Making $2500 Per Day with a Luxury Dog Hotel | Undercover Millionaire

What's up you guys? It's Graham here, and I'm on a mission to find the most unique ways to make money. Today, I think I found it.

Hi, my name is Josh. I'm 21 years old. My girlfriend, Cara, and I make $2,500 a day running a Doggy Daycare. Zumies is a dog boarding and daycare facility. Um, so what we do is we keep dogs overnight when parents are going on vacation, and then we also do daycare. So if parents are going to work and they don't want their pups to stay at home by themselves all day, they get to play with friends.

How did you come up with the idea for Zumies?

My dad and I had been talking about starting a business forever, and I love dogs. I've always loved dogs. Just sorry, I just hit the camera. My German Shepherd's my baby. I got her when I was—when I turned 15. So we just kind of winged it and hoped for the best. We knew that there was a demand, 'cause when we moved here, there was nothing for our dogs. We didn't really feel comfortable; everywhere was very, uh, very like commercialized, and we wanted to be like a home style, very personal.

Right when you walk in, you walk into this really white room. So we painted white on purpose just to make it really inviting and make it seem very clean too, 'cause you walk right in. Then we don't have a desk, so we have this thing where we're standing so we can really interact with the dogs. So like, we don't sit behind a desk; we get down with the dogs, and we pet them. We get to be more personable with the customer instead of just being like a face behind a desk.

Then as we come back, this is where the dogs will just be running through this hallway. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi! Hey, come here, come here. Oh, there! We have five grandchildren, and I have more pictures on my phone of B than I do my grandchild. I know that sounds bad.

Tell them that I think they know. These are the executive suites. So these are all like 4T x 6 ft, and these are where the bigger dogs stay. All the dogs' names are right here on the top left. So this dog's name is Tip. Okay, um, whenever they have this black name instead of a red name, that means they're in group play, so we'll get to play with them outside.

Oh, I can't wait! What was the cost of the buildout of doing something like this? Basically, every room you see is like $2,000, so it's just however many we have, which we have like 20, so it's whatever—that is. So this is about $40,000 worth of roughly.

So, what type of person spends it?

It could be, you know, hundreds of dollars a month on a Doggy Daycare like this. Yeah, so people that work a lot—they want their dog to be outside. They want their dog socialized, as well as if you're just, uh, maybe a senior citizen, and you want to go play Bingo or something, you can give us your dog, and we'll socialize them. They'll be tired when they get home. There's a lot of benefits of doggy daycare. They look forward to coming. So because I'm busy during the day, it keeps them exercised. They eat. The staff is very caring. I'm very pleased. Did that sound corny?

Oh, no, that was—it's all true. I need a break, so they're going to stay here with their second family. Was that good enough? Did I say any poor grammar? You know I'm from New Orleans. You sure you didn't hear any poor grammar in there? 'Cause we can refilm it.

So, we tried to make this a really high-end, like luxury experience for the owners and the dogs. The glass fronts really reduced the stress. They aren't just looking through a wire. It's way cleaner because we don't have to clean between every wire, so we just get to wipe down the glass, sanitize it. It keeps everything really, really hygienic. You don't want sicknesses going around. Kennel cough is a huge thing, so we do the most with cleaning. Each room has a bunch of these filters here. These are all UVC lighting; it kills all the germs. It's just one of those extra steps we take in addition to just cleaning. It purifies the air. We just replace these filters monthly, and it kills all the germs.

So, when did you first get interested in business?

At 16, I started mobile detailing out of my car, and that was like my gateway into it. Then my senior year of high school, I was really into video games. All of high school, so I started a video game YouTube channel. Built that thing up, uh, to like 80,000 subscribers before we moved.

So how much money did you make from that? Like, I think lifetime earnings is like $44,000.

Why not continue that? 'Cause it seems like if you could make 40-something thousand in high school doing that, you could easily have made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah, YouTube was really lonely. I would just sit in the room all day, play video games, edit. When I did stuff with video games, I started not liking video games anymore. So it was like my hobby or whatever at the time. I started hating it because it became my job.

This might be a good thing, just like show you how to get out the door.

