Catster Magazine - November/December 2016

C O U RT ES YTIP SY NIP

Kate Benjamin is the owner of Hauspanther LLC, founder and editor of Hauspanther.com, and co-author with Jackson Galaxy of two New York Times bestselling books,

Catification: Designing a Happy and Stylish Home for Your Cat (and You!) and Catify to Satisfy: Simple Design Solutions for Creating a Cat-friendly Home. You can also find Kate’s cat style tips in the Cat Chic section on Catster.com.

As orders increased, Milia started looking for a manufacturer to knit the tubes. Her goal was to keep all manufacturing in the U.S., so she found a U.S.-based factory to produce the tubes. The toys are then hand-stuffed and finished in the Tipsy Nip studio in Vermont.

Milia ran Tipsy Nip for a few years as she continued to work full-time in marketing for a local nonprofit. In 2012, she exhibited the Tickle Pickles at her first trade show, and everything changed. She established 25 new wholesale accounts, and business boomed. A year later, Milia took the leap and made Tipsy Nip her full-time job.

Tipsy Nip started with just a handful of products, the original 8-inch Tickle Pickle, the 12-inch XL Tickle Pickle, and the Tickle Gherkins, a tiny version of the Tickle Pickle that cats and kittens absolutely adore. Milia started experimenting with different blends of catnip and herbs to expand the product line. There are now five new Tickle Pickles: Purple Haze (catnip and valerian root), Calm Kitty Chamomile ( catnip and chamomile), Black Magic (catnip and licorice root), and Laughin’ Lemongrass (catnip and lemongrass).

Milia most enjoys creating new products she knows cats will love.

For this year’s holiday season she
created a Holiday Jingle Tickle
Pickle, a red catnip-stuffed pickle
with a jingle bell inside. All new
products are vigorously tested
by Charlie, the Tipsy Nip quality
control director and Milia’s sole
co-worker on most days. Milia
won’t sell anything that she doesn’t
feel 100 percent comfortable giving
to Charlie, and everything must
have his approval.

Before Charlie, Milia had many
other cats in her life, and her busi-
ness definitely grew out of her love
for them. “I think Tipsy Nip began
because I needed to find a way to
express my love of all cats,” she
said. “In my experience, people
who love cats want and need to
find a way to express that love. You
just want to make them as happy as
they make you.”
Over the years, Milia has
learned that it’s important to focus
on your strengths. In addition to
the Tickle Pickles, Milia designed
a line of interactive cat toys made
from wood, hemp, and cork, as a
way to expand her offerings. The
new toys didn’t sell as well as the
original Tickle Pickle; in fact, they
were detracting from the brand.

Milia eventually dropped the line and focused solely on the Tickle Pickles. This is a good business lesson: Even if you have a great idea, it’s important to assess the idea in the context of your overall business and make sure you’re concentrating efforts on the most successful ideas.

Milia believes strongly that busi-
nesses have a responsibility to give
back to the community that sup-
ports them. Tipsy Nip has worked
with several organi-
zations serving feline commu-
nities that need the most help. The
company raised money and aware-
ness for Black Cat Rescue in Boston
through a special promotion of
the Black Magic Tickle Pickle and
recently teamed up with My Cat
Kyle to raise awareness about the
need for animal-friendly domestic
violence shelters. One-hundred
percent of the proceeds from
sales of the #CatsAgainstDV Tickle
Pickle are donated to URIPALS, a
New York City-based organization
providing domestic violence safe
houses that accommodate families
and their pets.

What does the future hold for Tipsy Nip? Milia hopes to expand into international markets so cats everywhere can feel the Tickle Pickle love. Import/export regulations can make it difficult to get botanical matter, like catnip, into other countries, but Tipsy Nip is now being sold in Dubai where it is enjoyed by Emirati cats.