The Ledger
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Competitor LitterMaid offered approximately $200,000 to buy the Litter-Robot patents
“One was from our, the competitor litter made. And if I recall, I think it was a number around 200,000 to buy the patents.”
Baxter financed Litter-Robot retooling via supplier credit and a 12% loan
“Without a bank loan, without, you know, investors, I was actually able to retool the product by amortizing the cost of the tooling with one supplier that I worked with, and then I was able to take out a loan A two-year loan at 12% interest with another supplie…”
Shipping Litter-Robots overseas cost the same as assembling them locally
“We studied this, and we found out that what it would cost us to ship the product from overseas to our warehouse is what it would cost us to assemble it locally.”
Whisker was valued at $55 million during its 2019 private equity deal
“Well, the business at the time was valued at fifty-five million.”
Baxter's father refinanced his home to invest $35,000 for 35% of Whisker
“And so for 35,000 dollars which they actually had to refinance their home to get the cash for that 35,000 dollars, he got 35% of the business.”
Whisker adopted early e-commerce out of necessity due to low profit margins
“We were into e-commerce very early, just kind of by necessity due to the size of the product, and we didn't have a lot of margin in the product either.”
Whisker generated no profit for its first five years in business
“There was no profit for the first five years.”
Retailers demanded 50% margins when the Litter-Robot only yielded 30%
“Most of the retailers wanted 50 points on the product and there just wasn't a way that we could Provide that. We were maybe making 30 points at most on the product at the time.”
Whisker had sold approximately 50,000 Litter-Robot units by 2010
“By 2010, we had sold probably about 40 to 50,000 units.”
Pondera Holdings purchased exactly 50% of Whisker in 2019
“They actually bought 50% exactly. Of the company, and then Jacob and I own the other 50%.”