As Ryan Cohen was on the verge of launching an online jewelry business with his friend Michael Day, he had a revelation: He was standing in a local pet store with his toy poodle, Tylee, discussing her food with the proprietor, when he realized that millions of other pet owners were equally concerned about their animals’ well-being. Clearly, the opportunity was huge—and he cared much more about pet food than about jewelry.
He went door-to-door in Silicon Valley looking for funding, but not until Chewy had beaten sales projections did the company find a significant backer, at Volition Capital. Cohen describes that first round of funding as a major watershed. “From that point on, the mission was larger,” he writes. “I was even more committed to making Chewy an industry leader because it was no longer just our own money on the line….I felt that responsibility.” The financing allowed him and his team to scale up the operation rapidly and plan for an IPO, but before that happened, they sold Chewy to PetSmart for $3.35 billion. Its early-stage investors made huge gains, and later-stage ones made significant money. “Those investors put their trust in me and my vision,” Cohen writes, “and I repaid them with returns.”
Most people assume that the high point of my professional career came on April 18, 2017, when the owners of PetSmart paid $3.35 billion for Chewy.com, the pet retailer I had cofounded six years earlier. No doubt, that day was incredible. It represented the culmination of a dream and a tremendous amount of work. But believe it or not, another handshake—another deal—mattered even more to me.
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