1. Be Transparent: Tether Tug’s customer experience is rooted in communication, transparency, and a friendly, flexible approach. David believes the company’s commitment to treating customers like friends reinforces their trust and loyalty in the brand.
2. Quality Over Quantity: David stresses a customer-driven approach to innovation and a commitment to quality over quantity. Rather than expanding the product line, Tether Tug focuses on continuously improving its core offerings based on customer feedback.
3. Know When to Take Risks: David’s financial independence at launch allowed for a cautious business approach, but in hindsight, he acknowledges that greater risk-taking could have accelerated Tether Tug’s growth—highlighting the balance between stability and boldness in entrepreneurship.
4. Build a Dependable Team: David values dependability above all in his team, favoring experienced, reliable employees who can be trusted to work independently – highlighting his emphasis on trust and stability within a small business environment.
5. Keep A Journal: David’s most vital tool for leadership and innovation is personal reflection through journaling, which he uses to generate ideas, set intentions, and guide Tether Tug’s direction.
While running a medical consulting company, David had a business idea to make, market, and sell a pet toy made for large energetic dogs and founded Tether Tug in 2015. After a long period of steady sales, the E-Commerce company experienced significant growth in the last few years with revenue increasing 300%. Learn how David scaled his business through focusing on product quality (not quantity) while emphasizing transparency and communication in customer experience.
Meet David Hayford, Founder of Tether Tug!
Tether Tug is a small Midwest company that is passionate about animals and health. We offer truly unique dog toys that focus on giving your pooch the mental and physical exercise they need. The Tether Tug’s unique design allows for full 360-degree rotation and can bend all the way to the ground, providing hours of energy-burning outdoor play. The durable construction can handle any size and breed of dog, and the end toy can be interchanged with other toys to keep the style of play fresh and engaging. Each Tether Tug comes with a 55-inch Tether Tug pole, an in-ground base, quick connector attachment and a Tether Tug Rope Toy.
“You don’t know where you’re going until you get there” is how David begins his entrepreneurial story. 10 years ago, he was running a medical consulting company with his former business partner, a trauma surgeon.They worked on the concept, a pole with a tethered ball for a year and finally launched the product uncertain how it would perform. The dog’s reaction at the product photoshoot was just the answer they needed – the toy was a big hit.
“My partner and I have since split ways and this is what my wife and I do full time,” David says. “It’s been great. It’s been a heck of a ride. I love working in the pet space.”
“What excites me most about e-commerce is the constant potential—it’s always there, and I love the challenge of uncovering it,” David shares. He recognizes that driving a business forward often requires making tough decisions, including reevaluating and restructuring the team around you. With the number of dog owners on the rise, he sees a growing opportunity for Tether Tug to become a go-to toy in pet households. Rather than rapidly expanding the product line, David is focused on refining what they already offer. “We’re really trying to excel in a specific niche—active, younger dogs,” he explains. “I just want to keep improving our toy and connect with more pet owners.”
Tether Tug’s team is a close-knit group based out of the company’s main office in Southwest Missouri. Alongside founder David and his wife, the team includes one full-time employee and five part-time contract workers who handle product manufacturing. David’s sister, who is based in Mission Viejo, California, manages customer service—a role she took over after he became overwhelmed in the early days. “She’s done an amazing job,” David comments.
Communication, transparency, and honesty are the core values guiding Tether Tug’s customer experience philosophy. “We tell customers that our products are made by hand, they are made by a small family company in Missouri, and we’ll get them out to you as soon as possible,” David explains.
Over the years, David has increased his focus on making CX better at Tether Tug – “the big thing is being flexible for change.” The company strives to maintain a ‘folksy,’ approachable tone in customer interaction - this was put to the test after Tether Tug implemented a lifetime guarantee in early 2025 (replacements are sent even if the product was purchased prior to the policy). “It helps our lives easier,” David says. “We’re always going to take care of our customers and talk to them like friends.”