Yeah, okay, go for it. So like whenever you're getting out this door, you want to position yourself so you could just slip right through, or else you're going to have dogs just like running between your feet. So you got to go really fast, or else you're going to have like 10 dogs inside.

Really?

Yes! So are you ready? So this area is medium to small dog area. So it's really just for dogs like under, like 40 lb because it's not huge, but it's all shaded with this huge tree. It's all fenced in. All of our fences are 6 ft tall, so the dogs can't get out. Obviously not, no one tries, but if they did try, they couldn't.

This is Cayenna. Uh, Cayn is one of our sassiest little babies here. She loves to talk and give us her little roos. And Ruby is probably a fan favorite here at Zumies. Uh, she is such an angel. She loves every single person, every single dog she meets. As soon as she meets you, she will run up to you with the most wiggly tail ever. She's our little wiggle girl.

By the way, you probably didn't notice this, but a lot of the shots filmed in this video are filmed with the brand new OnePlus Open, who's sponsoring today's video. They've recently released their first foldable phone, which is one of the lightest devices in the category—making it really easy to work with in just about any condition. In fact, they're setting the standard for lightness in the industry with a foldable phone that weighs just like the best-selling iPhone Pro Max and features a compact, slim, durable body that holds great in the hand, even when you're multitasking. I've been using this throughout the day, and it's been incredibly easy to use. It's very durable, extremely slim, fits easily in your pocket, and there's patented crease minimalism so that you could open and close it without worrying about functionality.

I've also really been enjoying the filming capabilities of this camera, so just keep an eye out for it throughout the video.

How did you get the money to start it up, and how much was involved?

Yeah, so right when we moved here, I bought a van 'cause my initial thing was I wanted to do pressure washing, soft washing of houses. So I bought that van. We painted it ourselves; we did like spray cans and whatnot. Then we ended up selling it once this building came up for sale. 'Cause my dad was like, "Hey, do you want to do that business we've always been talking about?" And I was like, "Absolutely!" So we sold that van. Cara sold her car at the time, so she didn't have a car anymore. We were unemployed; we just went for it, so it was really a leap of faith at that time, and it's really been just a journey ever since we opened a year and a half ago.

How involved is Cara in the business?

Cara's more involved than I am at this point. She's here almost every day, 'cause she just loves the customers so, so much, where I'm more on the back end just doing the marketing and whatnot. So she decided also not to go to college. She actually took the leap of faith with me. She put that trust in me and belief in me, which I'm forever grateful for. And she just fully came on board, and me and her ran this thing just us for the first, I would say, four months.

Why do you think she took that leap of faith?

I think you would have to ask her.

How often do you eat here?

Once a week at least. Yeah, probably at least once a week, not more. We met in high school in an AP government class. Her best friend was the twins with my best friend, so we always just like ran into each other, got to know each other, and started dating.

So I talked to Josh first, and I made it my mission for him to be my best friend. So anytime we would see each other, I would run up crazy enthusias—like probably over the top, too much. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, hey best friend!" Like speaking into existence, basically, until he finally talked back to me.

You cannot tell, but Josh in high school was very shy and reserved, so it took a lot. It took a lot to break into a shell. He looked like he wanted to run away from me anytime I would run up to him. But eventually, we got there.

My parents worked together, and I was very skeptical about working with a significant other. I'll be honest, we had a lot of conversation about it, but I don't think it could go any better than it does. Um, we definitely both have our roles, and they work seamlessly together. I think that we make a really good pair and partnership.

Do you ever get tired of the barking?

No, I mean, I just go to sleep, and I just hear barking in my dreams, and that's really like—that's really our life, just barking and dogs, so it doesn't get to us.

Hey guys! Hey guys! Hey! Hi! I actually really like this! I don't know about the poop and the slobber—are the two things for me—it's a little iffy, but it seems like a very happy place to work.

How often do you step in dog poop?

Daily, every time. Every time. Every time! A lot every day! It's every day! Oh! Oh! Did I step in? Gosh! I thought I was going to outsmart you on that one!

Whatever, this is probably the not-so-nice part about this. I'm not going to—poop! Just the smell of it, the texture of it, the thought of it just really makes me gag.

