog, who exceeded his life expectancy by 50% and made it to the human equivalent of 117 for his breed with outstanding quality of life until his very end. Anyone who’s ever known the joys of bonding with a dog — or the pain of losing one — understands the incredible power of that relationship. Knowing that we can give dogs and their families more high-quality time together is a mission that matters to me, and it’s the fuel that keeps me going.
Our category has a generally well-earned reputation among vets, investors, and even many customers as being snake oil, because historically it often has been. Needless to say, there are a lot of haters. But we’ve taken a very different approach to the category, working with leading integrative and conventional veterinarians to develop a truly game-changing product that actually works, and delivers results that owners can see with their own eyes in their dog’s health within weeks. But convincing skeptical owners, vets, customers, and investors to trust us isn’t easy, because they’ve all been burned before by bad actors who overpromise and underdeliver. I try to engage directly with that skepticism, and rather than treat it as a wall embrace it as a starting point for substantive conversation, and an opportunity to make the case for how and why we’re so different from anything that’s come before.
When we succeed in executing our long-term vision, we will have given hundreds of thousands of families not only more time with their furry family members, but greater quality of life. This collective impact will mean millions of joyful moments, wagging tails, and happy memories that wouldn’t have happened without us. That’s why I’m doing this, and why I’ll persist until we win.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
In simplest terms, I biohack dogs to help them live longer and healthier lives.
My startup, Arterra, aims to redefine the pet supplement category, starting with dogs. Our evidence-based, ultra-premium supplement is designed to be the AG1 for dogs—the one supplement your dog needs for total body wellness and longevity. It delivers powerful, visible results that owners can see, further validated through clinical studies.
Arterra is a literal order of magnitude more comprehensive or sophisticated than any pet supplement on the market. Our all-in-one, 63 ingredient formula is an additive and filler-free naturally flavored powder that supports every key system in your dog’s body, reenforcing its underlying structural health while mitigating the aspects of degenerative aging that detract from quality life. We’re dosed in many cases at 5-10x the potency legacy supplements, and are designed to drive observable results within 30 days.
Our approach overcomes all of this category’s historical limitations around dosing, delivery, and efficacy (the reasons most pet supplements don’t actually work) that have held it back.
We’re putting our money where our mouth is by conducting a clinical study with 60 senior dogs, a rare move in the pet supplement industry, especially for a brand as young as ours. Our goal is to set a higher standard of discipline and rigor in the category, offering our customers the quality, validation, and peace of mind they deserve. Initial trial results substantiate that our product works, reflecting the positive feedback we’ve received since our soft launch last fall. With the launch of our second-generation formula—featuring better pricing, an improved formula, and tastier flavor—we’re excited to roll out Arterra to a wider audience.
We’re so confident in what we’ve developed that we offer a 30-day Results You Can See Guarantee; if you don’t see a positive change in your dog within a month, we’ll refund your money without hassle. We understand that our product is necessarily expensive (at least, relative to legacy brands), so want to give customers the peace of mind in trying us risk-free, betting that once they see the results for themselves they will stick around. This bet has paid off, and since our launch last fall we’ve had less than 2.5% of customers take us up on this offer, which I think says a lot about the power of what we’ve developed.
We know what we’ve got, and we can’t wait to share it with you and your pups.
Pet parents can check us out on Amazon or at ArterraPet.com today.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Systems Thinking: Our society defaults to favoring specialists that understand their narrow piece of the puzzle very deeply, but have little perspective on its interplay with the whole. This classically manifests as the cliché tension between Sales and Operations, between Product and Engineering, and between Finance and Everyone Else.
Take the time to understand all key aspects of your field, and to learn the capabilities and KPIs of your stakeholders. Take your colleagues on other teams out to lunch to learn about their departments, sit down in the engineer’s office and ask her to explain it to you like you’re a fifth grader, or drive out to the factory to see how the sausage is actually made. Going this extra mile will allow you to better understand how your contributions interact with the whole, and to begin transcending the adversarial nature of many corporate cultures to lead from a foundation of collaboration.
Master the arithmetic of percentages and understand compound growth: Let’s be honest – most of us have forgotten what we learned in calculus, and will never use it again. But the world runs on far simpler math — percentages — and it’s shocking how many otherwise competent adults still struggle with the basics.
From calculating discounts to more important life factors like mortgage rates, interest payments, long-term investing, and even health interventions, our lives are universally the product of percentages that compound over time. Master these basic concepts early and well. Doing so will help you build a fortune, and avoiding it risks a lifetime of poor choices.
Just do the right thing: Do your best to act with integrity in all that you do. You’ll sleep better and feel good about who you see in the mirror. Over time, you’ll build a personal brand as someone people know they can trust and depend upon. Much of the complexity of modern life is built on solving for lack of trust, but baking this into the equation of your own brand will pay dividends for the rest of your life, and once earned will supercharge your relationships and career.
Life will give you countless opportunities to do the wrong thing — sometimes even for the “right reasons.” But declining those shortcuts is the unending character test of the human experience; doing the right thing, even when it’s difficult or when no one is watching, will, every time, mold you into a better person who others — and more importantly you — will like and respect.
Integrity may be costly in the short term, but will always pay off in the long game.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I’d have to say my favorite childhood book, Ender’s Game. I’ve read it at least a dozen times, and even named my first child after the protagonist. I have three key takeaways from that book, and think about at least one of them every day:
Perspective is everything: When approaching a hard problem in a competitive field, try to examine it from a different perspective than everyone else. So many fields are burdened with stagnant playbooks and limited approaches simply because that’s how the game has always been played. When entering one of these arenas, question the conventional wisdom and explore whether the game can be approached from a different perspective.
Bet on the dark horses: The world is full of brilliant people who have never had a chance to develop and shine. Whether from early career missteps, lack of formal education, or extenuating factors in their background, our economy is brimming with hardworking and overqualified people stuck in jobs that don’t play to their strengths, and hold them back from realizing their full potential. I’m constantly on the lookout for these people, and bet heavily on them when I find them.
Some of my greatest successes in team building have come from people with non-traditional backgrounds who just needed someone to look closely enough to see what they had to offer, and to give them the platform and support to grow. There is nothing more rewarding for me as a leader than watching someone self-actualize, especially after years of feeling stuck.
Taking a chance on these dark horses and investing in their development can not only change the course of their life for the better, but often produces some of the hardest working, most brilliant, and loyal team members, with a commitment and passion the competition can only dream to match.
Teams win, not leaders: No leader can win on their own. It requires knowing your team, their strengths, and where to play them on the board. It also means investing the time to know your players deeply, and to nurture and support them in individualized ways that foster their strengths and give them the reps needed to level up their weaknesses.
You cannot do it, build it, or win it alone. Find your team, and develop and elevate them at every opportunity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ArterraPet.com
- Instagram: @ArterraPet @TheJonWillbanks
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanwillbanks/
- Other: If possible, we’d appreciate if you can hyperlink “Amazon.com” in the last sentence of the “Spreading the world about you and/or your brand” question.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D428FHXH?maas=maas_adg_0B84142863F0668C40D962C9F60CB995_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas
This specific link is helpful to us for tracking and other tactical purposes, but if you have your own Amazon affiliate account please feel free to monetize with your own link.
Image Credits
If you’d like to caption the photos, the one with the dog on the chair is “Jonathan with his favorite office assistant, Max”
The second photo of the smiling photo is Jonathan’s dog Arturo (our company’s inspiration and namesake).
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