Going the Extra Mile: Making Pet Owners’ Lives Easier
Raising an energetic puppy can be stressful for any pet owner, regardless of age. Tether Tug’s products help ease that burden—especially for older customers who face the added challenge of managing an overactive dog. “They thank us because we’ve been able to change their dog’s behavior,” says David. Some customers are so grateful, in fact, they’ve even sent gifts—like a bottle of Vermont maple syrup—to show their appreciation.
The pet toy market is ever-growing with variations of existing products being added each day. Eschewing the ‘more-is-more’ attitude toward business, David is focused on improving Tether Tug’s existing products – there are 10 SKUs in all. “I want to be a stand-alone. Our tether tug, which has an incredible patent on it thankfully, does just that. So how do we keep evolving? How can I make a better product for the customer? How can I deliver a better experience?” he says, noting that the company’s growth over the last 2 years has allowed him to think deeply about important questions regarding innovation and quality.
To best understand how products are performing, the company relies on customer feedback. Based on pet owners’ requests., the outdoor tether tug was adapted to a handheld version. “It was actually an idea of our customers,” David says, pointing out that the elastic design makes playing with your dog easy and pain free.
When Tether Tug launched, David was already financially independent, so he didn’t face the typical dilemma bootstrapped entrepreneurs do—choosing between drawing profits and reinvesting them. However, the stable circumstances led him to playing it safe with business strategies. After a long period of steady sales, the company experienced significant growth in recent years with revenue increasing 300%. Looking back, David believes that growth would have come earlier had he been “more adventurous and took a few more risks.”
Holiday pet gifts is a huge market making Q4 and Q1 Tether Tug’s peak season. “I’ve been caught flat footed,” David admits and eventually learned that “the way you take care of the Q4 is to take care of it during Q1” of that same year. Planning for imported materials, inventory, marketing, and staff support happens months before the busy period. He stresses that the questions “what’s your budget going to look like? How much money are you going to need? What kind of raw goods are you going to have? What tweaks need to be made to your website?” should all be answered well before November 1st.
In both his career and life, David is reaching a point where he wants to transition Tether Tug to a “hobby business” and by the end of 2026, wants to step away from daily operations while maintaining ownership. “I’m going to back out as much as I can, show up a couple days a week, and hopefully take longer vacations,” he reveals and goes on to disclose a second option under consideration - selling the business.
“Make sure you have something that people want. And not just want, but is special,” David says to rising entrepreneurs. Commitment, hard work, and knowledge are also critical – don’t sit on asking for help if you need it. David speaks from experience, “we were steady for a while then just took off. That’s because I hired the right guy to do my marketing” emphasizing “that’s the most important thing – as you move forward, have the right people on the bus.”
Can’t-live-without-tool? Facebook Ads. It’s what drives our business. And I love my Shopify. But the most important tool is my journal. My small town has a nice coffee shop – I go in there and I sit, and I just write. What are some ideas that I’m having? or Sometimes it’s prayers. Sometimes it’s meditative stuff. But often, I am asking what can we do to get where we need to go?
Key hiring trait? Dependability. We’re small and it wasn’t the plan, but most of the people who work for us are 45 to 50 years old with the exception of some high school interns. I want a person who I can count on to do their job when I walk away. And so far, I have been very fortunate that way.
Recent book or podcast? Friction by Jeff Rosenbaum. The reason I like this book is because it's an easy book to read. It’s about what causes friction in the sales buying process. What slows people down. You have really good T-shirts and don’t understand why people aren’t buying them. So how do you reduce why people are hesitant to buy? Because we make a dog toy for big dogs, people always think their dog is too big for the toy. That’s why we have a lifetime guarantee. If the toy doesn’t work, don’t worry about it. We’ll refund it or replace it, no problem. We’ve eliminated the friction people have to buy because they think their dog will break it. I also like The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber. It talks about how most people come up with an idea thinking “It’s my idea, I control everything.” And if you are trying to control everything, you can’t get anything done. You must be able to work on your business, not in your business. I shouldn’t be packaging packages, I should be trying to come up with a new toy. It’s haunting because you need to find the right people so you can work on what you want to get done. Lastly, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
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