How did you get your first client?

We started going around to condos, hotels, HOAs, and just handing out brochures, just trying to get people in the door. I would say the first week it was probably me and Cara and like maybe a dog or two. That first week was really, really slow, and then we just picked up, picked up, went from 1 to 5 to 10, and then some days we're at like 30, 40, and it just picked up to the point where we needed to start hiring people, and that was crazy.

Yeah, I drove by, and I saw the sign. I was like, "Oh my God, that's such a cute name!" So I Googled them, and I think we were probably in like the first week—like the first customers—not first customers, but like in that first week. So when they create their profiles, they have a little space where they let us know how they found us. Most say Word of Mouth, Facebook, and then Google reviews. Um, so even if we're not at the very top of that search engine, they look at our reviews, and we do have the highest reviews in the county right now.

So this is the bag we give everyone for tours. So it comes in like a little—like we tried to inspire it by like the Lulu B, so this has all the pricing front and back. It's actually a good price—unlimited daycare, $250. That's 20 visits per month. Really good price! It's a really good price, and a lot of people take advantage of it. It was like our grand opening price, and we haven't changed it yet. But I feel like that's way too low. It's like $12 a day!

Yeah, not a lot of people use every single day, so it's kind of like a gym model in that sense. But we will probably raise that—that was just for grand opening, just to get people in, 'cause the daycare really fuels the boarding as well. People that use us for daycare, when they go out of town, they're going to use us for boarding as well.

Who is your first employee?

So our first employee—he's not with us anymore, but he's not dead. I need to not say that! How do I say it? He's not working here anymore. So our first employee—he's not working here anymore. He was just this random DoorDash driver.

You have a bug on your tooth!

I do too!

Our first employee was just a DoorDash driver that was delivering for us. He came in, and he was like, "This is awesome! Can I work here?" And I was like, "Sure!" 'Cause we needed help. It was right before 4th of July—we opened in May. So our first employee was the 4th of July, and he came on just for a couple days here and there, and he really just helped us get through that holiday, and then he ended up doing his own thing, so he's not with us anymore.

He's alive! He just doesn't work here anymore.

Yes, correct.

These are all the dogs that are checked in for the day. This is the daycare side, and then this is the boarding side. So there's always more borders at the facility, at least at ours, than daycare. Daycare is going to be just daytime, mostly play from 7:00 to 6:00, so that's going to be in the yards with other dogs. The overnight care is our boarding side, so they have their own accommodations where they sleep, eat, go about their daily routines, and have that special time like you would have at home where they have their own place to lay their head at night.

Really use like a hotel; it's like you have room service, and then you check out.

You turn it over for anyone?

Yeah, exactly, and that's kind of what we wanted it to be like.

It's very cool!

Yeah, it's a dog cot! These are from Canda, the brand, and they're really—they're like bulletproof, so dogs can chew on them all day. The rooms are all 4x6, and then the bed takes up like probably a fourth of the room, so they get all that space. Two dogs can comfortably sit on this bed, which is awesome.

What point was the business making enough money that you realize, like, "Wait a second, this could be something big?"

I would say probably at the six-month mark is when we started seeing that because we were full almost every weekend. Uh, we had employees, we couldn't keep up, we were just—we were just having to hire people and hire people and hire people, and then we ran out of space. So we decided we have to expand or we had to go get another location, which we chose to expand. But then it's just the community started just tooting us up. We won the Best of Bay, which is like a little award thing here. Um, our Google reviews started shooting up, our Facebook reviews, and people really showed that they like the brand. So we just had to keep—we have to keep going for that.

You have to be so on top of everything 'cause if you mess up one thing, it could be like—if you forget to medicate a dog, for example, it's like if you don't keep charts and you don't keep organized, you could really like mess something up. You have to—you have to not just be in it because you like dogs; you have to be in it because you're organized, you like the people, you like the dogs. You have to like every aspect of it, not just dogs. A lot more to it.

All right, Graham, it's time to do a bath, so we're going to be doing S's bath. He's a big doodle, so we're going to want to put an apron on so we don't get wet.

Yeah, you don't have to get his face. We can wash his face by hand.

