Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Gil.
Hi Ben, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My father and I started Catmando Catios in the summer of 2022. He had just retired from his corporate job, and I had recently closed down my consulting business and looking for something more hands-on and meaningful.
We had known about catios for a long time because my father was friendly with David Murphy, also known as the Cat Carpenter, who had built a few Catios for us years ago. One day we were discussing both of our next steps, and my dad suggested that we combine our passions of cats, carpentry, and entrepreneurship and build Catios ourselves. Our intention was to do 1 or 2 small projects a month, it was never meant to become a full-time job.
We reached out to David, and he was extremely generous with his time. He shared a lot of his knowledge and experience, helped us with tools, and walked us through some design and building considerations we had never dealt with before. As it turned out, he was retiring from building catios right around the same time, so the timing was very fortuitous for us.
We completed our first project in late summer of 2022, and things were only slow for about a month. After that, we started booking new jobs pretty frequently. Within six months, we were consistently booked about six weeks in advance. That allowed me to expand the team by bringing on my best friend, who is as passionate about cats as anyone I know.
Since then, we’ve continued to grow and take on bigger, better, and more ambitious projects for people and their cats, and have done around 100 total Catio projects around Austin.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has definitely not been smooth all the time. When we started, I had zero knowledge of carpentry or design, so I had to learn all of those things while also building and running the business. A lot of that learning came from making mistakes, correcting them, and repeating the process until we got it right.
Whenever we encounter a construction challenge or difficulty, we always ask ourselves: How would we build this catio if we were building it for ourselves? Would we feel comfortable leaving our own cats in it? Would they be safe and happy?
That approach has led us to never leave a customer’s house with any regrets about how we built something, and no concerns about the safety of their cats. Sometimes it has meant redoing something that took hours to do the first time because it wasn’t up to the standard I would have if someone was building it for me.
Early on, there were periods when bookings were slow and we weren’t sure how quickly the business would grow. We’ve also had to deal with the Texas heat, which even though we have all lived her for 30+ years, you can never really get used to it. But as the business grew, our most common struggle became keeping up with demand. We’ve had so much interest that we frequently have to tell people they may need to wait three or four months before we can begin their project.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
CatManDo Catios builds custom outdoor spaces for cats and their people. Our projects range from small catios connected to a window, to screening in an existing porch or patio, to building an entirely new screen room with a roof. The goal is to give cats a safe way to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the outdoors while also creating an extended living space that their people can enjoy with them.
We use only the highest quality materials from the screws to the wood. Hand-picking, sanding and staining each piece ourselves, and special-ordering an extremely strong screen that cats can’t scratch through. The screen is also bug-proof, so we can transform a porch or patio into a space that both people and their cats can comfortably enjoy throughout the year.
What sets us apart is how personally invested we are in every project. We are a local, family-owned and operated Austin small business, and every catio is built to the highest standard of cat-safety and happiness. We genuinely care about enriching your cats’ lives and giving them a safe place to be outside. Most of our Catios double as spaces for people as well. These are thoughtful, beautifully wood-framed, valuable additions to our customer’s homes that transform porches / patios into usable living space.
I’m most proud of sometimes hearing from customers months or even years later, completely unprompted, about how much they and their cats still love the space. Some tell us that their catio or bug-proof screen room has made a noticeable improvement in their cats’ mood and demeanor, and that they spend all day out there enjoying their new space.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
It still feels a bit early in my career to be giving advice, but upon reflection I have been running small businesses going on 7 years now. Where does the time go? My advice to people who are just starting out is that it’s okay to struggle. If you’re finding it difficult and challenging, then you’re probably doing the right things. Overcoming those challenges is ultimately what makes the experience fulfilling.
The first business I started failed after about 18 months. But if I hadn’t gone through that experience, I wouldn’t have been in a position to start CatManDo Catios, which is now heading into its fifth year and will likely be our biggest yet. You never really know where an opportunity is going to lead you, even when that specific opportunity doesn’t work out the way you hoped.
When I was starting out, I wish I had trusted the process more. I wish I had understood that even if the current project I was working on didn’t succeed, the experience of having gone through it would lead me to whatever came next – probably would have saved myself a lot of stress along the way, you’ll never regret doing the best you can, even if it ultimately fails.
Pricing:
- Small window Catios – $2,000 and up
- Porch Catios – $5,000 and up
- Screen Room Catios – $10,000 and up
- Signature projects – custom pricing
- Indoor cat features – custom pricing
Contact Info:
- Website: https://CatManDo-Catios.com
- Instagram: @CatManDoATX
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CatManDo.Catios
