In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Russell Breuer, Founder and CEO of Spot & Tango. What started as homemade dog food recipes in a New York City studio apartment has evolved into a thriving direct-to-consumer pet wellness brand with a $25 million manufacturing facility. Russell shares how the company has capitalized on the “humanization of pets” trend by creating personalized, high-quality dog food options while building a profitable D2C business model in a challenging market landscape. From making tough decisions about vertical integration to developing a data-driven marketing approach, Russell provides valuable insights on building a consumer brand that’s both customer-centric and financially sound.

Topics Discussed:

• Evolution from homemade recipes to a scaled D2C pet food business

• Capturing the “humanization of pets” trend through product innovation

• Building and operating a $25 million manufacturing facility

• Creating a data-driven marketing organization focused on customer acquisition

• Developing a subscription-based business model with strong retention

• Achieving profitability in the D2C space against market headwinds

• Balancing entrepreneurship with family life and personal commitments

Lessons For Consumer Marketers:

Focus on Return on Invested Capital as Your North Star

Spot & Tango uses ROIC (the relationship between lifetime value and customer acquisition cost) as their “bible” for marketing decisions. Rather than pursuing growth at all costs, they rigorously measure how quickly marketing investments are recouped and when they become profitable, using this framework to govern all decisions about customer acquisition, retention, and margins.

Insource Critical Functions Early, Especially Marketing

After brief experiences with agencies, Spot & Tango quickly brought marketing in-house to maintain ruthless focus on real-time data. Their team watches CAC (customer acquisition cost) constantly—even on weekends—enabling rapid optimization of campaigns and creative. This insourcing extends beyond marketing to their entire supply chain, giving them control over costs and quality.

Hire First-Principles Thinkers, Not Just Industry Veterans

Rather than recruiting traditional marketers with established playbooks, Spot & Tango purposely built their team with “first principles problem solvers”—people who question fundamentals like audience targeting, bid strategies, and creative approaches. This philosophy extends across all departments, enabling rapid expertise development through systematic questioning.

Build Your Marketing on Rigorous Testing

From day one, Spot & Tango has maintained a test-and-learn approach, from “throwing things at the wall” in early Facebook campaigns to sophisticated A/B testing of every element on their website. This commitment to measurement helped them identify which channels deliver strongest performance while avoiding costly mistakes (like their failed gaming platform experiment).

Vertical Integration Can Be a Competitive Moat

After being supply-constrained during COVID despite strong demand, Spot & Tango made the bold decision to invest $25 million in building their own manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania. This vertical integration has insulated them from supply chain disruptions and tariff concerns while improving margins—creating what Russell describes as a “huge competitive moat.”

Personalization Drives Premium Positioning

Spot & Tango differentiated their offering by creating truly personalized meal plans based on dogs’ weight, activity level, and lifestyle. By recommending specific calorie counts and portions, they created value beyond ingredient quality alone, allowing them to command premium pricing while delivering superior customer experience.

Overinvest in Clear Communication for Subscription Success

For their subscription business model, Spot & Tango “over-communicates” at every touchpoint—from the initial quiz to checkout, email confirmations, and unboxing. With feeding guides, transition instructions, and customer service support, they address potential friction points before they impact retention, recognizing that subscription success depends on customer understanding.