Overlooked No More: How Smalls Is Building The Brand Cats Deserve

Cats are 40% of the pet market, but are somehow still chronically overlooked. Every innovation goes to dogs first. Even your vet's office is built for dogs first. Matt Michaelson, cofounder and CEO of Smalls, and his team have built an incredible cat-first brand precisely because of that blind spot.

In this episode, I sit down with Matt to break down:

• Why the cat industry is structurally underinvested (which includes VCs simply saying "I don't really like cats")

• What "human-grade" actually means for pet food — and the sustainability trade-offs nobody talks about

• Ingredient splitting: the regulatory hack that lets pet brands disguise what's actually in the bag

• "Wrestling in the mud": a feedback culture where every hire is expected to disagree

• Founders Pledge, and why committing 5% early changes the giving conversation later

Big thanks to Matt for coming on the pod and sharing the playbook behind Smalls.

⏱️ Chapter Markers:

00:00 — Why cats keep getting overlooked

01:05 — What is Smalls? Cat-first brand, human-grade nutrition

02:09 — What "human-grade" actually means (and the sustainability trade-off)

04:26 — Health impact: allergies, ingredient splitting, and the regulatory hack

06:31 — Why Matt chose cats: the market psychology nobody's pricing in

07:20 — Why every VC and pet brand defaults to dogs first

09:21 — From growth marketing to founder: building demand in a commoditized stack

11:48 — Emerging channels worth watching (and why DTC is just a channel, not a model)

13:17 — AI-native orgs: how the team uses AI without becoming a tech company

16:01 — Human-supervised AI teams and what entry-level jobs look like now

17:26 — "Wrestling in the mud": the air-grievances feedback culture

19:39 — Founders Pledge: committing 5% early changes the whole conversation

21:05 — Ingredient transparency: percentages on the label, fixing the labeling game

23:32 — MPD's closing thoughts on the cat opportunity

Links:

• Matt Michaelson: LinkedIn
• Smalls: Website, LinkedIn, X
• Interplay: Website, LinkedIn, X
• MPD: LinkedIn, X