Small Business Connect highlights regional entrepreneurs and small business owners who have been recognized by area Chamber of Commerce organizations and/or the State of North Dakota for their achievements. This week’s post contains excerpts from our conversation with Clint Howitz, president of DogIDs, a family-owned business based
in West Fargo, North Dakota. DogIDs was founded in 2005 on the mission of producing and supplying only the best dog products available.
DogIDs was recently named a 2010 Innovate ND winner. Innovate ND is a business venture competition that helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses through cash prizes and in-kind professional services.
Small Business Connect (SBC): What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
Clint Howitz (CH): I’ve always felt compelled to “take the road less traveled”. I guess it excites me to start with nothing but an idea that others may not see potential in and build something marketable from it. Entrepreneurship keeps that excitement level up for me and humbles me at the same time. As an entrepreneur, you have to really love trying to get things done on your own most of the time. For some reason this drives me … diving into new experiences, taking chances, making lots of mistakes and learning from each of them as much as I can to keep improving. There’s never a dull moment. I love it!
SBC: How did you get started?
CH: In 1999 my brother, Clay, and I started a dog product manufacturing business called C&C Outfitters that produced higher-end sporting dog training accessories and safety apparel. When 911 hit in the fall of 2001, it was a crippling blow that we couldn’t recover from. I ended up selling our product line to keep it alive in the industry but kept the engraved pet tag portion of the business to continue as a hobby business. In 2007, my day job brought my family back home to Fargo. I knew at that time the potential DogIDs had. So my wife, Lori, and I began to get more serious about building the business and marketing our products. We are just now starting to realize the market potential is real, and we’re now both putting as much effort as we can into growing DogIDs.
SBC: What are your biggest challenges?
CH: Juggling a family, working at my day job and trying to build a small business at the same time has definitely been the biggest challenge overall. As of April, I stopped working a full-time day job so I could put more energy into building DogIDs. Now, bigger and better challenges are ahead. Building a management team, finding the right talent to help us grow, setting up a new office and business support tools, acquiring growth capital … all those things involved with trying to take a startup business to the next level. We’re on a very steep learning curve right now, but it’s exciting, and it feels right. We’ll get there.
SBC: What are your top three tips for people dreaming of starting their own business?
CH: I seek advice every day and don’t see this ever changing! I still consider myself a young entrepreneur with more to learn than to share. But a few points that I think are important are:
- Family first. No exceptions.
- You will make mistakes as you go. If you don’t, you aren’t pushing yourself enough. When you do hit bumps in the road, learn as much as you can from the mistakes, and take the knowledge with you and move forward.
- Place the right people around you. Nobody knows everything or has all necessary skills to build a business from scratch by themselves. At the same time there are many entrepreneurs out there who have “been there, done that” and love to share their wisdom with other entrepreneurs who are starting out. Seek them out and listen! You will also meet lots of people that just don’t understand what you are doing and doubt you. Avoid them or their negative energy will just block your creativity and vision.
