Love Of Dogs Inspires Business
MCDONALD COUNTY NATIVE SELLS OUTDOOR GEAR FOR PET OWNERS
A love of dogs and adventure was the inspiration behind K-9 Adventures Co., a new online company.
McDonald County native Brittany Sweeten, now a resident of Centerton, Ark., and her boyfriend Kyle King started the company in October.
“We have two dogs and love going hiking and going to national parks,” Sweeten said. “I purchased a Jeep as my new vehicle, and that’s a whole adventure in itself. That’s where our business idea started.”
They sell shirts, phone cases and adventure stickers that are waterproof at their Etsy shop, k9adventuresco.
She continued, “I’ve always been crafty and he’s always been the designer. He creates it, but I put it together and sell it, so we work really well together.”
The couple’s two dogs are named Argos and Marley. Their goal as the company grows is to help local animal shelters with supplies, Sweeten said.
“When we first started, we didn’t
actually have a business but I was creating shirts for friends or family that needed shirts, but then we thought maybe we could turn this into a business and quit our full-time jobs,” she said.
They started doing sublimation printing, a special process that is different from screen printing and requires special ink. During the process, the ink turns into a gas, she said.
“We converted an Epson inkjet printer into a sublimation printer, which is what most people do, but then we found an actual sublimation printer, and that has been 10 times better,” she said.
In addition to the shirts, stickers and phone cases,
they hope to soon add car decals, sublimation tumblers and sublimation mugs. King is now creating designs
that can be sublimated on tumblers, Sweeten said.
“It’s actually been going really well,” she said of the business, “even with covid and everything and people not having jobs. We’ve been pretty busy on Etsy. Over Christmas we were busy. Overall, I’ve been impressed with how busy the market is, especially because it’s a saturated kind of idea right now, especially with covid and everybody’s trying to create their own business. … I think what’s helping us excel is having that specific brand … like dogs and adventure and Jeep things. I think that’s setting us apart.”
Sweeten works at the Hunt-Rogers Quarry in Gravette, Ark., and King works at Junk Headbands in Bentonville, Ark., which does sublimation printing.