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YTIP
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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.
Charlie overseeing
operations in the studio
for more, visit
tipsynip.com