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Their Dallas-based company, Pet Love International LLC, has a team of professional "pet stylists" operating from a fleet of 35 "mobile pet salons" that will generate nearly $2 million in revenue this year.
If you aren't one of Pet Love's 8,000 regular customers, perhaps you've seen its distinctive deep purple Salons tooling around Dallas-Fort Worth or parked in front of a neighbor's house.
Just how Mr. Stevenson, 46, and Mr. Adcock, 34, came to own this pet enterprise on wheels is the stuff of Jim Carrey movie scripts. But Dumb and Dumber, as they call themselves, are much more successful than their bumbling big-screen counterparts.
A growing number of dog and cat owners, it seems, like the convenience of having their pets beautified at home. Company revenue has grown by 30 percent to 40 percent each year since Mr. Stevenson bought the business in 1997.
Mr. Adcock invested his marketing know-how in return for a piece of the action three years ago, even though at the outset, he thought Mr. Stevenson had lost his mind.
Now they intend to walk this puppy for all its worth – hoping to eventually expand and license Pet Love to other major metro areas around the country.
"When I look at the demographics and the whole shift toward convenience, customer service and what's best for the pet, it gives me confidence that we can take this to other markets," says Mr. Stevenson. "There's been growth in the number of individual mobile pet grooming operators, but a larger entity can operate more efficiently."
The typical customer spends about $42 per dog every four to six weeks – although some particularly pampered pooches are treated to weekly shampoo and coifing.
Short-haired cats run $48, while it's $59 for those with longer locks.
"They're less in size, but more in hassle factor," explains Mr. Stevenson, who owns an aging long-haired Norwegian Forest cat that he's never had the guts to bathe. "Kitties don't like to be baptized."
Serious enterprise
Dog hair grows year round, says Mr. Stevenson, although there is a November-December upswing because lots of people want their four-legged family members to be picture perfect for the holidays.
Some dogs bite, cats scratch, and yes, Mr. Stevenson carries workers' comp insurance for his employees, along with health care coverage and liability insurance. This is, after all, a serious enterprise.
He tries to keep a straight face when talking about the $500,000 he's sunk into computerizing Pet Love's operations while upgrading and adding Salons. But when he and Mr. Adcock tell their tale, they're often overcome by incredulous laughter.
Mr. Stevenson was smitten with the concept five years ago.
At the time, he was chief financial officer of the Dallas-based Fritz Duda Co., overseeing real estate holdings in North Texas, the Chicago area and Southern California, earning a great six-figure salary and traveling the country.
But the entrepreneurial bug was gnawing at him.
"With CFO-ship, you get paid well, but you'll never get rich," Mr. Stevenson says. "I wanted to put into practice things I'd been doing for other people, making them money."
So he approached a friend who's a business broker, hoping to put together a real estate enterprise of his own.
Love at first sight
The friend called back a few weeks later out of the blue. A deal had hit his desk that he wanted Mr. Stevenson to consider: mobile pet grooming.
"I'm thinking, 'OK, what's the punch line?' " Mr. Stevenson says.
The company, then called Puppy Love, was 20 years old, and its owner wanted out due to health reasons.
Mr. Stevenson agreed to have lunch with the owner. "I'd been in real estate long enough to know that you never know when your next meal is going to be, so I didn't turn down an offer for free food."
After chowing down at the Mecca Restaurant on Harry Hines Boulevard, Mr. Stevenson took a tour of the company's nearby office and warehouse. "The bells and whistles went off," he says.
The beauty was only in the eyes of this beholder.
The first time Mr. Adcock – still employed at Fritz Duda at the time – came to admire his friend's $75,000 purchase, all he saw was a horrific career mistake.
"Honestly, it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen," Mr. Adcock says of 12 dilapidated ivory Salons (only nine actually ran) and an index card system used to schedule appointments. "It was worse than Dumb and Dumber – it was dumbest.
"I'm telling Tom, 'Let's go back to Fritz and get your job back. Humility can solve a lot of problems. We'll tell him it was a temporary mind lapse.' He wouldn't have it."
Getting a makeover
After two years of Mr. Stevenson's intensive care, even Mr. Adcock could see the beauty within the beast.
Mr. Stevenson winnowed 10,000 customers down to about 4,000 and put them in his database. He figured if they hadn't used the service in two years, either their dogs had died or they were too embarrassed to have those ugly Salons parked in front of their homes.
"The first year, I put new transmissions or new engines into six of them," he says.
Mr. Adcock can't resist an added jab: "The highest-paid guy was the mechanic, because he was doing most of the work. We still have one – this old 1978 bucket of bolts – to remind us where we've been."
Today, operations are fully computerized, there are three times as many Salons, and they all run.
Pet Love's legion of groomers – excuse me, pet stylists – now stands at more than 30 and rising.
"When I joined the company, there were seven people in the office scheduling 60 to 70 appointments a day," says Mr. Stevenson. "It was done manually, so invariably one of the groomers would be slated for Plano and Irving on the same day. Now we have five people scheduling 150 appointments a day, and our routes are much tighter."
That's important for a number of reasons. Extra miles mean extra wear on vehicles and downtime for pet stylists, who are paid on commission.
Mr. Stevenson dangles this efficiency, along with health insurance, flexible hours and personally customized Salons to lure talent from grooming shops, pet stores and veterinarians.
Gloria White has been with the company for 15 years and experienced its metamorphosis firsthand. "I make more money and better tips now. You get to know your customers, their dogs and they get to know you. It's just like you having a favorite hairdresser."
Reinvested cash flow and a $275,000 bank loan financed the capital improvements. Neither owner has taken a Pet Love salary for the last year and a half.
Moving ahead
Mr. Adcock, who still keeps his day job as vice president of licensing for the Nicklaus Co., is putting his branding expertise to work. In the last year, the company changed its name so that it could be trademarked and the color of its spruced-up Salons to make them more distinctive.
Pet Love's vehicles are, in essence, 35 moving billboards, Mr. Adcock says.
Picking just the right hue was imperative, and purple seemed bright and slightly regal.
The pair is working on other angles.
For example, they're negotiating a deal with a pet food manufacturer to home-deliver its products.
Fritz Duda says go ahead and laugh at his former employees – but they might just prove you wrong.
People are time-starved, says the Dallas developer, who uses Pet Love to groom his two Labrador retrievers.
"Tom and Scott have responded with high-quality dog grooming at your place. That's a service more valued than ever before."
And don't forget Warren Buffett's investing philosophy, adds Mr. Duda.
"Some of the best investments have been in very, very simple businesses made by people whom we think of today as being incredibly bright."
This might be an idea that sits up and barks.
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