Yeah, oh, we got this! Oh my God, so far, this is really nice. Uh, it's an easy bath, but then again, I'm getting an easy dog. I would imagine if it were like a little one who's maybe a little feisty, it would not be as easy as this guy.

Oh! Oh gosh! So how many washes do you usually do in a day?

Uh, on—it depends on the day. Like a day where there's a lot of checkouts and boarding, we might do 10.

10 in a day?

Really! So you got to—yeah, this bathtub stays occupied pretty much at all times. Just do like three sprays. Boom, boom, boom. Just don't get in his eyes.

I actually really like this, and I can search for the cheapest place to buy it online.

But Graham, how the OnePlus Open Canvas is powered by Google's Android software for foldable smartphones. With this technology, you can view three applications simultaneously when the device is unfolded—an experience that even Apple's iOS doesn't offer. Plus, when I'm in the middle of something with the larger screen, I'm able to easily multitask and use apps like Google Lens to search for a product, and then I could buy it in seconds without losing my place on the screen. It honestly feels like I have a mini desktop right here in my hand.

I also really like that if you're on a break and you just want to relax for a little bit, you can watch YouTube in a proper size that's not on a tiny little screen like this. It makes it so enjoyable. And then if you want to comment, it's so easy—all the comments are right here at the bottom of the screen.

What are you doing with the money that you're making from here? Because it's a substantial amount every month. How much do you live off of?

We don't take anything. We take, I think it's after tax, $790 a week, so we take just a little bit. Just enough to pay our expenses 'cause we just want to grow the business and get more locations and make more impact on everyone in different communities as well.

And that's split between the both of you?

Yeah, $790 between us both. Less than $400 a week each.

Yeah, we live comfortably. We don't really notice it. We get to do what we want to do, and you know, we've got a car that gets us from point A to point B. We love our house; our dogs are happy and comfortable. So as long as we're comfy, it doesn't really matter how much it's hitting our bank account. We're pretty much full every single weekend, so we decided we either need to make a new store or renovate back here.

So this is our old big dog yard that we're walking into, and it's becoming another new building, which is going to be about double the size of the building we were in. All day they just finished the block, and they're framing next week. It's probably going to be about two more months until we're done with it.

This is massive!

Yeah, what? 4,000 ft?

Yeah, 3,800 roughly.

I'm close! I'm good!

I gotta say, you are close! I had no idea!

So they're going to connect all the concrete up, and it's just going to be like one seamless integration there.

And so how many dogs could you fit back here?

We're going to add 40 of those nicer suites, so it's all going to be the nice ones instead of the condo ones.

Okay, so that'll add 32 of those, and then we're adding eight new rooms. I'm really excited for the expansion; I think that's going to be awesome. My dogs will be the first ones to get to watch the TV in the new doggy room.

So what do you mean TV in the new doggy room?

Yeah, TV in the new doggy room!

So, yeah, Stony loves Netflix.

Is there actually going to be a TV?

Yes! This is my first time hearing about this!

So what is this?

There's supposed to be like a new condo coming for—I have two like 100 lb dogs, so um, it's supposed to be like a new Executive Suite, and they have like their own little personal doggy TVs. My dogs like love TV, so yeah, it's going to be awesome!

And so what are their favorite shows? What do they like watching?

Um, Stony likes dog YouTube. He likes watching like little weenie dogs play on YouTube.

He does?

Yeah! But I've heard dogs love Bluey, so we might try that out.

Bluey? It's like the current kids' show?

Really?

Yeah.

It's like—you know what Peppa Pig is?

Okay, well, me either! Um, I've never seen Peppa Pig.

Why put TVs in it? That seems a little bougie, a little excessive.

It is a bit, but it's good background sound. Dogs feel more at home. Like maybe they don't watch the TV per se—dogs might, but for the most part, if they just have that sound, they'll feel like they're on the couch at home.

So it's like it's a little bit of comfort level.

It's a little bit of, yeah, it could be gimmicky yet in a sense.

But then what's this going to be here?

So these two doors are leading out to play yards, so this is going to be the large dog yard out here. Just say like a fence is going to be like here, for example.

Yeah!

