Today we’d like to introduce you to Leslie Gray Harmon.
Hi Leslie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m the founder & CEO of Made By Cleo. Since 2012, we’ve been making pet collars & accessories with a specialized focus on serving the cat market & its unique community of passionate & style-conscious cat lovers. Our cat collars, bow ties, bandanas, ID tags & other accessories are sold online and through brick & mortar pet boutiques & veterinary locations around the world. I’m proud to say that our company is not only female-owned but we have an incredible team of talented, artisan-calibre women makers (all based in Austin, Texas, not overseas) who sew & create the thousands of quality products that we sell.
The whole reason why I started this operation ten years ago was because of my first cat, Cleo (who was with us for 19.5 years and is responsible for the name of our company). At the time, I had this recurring problem of constantly having to buy him a new collar & tag just about every other week (not out of vanity) but because he’d lose them outside.
I distinctly remember the turning point — Cleo had come home (from his usual daytime, sanctioned outdoor adventures) naked & missing his collar & tags again. The collar itself was this terrible-looking, ratty, washed out rainbow thing that was fuzzing and fraying everywhere. I actually remember it was already looking sad and in need of replacement before it went missing. And now it was lost somewhere in the bushes or in the woods behind our house, no longer useful for us. I didn’t have a backup for him to wear, and my rule for him to be allowed to go outside on his own was that he needed to be wearing a collar & ID (or at least some obvious, visible symbol that people could identify) so people would know that he wasn’t a stray.
So, that afternoon he was forced to stay indoors (which any cat parent knows is hard to do when their cat is used to being able to go outside and is very active), I had to go drive to the store to buy him a replacement collar. I remember going to the usual aisle where you’d find cat collars and just being struck by how small and underrepresented that section was, whereas you’d look a few aisles further where the dog section was, and there was a huge glowing assortment of collars and leashes.
The cat collar selection at the time was literally an assortment of 4 disposable-looking, low-quality options. One was black and had spikes on it, the other was pink with rhinestones, and the other two were non-descript solid color options. Despite the fact that about 50% of households have a cat, it was shocking that the collar selection was so small, knowing that a large portion of those households had a cat who regularly went outdoors (necessitating the use of a collar) and wasn’t purely indoors.
All this to say, for whatever reason on that day, I decided that I could do better and that surely I wasn’t alone in my thinking that cats should have better-looking and longer-lasting collar options than the market was offering.
That night, I started doing some research and began ordering different kinds of materials to r&d my way through designing a high quality, ultra durable & stylish collar I was truly happy with. My sewing machine basically lived by my dining room table the first three months of that process, 🙂 That Fall, I released my very first collection of cat collars through my store on Etsy. It’s funny, the first sale that came in was actually from my sister! (I was so excited and sort of disappointed at the same time — but it was very sweet of her to do that). Soon after though, others orders followed suit, and things snowballed from there.
In 2015, I ended up leaving my day job /career running the design department of the software company I worked for to focus on Made By Cleo full-time. It was both a scary and exciting move for me since I was 100% solely responsible for all my housing & living expenses and couldn’t depend on a safety net in case things didn’t take off. I think sometimes we might be better off knowing we don’t have that safety net though – because you operate like failure is not ever an option.
Soon after, I moved my operations out of my home office and into a *real* office. I reinvested every penny of profit I could and hired help where I needed it. Fast forward to now…our small but mighty team of 14 is a mix of specialized staff, some work onsite and some offsite. Among our awesome crew is my husband, Alex Harmon. He joined Made By Cleo in 2018 to help run daily operations and be my managing partner. He (and the contributions of everyone else on our team) also helped make it possible for me to take time off from my busy work life to become a mom. Our daughter, Claire was born in 2019 (2 weeks early), (and I remember sending out a Valentine’s Day promo mailing for the company in between contractions in the delivery room. It was pretty crazy).
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’ll admit, it has definitely not been a smooth road to success (it is hard to imagine that it would be for anyone)! In the first five years, it felt like the biggest struggles were finding time to get everything done when it was just me and 1-2 other people then later as we hired more staff, the challenge was about hiring the *right* people (knowing what to look for / what to avoid, etc.). Getting the right processes, infrastructure & systems setup was also often challenging because there is never a huge chunk of time in the year when it feels convenient to uproot your current way of doing things in place of a brand new (though better, way more expensive) system. On that note though, I have often found it very helpful to remind myself that it just about never feels like the right time to make a big change, so knowing that, you just have to take a deep breath, dive in and make room for it. Otherwise, it will never happen.
Figuring out how to manage & minimize quality control issues when you have a lot of different hands involved and a really high standard / narrow margin for error was also something I had to learn along the way. Since my background is in design, marketing & communications (not manufacturing), the lessons I learned on the production side of things probably came a lot slower to me than others who are more familiar with this side of a product-based business. On top of that, managing inventory and raw materials is a whole other universe of complexities.
It would be remiss for me to not mention the biggest most recent struggles we faced though, having to do with COVID.
Not only has the COVID-era presented a lot of uncertainty about supply chain-related matters having to do with shortages of certain raw materials that we depend on, but it made hiring a lot more challenging, at least earlier on before there was a vaccine.
