Cooper's Story
A founder letter
Cooper's story.
It started with a vet bill and a lot of greasy couch stains.
Photo of Cooper goes here.
[Replace with a real photo — phone quality is fine, better than fine actually.]
This is the part of every brand's website where the founder writes something polished and inspiring. I'm going to try to skip the polished part and just tell you what actually happened.
How it started
Cooper is a [COOPER_BREED]. We've had him since [COOPER_ADOPTION_CONTEXT]. For the first [N] years of his life, his paws were a non-event. He was a dog. He had paws. They worked.
Then something changed. He'd come back from a walk and immediately drop onto the kitchen floor and start licking. Not the casual grooming all dogs do — focused, urgent licking. He'd keep going for 20, 30 minutes. By the end he'd have those rust-colored saliva stains between his toes that I now know mean "this has been going on long enough to discolor the fur."
So I did what every modern dog parent does. I searched "why is my dog licking his paws" at 11pm and went down a rabbit hole.
The things we tried that didn't work
[WHAT_YOU_TRIED — 2–3 specific products by name. Examples: Musher's Secret left a wax film on the floor. A $30 "natural" balm from a pet boutique was basically scented coconut oil. Paw wipes, oatmeal soaks, a $40 supplement — nothing moved the needle in three weeks.]
And every product I tried, I'd think the same thing: why does this look exactly like what the category sold ten years ago?
The moment that changed it
[THE_VET_MOMENT — the pivot point in 3–5 sentences. A vet visit, a friend who knew, a moment of frustration where you Googled "copper peptides for dogs" because you'd just used them on your own face. Whatever it actually was.]
That was when it clicked.
Why pet care is 5 years behind skincare
Human skincare moved on from petroleum and beeswax a decade ago. Today's products are built around active ingredients with real science behind them — peptides, niacinamide, ceramides, hyaluronic acid. The serum on my bathroom counter cost $80 and was formulated by a chemist who'd spent five years on this single product.
The paw balm on the pet store shelf next to the bag of treats? Beeswax, shea butter, and a label that said "natural." The same formulation that existed in 1985.
It's not that legacy products are bad — they're fine. Beeswax does form a barrier. Shea butter does moisturize. But the gap between "this is technically working" and "this is actually solving the problem I have" is enormous — and the pet category, with one or two exceptions, hadn't closed it.
Cooper deserved better than 1985's paw balm.
What I started doing about it
[THE_BUILD_STORY — 4–6 sentences. "I started ordering ingredients on Amazon and making batches in my kitchen." "I called a private-label cosmetic chemist who normally formulates for skincare brands and asked if she'd ever worked on a pet product." Specific, real, not corporate.]
What came out the other side is what you can reserve today. A balm built around the same peptide family veterinary dermatologists are starting to study for paw-pad regeneration. Fast-absorbing — 90 seconds, no floor stains. Safe if licked, because we knew from week one that "safe if licked" couldn't be an asterisk on the label. It had to be the foundation of the formulation.
Cooper's paws went from rust-colored saliva stains and every-night licking sessions to smooth. Not in a marketing-claim way. In a "I noticed last week that I hadn't seen him lick a paw in months" way.
That's when I decided this needed to be a brand, not a kitchen project.
What we believe
A few principles, in no particular order.
🔬
Pet products should be held to the same evidence standard as human products. If we wouldn't accept "trust me, it's natural" from our skincare, our dogs shouldn't have to.
🛡
"Safe if licked" should be the floor, not a feature. It's the foundation of the formulation, not an asterisk on the label.
✅
Cancel-anytime from your account, no email-to-cancel friction. If the product is good, you'll stay. Dark-pattern subscriptions are a sign of a brand that doesn't believe in itself.
📝
Transparency about ingredients, sourcing, and ownership is non-optional. It's all on the FAQ →
🩺
Veterinary professionals who treat skin conditions for a living should be involved in formulating products for skin conditions. We're building a vet advisory panel as we grow.
🐶
The dog who licks his paws raw at 11pm deserves a solution that actually works. That's the entire reason this brand exists.
What's next
Shipping starts September 2026. If you've read this far, you should reserve a kit — partly because the launch price is the best price this product will ever be, and partly because if you're the kind of person who reads a founder letter to the end, you're the kind of person we built this for.
And reach out if you want. Our contact form goes to me, Adam. Tell me about your dog. Tell me what you tried that didn't work. Tell me what I'm missing about your situation. We're in early enough that what early customers say genuinely shapes what we build next.
Cooper says hi.
— Adam Koszyk
Founder, Cooper's Paw
(Cooper is currently asleep on the rug.)
Ready when you are
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$5 holds your $24.99 launch price. Refundable anytime before September 2026.
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