Picture this: you close your advertising agency to start a natural dog toy brand, your first order of toys arrive (which you spent THOUSANDS on) and most of the products are damaged to the point where you can’t sell them, you then develop a severe illness and the business takes a six-figure loss.
What do you do? How do you come back from that?
For Bradley Will and the Mumbies team, that was their reality and a challenge they had to tackle head on.
If this story doesn’t prove the resilience of entrepreneurs, than we don’t know what will. We talked with Bradley to learn how his Milwaukee-based business overcame the impossible and his dreams to scale Mumbies into a full-on mutt marketplace.
How did Mumbies get its start? What is your background?
Mumbies began while I was running an advertising agency in Milwaukee with a team of dog lovers. We learned about how many dogs suffer and face euthanasia due to lack of resources, so we set out with a mission to build a dog sanctuary in Wisconsin. It was just a crazy idea—likely not possible—but something to drive us forward. People talk about it all the time, so why not try?
After my dog of nearly 14 years passed away in 2020, I tried my hand at fostering dogs in desperate situations. Of course, I ended up adopting my first foster, Selene, who was found chained to an abandoned house in Milwaukee. Needing a companion, I fostered another dog named Mumble who was pulled from the streets by MADACC and placed into a rescue called Misfit Mutt Crue MKE, where he found me. He quickly foster-failed me for the second time.
Now with two dogs, I was back in the market for natural pet products. All this time with dogs taught me they need to chew, but most of what’s available is filled with junk. After adopting Mumble and Selene, I learned about the coffee tree. Farmers trim the trees as part of the farming process, and the material that’s normally considered waste is nontoxic and highly resistant to cracking and splintering. I already knew dogs loved sticks because of my first dog—he loved gnawing on them more than any toy money could buy. So I wondered: had nature already perfected the dog chew?
I got my hands on some, gave it to my two product testers, and they went crazy for it. This was way better than nasty yard branches or toys with microplastics. I knew immediately this could help many other pet parents who can’t find a chew solution for their dog. So with Mumble as my muse, Mumbies was born.
My team at my digital agency was all about it. We incubated the business, treating it like client work, and began selling quickly online. Mumbies got so busy that in September 2025, I decided to close the agency, take a leap of faith, and go full-time with Mumbies along with my team.
How long have you been in business? Have you faced any major challenges with growing your business or any triumph stories?
We took our first sales in September 2023, so we’ve been in business about 28 months.
Our biggest challenge came during the 2024 holiday season and nearly put us out of business. We placed our largest inventory order and pre-sold close to $100,000 in product—more than 3,000 orders.
We spent tens of thousands on advertising. The shipment arrived right before Black Friday, but much of the inventory was severely damaged. We had 11 pallets in a 900-square-foot office with no warehouse, surrounded by nearly 400 boxes, trying to salvage what we could.
On top of that, I developed a severe illness. Every day we couldn’t sell, orders were refunding, and we were losing between $2,000-$6,000 per day during the busiest time of year for e-commerce. Our insurance claim was denied. All in, it was over a six-figure loss for a self-funded, bootstrapped company using credit cards and savings. An entrepreneur friend told me something to the tune of, “Congratulations, you’ve experienced one of the worst-case scenarios. If you can survive this, you can survive anything.”
I felt like I was at my brink, but we never quit. After three weeks, we got back online December 11th and did an all-out sprint to make the most of what was left of the season. That week we generated $33K in sales and saw a glimmer of hope. Our team worked 14-hour days and hand-packed and shipped 545 orders in one day. Doesn’t sound like a lot until you have to do it.
The aftermath continued for months of being in fight-or-flight mode. We ended up needing to generate $50,000 in three weeks to cover our bills and debts. With no lifelines, we buckled down and did everything in our power to sell the product using our experience. Low and behold, we cleared the $50,000 on the last day.
After slowly clawing our way back and selling out multiple times, cash was still tight and we needed a big victory to continue on. In perfect timing, Mumbies was selected as 1 of 5 companies out of 1,300 applicants for the nationally acclaimed gener8tor accelerator program in 2025 and received a $100,000 investment. We went from what felt like rock bottom to finally turning a corner.
How long did it take you to research/build the business?
The process was fairly simple and natural. The naming and marketing came easily—Mumble, our rescue dog, became our ambassador, and “Mumbies” just rang out. We were fortunate to have a branding expert friend, Amela, offer to create our logo as her annual pro bono project, which held our feet to the fire to finally do this thing.