And then the small yard will be here, and we'll also have an indoor playroom. So when it rains, when it's hot, when it's cold— it doesn't really get cold here, but I was wondering—what do you do when it rains?

When it rains, we run every dog inside and just hope for the best, really.

And it's not fun! That's why we did this!

Really?

Do you ever worry about maybe like not filling this up with enough?

I'm not worried about it because we're so full, and we have to turn away like 15-20 people some weekends, like the holiday weekends. So it's like I don’t doubt that we're going to fill it up, and we could even fill up this, and that would be awesome.

We have the best customers ever here at Zumies! They are so supportive, and we would do anything for them.

You can ask them anything, and they'll let you know.

Everybody seems to love our dog, so I mean, he's excited to come here.

Josh, one of the owners, showed us around. He showed us the kennels, the play yard. He explained everything; he explained the prices, so I was really excited because I have two puppies.

Yeah, and how do they like it here?

They love it! They look forward to coming. They send an email every day with three pictures, a little demeanor, "Happy Miss Mommy Needed Hugs," and two to five sentences. I mean, it's just—it’s just something, you know? You miss them, and you want to make sure they're happy, and this place makes them happy.

How did you come up with the report card that gets sent every evening?

'Cause that was something we would want. Like, what would we want with our dogs? We want to know what's going on: like if something happens, I want to know who my dog played with that day or like a picture of my dog even would do wonders. Not a lot of places do that, or they charge you for it. We just include it with every boarding guest just because it's so important to us.

So during the day in the play yards, while dogs are enjoying group play and participating in play with their friends, we send out and take pictures for daily reports, and then these go home to their parents at the end of the night between 6:00 and 7:00.

And these are sent to our overnight borders. Hip had a great day playing with her friends. Her best friend was Marlo, and then we'll scroll past. She didn't have any health notes or concerns. And then we upload our picture for the day, and there it is. And that will be sent home to her mom, shows her a happy, nice, smiling face. Looks like she enjoyed her day, and then we just press create, and it sends on over.

What are your thoughts about running a business with somebody you're not married to yet?

At the end of the day, marriage is just a legal agreement. You can have any kind of agreement that you want. I think you just have to have full trust at that point in your significant other. He trusts me; I trust him. Um, and I would say if you're married, maybe that's just kind of a safety net that is making you feel better. Um, but anything can change in the blink of an eye, so I feel 100% comfortable not being married.

Are there plans in the future?

Maybe.

What's your advice for any other young entrepreneurs out there who might want to do something similar?

Uh, take the leap of faith. Hold on! I got to say more than that. Yeah, I got to say a little more. I got to say a little more than that. Take the leap! Yeah, jump off!

My thoughts overall are it's really impressive. It's a really good business. My biggest concern is possibly scaling this and building it up in another community that you don't live in full-time. And then I'm worried splitting your time between locations means that you're going to get less FaceTime here. It seems as though a lot of your customers come here for you guys. I mean, obviously, you're in a great business, but like they love you. I think regardless they come, and they want to see your faces, they want to talk to you, and they love the service. So replicating that somewhere else, I think, is going to be the biggest challenge.

Oh, my other criticism: I think you could raise prices!

So I know your customers probably don't want to hear that. I'm sorry.

You know what? My favorite part of the day was the photos that the OnePlus Open took. They were so good, and look how big it is! It's bigger than yours!

Oh, and by the way, I just want to say that this has been my first full day of using the OnePlus Open non-stop, and I have to say it's held up incredibly well.

The front cover screen has a ceramic guard that's 20% more resistant than rectus glass. The main display has an anti-reflection screen protector; it's drop tested from 1 and 1/2 m, tested folded 400,000 times, and that means it's good for 100 folds a day for the next 10 years, which realistically, I'm never even coming close to!

Even in such a chaotic environment where the dogs are jumping on me constantly, the phone performed beautifully. And the video—I mean, just take a look at this! We've also been using the portrait mode to take photos of the dogs at the end of the day for the report card, and they came out in—I love even just opening up in front of people and having them look at it and just seeing their faces and their reactions are really cool.

So again, the link is down below in the description. Get one for yourself. Enjoy! Thank you so much, and until next time!