Female Founders
BY KERRY PIPES
TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH
Heidi Ganahl kept her focus on her dream
H
eidi Ganahl says she has always
been an entrepreneur and dog
lover. “My husband and I were
characterized by two things: we thought
up crazy, wild ideas and we loved taking
care of our two dogs,” she says of their
life in the early 1990s. They even wrote
a business plan for a “fun doggy daycare
business” with a camp-like theme they
thought would be great someday. But
then tragedy struck: her husband Bion
was killed in an airplane accident.
“That was a tough period,” recalls Ganahl. “It took a few years before I came
back around to the idea of our dog day-
NAME: Heidi Ganahl
TITLE: CEO, founder, Top Dog
COMPANY: Camp Bow Wow
SYSTEM-WIDE REVENUE: $86 million
NO. OF UNITS: 180 (6 corporate)
INTERNATIONAL UNITS: 1 (Nova Scotia)
GROWTH PLANS: 500 locations in 5 years
PUBLIC OR PRIVATE? Public
YEAR COMPANY FOUNDED: 2000
YEAR STARTED FRANCHISING: 2003
YOUR YEARS IN FRANCHISING: 12
care business.” That’s when her brother
Patrick encouraged her to use money she
had left from the accident settlement to
start the company she had always been
passionate about.
In December 2000, she opened the first
Camp Bow Wow, in Denver. Its success
led to a second location—and a timely
suggestion from one of her clients who
happened to be a franchisee of Mrs. Fields
Cookies. “He suggested franchising as
a tool for expanding my company,” she
says. With some research, planning, and
the usual paperwork, three years later she
began franchising the brand.
Franchiseupdate I S S U E I , 2016
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