We were one of the few fortunate businesses to have the opposite problem that many others had. Instead of worrying about having to shut down due to no (or severely reduced sales) — we were struggling to scale quickly enough from preventing being crippled by the typhoon of sales (50% growth) that came in when everyone was stuck indoors and adopting pets left and right for companionship during the pandemic.
Additionally, COVID presented some significant personal challenges as a working mother / business owner, trying to get a reliable childcare solution for my very young (now three years old) daughter. All the daycares were closed and nannies were in short supply and of course, there was the issue of trust as well (regarding whom among these caregivers were living responsibly enough to not be a high-risk vector for transmitting COVID to our family (and by extension, our employees).
The key things that helped us overcome these challenges were:
1) We had & have really good relationships & rapport already in place with both our suppliers and our production / shipping team. That trust and respect goes a long way in helping ride storms like this pandemic. Our suppliers would give us advance notice (often before their other vendors) about when they anticipated shortages so we could prepare better. Our team at Made By Cleo is a small group of hard-working, truly good people and we all feel that we have a circle of trust. Every single person on the team understood how serious it would be if one of us got COVID (and potentially spread it to others in the office, thus disabling the company from being able to operate). As such, everyone was very responsible & never complained about our strict mask-wearing policy and getting vaccinated, and everyone was also generally living as safe and sensible as they could during their personal / off-hours time. We all communicated with each other about our concerns whenever they came up, and there was not a single person who didn’t give their job 110% effort. It was all hands on deck and even when we were finally able to hire more people to ease some of the load, nobody slacked. Our team is awesome and the challenges we faced last year proved to us again that we had the best of the best to ride out the storm.
2) As for childcare in a COVID-era, my husband and I were extremely lucky and grateful to have my parents step in (who were recently retired) to help us look after our daughter for most days of the week while we were at work the last two years of the pandemic. It was still quite personally challenging to get everything done that needed to be done on a 4-day workweek (I stayed home with my daughter on Mondays), but we made it work until the daycares were back open (and felt safe enough) and I owe a lot of extra thanks to my parents (and to coffee)! I honestly don’t know how any parent can make it without the help of family, friends or community in situations like this.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Made By Cleo?
Made By Cleo has become the one-stop-shop for modern cats and their humans. We offer the world’s largest selection of collars & accessories designed specifically for the cat market, with 300+ stylish, fun & unique collar designs to choose from, in addition to engraved ID tags, matching bow ties, bandanas, and other charming photo-worthy accessories. On a quarterly basis, we release new styles in cadence with the latest season’s trends and upcoming holiday themes.
Made By Cleo’s products are sold online and in shops around the world including pet boutiques, retail gift shops and veterinary facilities from Sydney to Dubai. We have been featured in Good Housekeeping, Country Living, Better Homes & Gardens, Traditional Home, Southern Living, Business Insider, LA Times, Modern Cat, Catster, OK! Magazine and other publications.
From the beginning and still to this day, our focus has been on delivering the two things that were so evidently lacking in the world of cat collars:
1) quality (both in terms of the durability of materials used and in regard to craftsmanship), and…
2) better, more abundant choices for style-conscious cat people.
It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who cared (passionately!) about these things when it came to buying cat collars, and our customers (many of whom are loyal returning ones who have been ordering from us for years) have voiced their own passion about these details through emails, DMs and reviews.
I think it also was the right decision to limit our scope of products to only what we truly, fundamentally “get” on a deep personal level, instead of trying to be all things to everyone (and fake our passion or expertise) when it comes to certain product categories. By that, I mean that we chose to limit our offerings to focus on serving the cat market. People ask us all the time why we don’t expand our options for large dogs. And the reason is definitely not because we don’t love dogs! It really comes down to 1) the materials, components, and technical & logistical considerations are completely different when you’re working with cat collars (which are so narrow) compared to larger dog collars. 2) It’s about the language and culture of our primary audience. The inside jokes & conversations you’d use with a group of cat people are totally different than what you’d share with dog people. The culture and communities are different, even if there is obviously some overlap, so we choose to focus on what we know best. 😊
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I have always loved traveling, exploring anything unfamiliar, and the rush of trying new things. I think I owe a lot of that to my Dad and the fact that I was an Army brat who bounced around from one city to the next every couple of years until we settled down in San Antonio, TX for my high school years. I was and am really into music. I grew up playing piano and later violin. It’s also how I ended up with my husband, Alex. We were both working at the same company prior to Made By Cleo, and we worked on writing a song together that I asked for his help on (I’m good at coming up with the rough ideas and he’s the one who knows how to polish it up so it’s truly amazing).
I love horror movies & Halloween all year long, and even though I never outwardly presented as a goth child when I was growing up, I hung out with a lot of them in school, listened to that kind of music, loved black cats, and all things weird and strange. I was also really into nature & animals and still am.
It is no surprise that my daughter (currently an ancient and wise three years old) is manifesting externally & proudly, all this same gothy creative spirit that I had when I was growing up (even if it was more concealed for me). She is happiest when she’s loving on her cat brother, Cosmo while dressed in all black, and Tim Burton is her honorary uncle, and she’d rather make creepy monsters out of Play-doh than watch Frozen. 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: madebycleo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madebycleo/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/madebycleo
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/madebycleo
Image Credits
All images copyright — Made By Cleo
