Why I Founded Zoom Room

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a dog trainer.

That statement tends to surprise people, given that I wrote the bestselling book in the field and built the largest dog training business in the country. But I think it is precisely the point. Because if I had come up as a traditional dog trainer, I would have built a traditional dog training business — one-on-one sessions, command-focused curriculum, a finite course you complete and move on from. And that model, while fine for what it is, cannot scale. It cannot create lasting behavioral change. And it misses what people actually want.

What people actually want is a socialized dog. Calm, confident, and well-adjusted in the real world. A dog that can go with them to coffee shops, offices, hotels, and kids' activities. A dog they can trust around guests, kids, and other dogs. In short, they want their dog to be part of their life — not a project.

That insight is the foundation of Zoom Room. And it did not come from studying dogs. It came from studying people.

The Insight

Before Zoom Room, I spent my career in education and brand design. I built a national learning platform for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. I consulted for Microsoft and Nintendo on how to teach complex things to non-expert audiences. The through line of my career has always been the same question: How do you design a system that produces consistent outcomes through people who are not experts?

Dog training, when I first encountered it, was the opposite of that. It was a cottage industry driven by individual talent. The best trainers were amazing; the average ones were inconsistent; there was no brand, no standard, no system. The entire model depended on finding and retaining skilled labor — which is the single hardest constraint to scale against.

So I asked a different question. Instead of "How do we find great dog trainers?", I asked "How do we design a system that produces a great experience even when the trainer is new?"

The answer turned out to be the group class format combined with positive reinforcement and owner-present participation. In a Zoom Room class, the trainer does not need to be an expert behaviorist. They need to be warm, clear, and organized. The curriculum does the heavy lifting. The treats do the motivating. The dogs do the socializing. And the owners do the learning.

This is the key: we do not train dogs. We train the people who love them. The owner is the one who goes home and reinforces the behavior every day. The owner is the one who builds the lasting bond. Our job is to set up that owner — in a room full of other dogs and other owners — to feel successful. And we engineer that outcome every single visit.

Why Socialization, Not Obedience

For most of the history of dog training, the product has been obedience. Sit, stay, come, heel. A finite set of commands drilled in a finite number of sessions. You finish the course. You get a certificate. You go home. Most of your dog's behavior in real life does not change.

Socialization is fundamentally different. A socialized dog is not a dog that can perform commands on cue. A socialized dog is a dog that can handle real life — novel environments, unfamiliar people, other dogs, unexpected sounds. That kind of confidence does not come from repetition in a backyard. It comes from regular, structured, real-world exposure in a community setting, guided by a professional.

You cannot outsource socialization. You cannot achieve it through a YouTube video or a board-and-train program or a private lesson in your living room. You have to show up, with your dog, in a room with other dogs and other people, week after week. Which is exactly what Zoom Room is designed for.

That is why our clients stay for years, not weeks. We did not build a six-week course. We built a weekly ritual — more analogous to a gym membership or a yoga practice than to a training program. You do not graduate Zoom Room. You belong to it.

The Emotional Operating System

The part of this model that took me the longest to articulate — but that I believe is the most important — is the emotional architecture.

Every other pet service business operates in damage-control mode. A groomer hopes your dog comes back uninjured. A daycare runs loud and stressed, with no proof your dog had a good day. You pick up your pet and leave. No bond. No retail. No real relationship.

Zoom Room flips that entirely. You walk in with your dog and you stay. You are given clear instructions and high-quality treats. You focus. Your dog listens. In a single visit, you feel like a better dog owner. You go home and tell your spouse. You write a five-star review. You post on Instagram. You come back.

We are engineered to produce positive emotional outcomes — for the dog, for the owner, and for the staff. Even if the trainer is brand-new and the class is just okay, the client still feels proud, successful, and connected. That emotional reward is what drives retention, lifetime value, and referrals. It is why we have thousands upon thousands of five-star reviews and a willingness-to-recommend score comparable to Apple and Amazon. It is why our customer acquisition costs stay low and our lifetime revenue per customer stays high. It is why our top-performing stores deliver margins that would be exceptional in any service category.

We set up franchisees to succeed. They set up customers to succeed. Customers are given games and tools to set their dogs up to succeed. That chain of success is the flywheel. And it runs on emotion, not compliance.

What We're Building

Zoom Room has locations across the United States today, with a modeled path to national scale. Our same-store sales growth runs well above the pet industry benchmark. Our top-performing stores deliver strong revenues and healthy net margins. We have significantly reduced buildout costs and compressed the timeline from lease signing to grand opening. New trainers are classroom-ready in weeks instead of months.

But the numbers are the output. The input is the team.

In the past year, I have had the privilege of building a leadership bench that I would put against any company in franchising. Ron Coughlin, the former CEO of Petco and former president of HP's Personal Systems business, is our incoming Chairman. Soumik Chatterjee, who ran strategy at Petco and led a major IPO at HP, is our CFO. Don Allen, who built and operated Orangetheory studios for three decades, runs operations. Herb Heiserman, who designed experiential retail for Starbucks and Whole Foods at CBRE, leads growth and design. Jackie Mendes, a seasoned franchise development executive, is accelerating our expansion pipeline. Alex Samios, who helped grow Dogtopia to almost 300 locations, has been on our board since 2017. Anthony Polazzi, with 25 years in private equity and over 50 acquisitions, is both a board member and a multi-unit franchisee.

These are people who have built and run some of the largest consumer brands in the world. They did not join Zoom Room because it is a nice dog training company. They joined because they see what I see: an open category with no national competitor, a proven unit-economic model, and a consumer shift — dogs as family, socialization as infrastructure — that is still in its early innings.

The Long View

Zoom Room is already the highest-rated dog training business in America. We are already the only scalable national brand built around socialization. But the larger opportunity is not just the gym. It is the standard.

The majority of American households now have dogs — more than have children. Municipalities, landlords, airlines, insurers, and employers are all grappling with the growing presence of dogs in public life. Someone is going to define what a well-behaved dog looks like — and certify it at scale. We intend to be that authority.

We did not invent dog training. We are building the infrastructure for modern dog ownership. The place where dogs and people learn to live together in the real world.

We don't train dogs. We train the people who love them.

And we are just getting started.