From getting samples and testing them to finding suppliers and getting the sizing right, the whole process took just a few months. We got lucky—the first supplier we contacted became a phenomenal partner, and we still work with them today.
What is Mumbies, and why did you feel it would be a good fit in Milwaukee?
Mumbies makes natural chews and treats for dogs that support rescues and shelters. Our flagship product is the Original Chew made from coffee tree wood—dogs love to gnaw on it to satisfy their chewing instinct. We’re building a bigger platform where people can buy Mumbies-branded essentials and eventually a curated selection of the best natural dog products in the world.
I moved to Milwaukee 8 years ago wanting more community. I love the city, Lake Michigan, and being by the water. Milwaukee is a city that still feels small and connected—you can’t get that in many places. There’s great talent and people who genuinely care here.
We could have been a purely online business using third-party logistics, but we wanted to control our fulfillment, put down a warehouse, hire great people, and create jobs. We wanted to build a company that not only we’re proud of, but the whole city is proud of.
Mumble, our logo dog, was rescued here in Milwaukee. He went from being severely emaciated and abandoned twice (likely facing euthanasia) to being the face of a brand. Like this city, Mumbies represents resilience. We want to see the highest potential for every dog—and the same goes for the city of Milwaukee.
What’s the mission behind Mumbies?
Our mission is to end unnecessary dog euthanasia in America. There are 400,000 dogs euthanized each year, many because of lack of resources. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, if people on the ground had proper resources, we could solve this problem.
We’re committed to becoming the largest natural dog product retailer online—like a Thrive Market or Costco for dogs—with a built-in giving model to support rescues and shelters. We also still plan to build a sanctuary in Wisconsin, a refuge for the most urgent cases. Those are the two things we’re working toward over the next 10-20 years.
What is it like being a small business in MKE?
Initially, it was fairly difficult, but Milwaukee is very affordable to start a business. Communities like Ward4 were invaluable—we worked out of a coworking space as a marketing agency, and they plugged us into resources that helped us get into the gener8tor program.
As a pet brand, we were outsiders to the industry without connections. But the more we connected—from postal workers picking up packages to local events like Doggy Day by Winston Wishes to the Wisconsin Humane Society selling our product—the more incredible it became. People in Milwaukee truly love and support local.
When the TMJ4 article came out, we felt that support on a level we’d never experienced. I think people recognize we started with the mission, not the product. The products will evolve, but the mission stays firm. Ending dog euthanasia isn’t just our thing—it’s an “all of us” thing. We’re just saying enough is enough, and we hope many people want to jump on that train.
What do you like about being in Milwaukee/the Milwaukee area?
I love Milwaukee for the people, the connections, and Lake Michigan. I’m a huge fan of Bay View, where I reside. The food scene is incredible. Some of the architecture here is underappreciated. The city is so dog-friendly—initiatives like the MKE Dog Park show people wanting to make the city better.
Everything is accessible. Coming from Chicago, things can be busy, crowded, and overwhelming. Here, we’re centrally located with easy travel to the coasts, incredible cost of living, and great access to nature and hiking. There are so many good things about Milwaukee.
What’s your favorite part about what you’re doing?
I love what I do. I spent nearly 20 years working behind a computer doing digital marketing. Now we’ve had a radical 180—we still do marketing, but we work in a warehouse, move boxes, stay active, and connect with more people. We feel like we’re making a significant difference.
Seeing the joy our products bring people and their dogs is a fun place to be. There are new challenges that are rewarding to figure out. There’s something special about trusting yourself and those who truly care about your success—operating on intuition and knowing it’s all going to work out, especially when things feel like they’re going wrong.
What can people expect when shopping from Mumbies?
People can expect care through every interaction. I’ve always taken the approach of scaling the unscalable. We handwrite cards for customers and try to remember as many dog names as possible. We’re just dog people.
We do radical things that are different and outside the box because we don’t think like a normal pet company. Being outsiders worked well for us in marketing, and we love being outsiders in the pet world—it means thinking differently and not following the herd.
People will experience the highest quality in everything we do. They’ll see we truly care about their animals through our actions—we only sell to independent pet shops, donate products to rescues and shelters, and make financial contributions to causes that matter. And I think people will truly be surprised by some of our upcoming technological innovations.
Anything else we should know about your business or anything you’d like to mention? Any favorite stories?
One of the most unusual and fun things that happened: we saw a video of an elephant playing with a dog and thought it would be perfect for Mumbies. We reached out to the woman who cares for the elephant and sent free product. She posted a video of the elephant playing fetch with the dog using a Mumbies chew. Little things like that brighten our day and everyone else’s day.