Good morning Reptile Entrepreneurs, Today we are going to talk with Josh Willard from Josh’s Frogs about how he built a thriving businesses in  the reptile community and even placed in Inc magazine’s top 5000 fastest growing businesses. And it all started from a dart frog in his apartment living room.

This interview is an important one to me as it embodies two core foundations of this podcast. Have you seen my tag line – The Reptile Entrepreneur Podcast, Creating successful and  responsible businesses in the reptile world. “Successful” would be financially and emotionally. By that I mean that you are able to live a comfortable and happy life with a business in the reptile community. So, that is for you personally. “responsible” is for the community. It is the core values that you run your business by. How does your business make the community a better place?

I have known Josh for many years. I have watched his company, Josh’s Frogs, being built up. But not only in the financially successful way, but also as a firm example of consciously and deliberately using its position to make the community a better place. In this interview, we get a view of the core values that drive Josh’s Frogs.

Josh’s story shows how you can build a business and be successful even if there are already successful businesses doing the same thing already. When Josh started there already were large ecommerce companies offering Reptile supplies. Yet Josh had no problem building his dry goods business right along side. And these other businesses are still going strong The lesson is that the reptile industry is growing and we businesses are having a hard time keeping up. Don’t waste your time fighting people in the community for some misplaced sense that you need to battle your way into a position. You can create a new position! In fact, we need you to create a new position. We need people that can work with the new customers always coming in. Don’t get focused on taking someone else’s customers.

But, more importantly, Josh Willard has shown and continues to show that you can build a successful business with values. The bottom line is that you will be richer if you put money ahead of principles. As we discussed, his commitment to offering captive bred animals is less lucrative than churning through wild caught imports. But what kind of community does that build? The team at Josh’s Frogs has put their foot down and drawn a line in the sand. They are giving up profits to create a better community. One thing I did not know was that this commitment was not just Josh dragging employees along on some crusade. You have a whole company that is devoted to being a better company. What this means is 1 – if anything happens to Josh, the company will go on exactly as it is now and 2 – that we, as a community, are worth saving. It isn’t just me speaking into the ether spouting philosophical optimism that we can build a better community. It is showing that there are pockets of people all over this community that have been living it for their whole life. Of course, this isn’t a surprise to me. I knew these existed and the whole purpose of this podcast was not to present this “new” idea of responsible business, but to provide a way that the community could see that it is already happening. That your revenue can be 8 digits and you can still retain those core values that you had when you first looked at that frog’s face with amazed wonder. The only difference is that, now, you can use that wonder to fuel conservation efforts and affect what happens in this world. The Josh’s Frogs team is an inspiration to me and an example of what we can be. Having a successful and responsible business in the reptile community is not just a pie in the sky idea. At this point, it is now just meeting the standard already set. And that is a good thing.

We have the opportunity to do great things with the community growing around us. I can’t tell you how incredible it is to be able to bring these stories of ingenuity, determination, and passion to you. I will continue to do my job in bringing these stories to you and, please, use these examples as inspiration to create that successful and responsible business I can feature here over the coming years!