One local entrepreneur is trying to make a dirty job a bit cleaner with his invention, the “Rinse-A-Poo.”
Hi, I’m Dan Spangler and I’m an entrepreneur.
You may be thinking to yourself, Dan, what’s with all the poop?
You’ve got to stand out, and that’s one thing about me as an entrepreneur, I stand out in a room.
Picking up pet poop is a smelly, and often messy process.
We’re gonna bring it to the backside and just scoop it all in.
That’s where the Rinse-A-Poo comes in.
This is the amazing poop shield that we patented. The idea here is that when you’re all done, knocked out your big waste in the trash can, or wherever you want to get rid of it, you dock the two together here, you connect a hose right here, rinse down and shoots everything right out.
But how did we get here? Dan says it started after a severe injury that ended his career in the Marine Corps.
I left the military; I didn’t know what I was going to do. And there were a lot of other things going on in my head. And fortunately, Spanky was there. He wasn’t a service dog at the time, I actually adopted him from the shelter, I have no idea why I adopted him… And between 2003 and 2006, I can’t count how many times he saved my life by being there for me.
Spanky the rescue pup. The one who changed everything for Dan.
I became a certified dog trainer because of him, because I wanted to spend more time with him. And from there I realized I wanted to get into the pet care space deeper, so that’s when I started A Dog’s Dream.
A Dog’s Dream in New Bern featured boarding, grooming, training and more. But that wasn’t enough.
Dan traveled across the country after starting a nonprofit organization called the Dreamer’s Foundation.
From the gates of Camp Lejeune to the gates of Camp Pendleton. In 30 days to raise money for the nonprofit program ‘Operation Keep Your Spanky,’ which provides pet food and low-cost veterinary care.
From there, his love for entrepreneurship and, of course, our four-legged friends, only grew.
And today he is one of 14 entrepreneurs left out of 400 competitors across the state in the SBCN Startup Showdown.
First place is $30,000 of unrestricted funds for your small business.
That kind of money, he says, would change the game for the Rinse-A-Poo.
But more than anything, Dan says he hopes to inspire others to take on entrepreneurship.
Just go for it, again I’ve taught a lot of veterans and a lot of entrepreneurs in general and a lot of them just hold themselves back. They just make the jump.
