Tim Hatcher’s career has taken him from accounting, energy and resources to the very different world of premium pet products. Today, he is helping lead EzyDog, the family business behind some of the world’s best-known dog harnesses, into its next chapter. Drawing on years of working alongside entrepreneurial leaders, Tim has learned the value of backing yourself, making decisions with imperfect information and, above all, having a go.
Can you tell us about your journey since graduating from QUT?
Varied is the polite word for it. I finished my Bachelor of Business in 2006 and spent the first part of my career in chartered accounting and the resources sector before ending up running a premium pet products business, which is not a path any careers counsellor would have mapped out for me.
The faculty probably won't love this, but my honest view is that university is really about two things: the connections you make and learning to deliver to a deadline. Grades are not the end of the world, and neither is missing out on your preferred graduate program. Choose the hardest job you can find while you're young, put yourself under real pressure and work for the best leaders you can get near. Don't worry about what's next. Focus on learning as much as possible.
Can you tell us more about EzyDog and why you decided to join the company?
EzyDog designs and engineers premium dog gear and is best known for its harnesses. We sell through specialist pet retailers in Australia and distributors around the world. The common thread is retailers and owners who want the best for their companions.
I joined because I'd spent years working for genuinely entrepreneurial leaders, which gave me a great foundation. Then the family business gave me the opportunity to have a crack at it myself. Once you've watched good operators back themselves up close, it becomes a lot easier to do the same.
EzyDog is a family business with a 30-year history. What has it been like stepping into a business with such a strong history and helping shape its next chapter?
Humbling, mostly. The family built a brand with genuine loyalty, and my job is not to reinvent it. It's to set it up for the next chapter without losing what earned that loyalty in the first place.
The honest lesson is that the hardest part of scaling a business is building the team around you. It's not a simple process. You need to know how to hustle and be competent across multiple disciplines, and you need to get the front end of the business right first, particularly sales and marketing. In our industry, brands are won and lost on channel. If you don't understand your market and exactly where you compete, not much else matters. Building the right culture internally is critical.
What might a standard week look like for you?
We run a global business from Queensland with a lean team, so our week follows the time zones. Mornings are usually focused on Australia, working with our team and retail partners. Later in the day, it shifts to Asia, where our manufacturing and international distribution partners are based, and evenings occasionally belong to Europe. Woven through all of that is product development, which is the part of the job I protect most fiercely because product is the reason customers care about us.
A parent shouldn't have any favourites but can you name your top three products from the range and why?
I'll dodge the question slightly and say our harnesses take all three spots. They are our core differentiator and the reason specialist pet retailers around the world are so loyal to us. A harness is a genuine engineering challenge: it has to fit dogs of wildly different shapes, distribute load safely, withstand years of hard use and still be something an owner can put on in 10 seconds. Getting that right is what we're known for, and it's where we continue to invest.
How has the relationship between people and their pets changed during your time in the industry, and how has EzyDog had to evolve with it?
The big shift is that dogs have moved from the backyard into the family. People now talk about their dogs the way they talk about their kids, and spending has followed. Even with cost-of-living pressures, owners will trade down on plenty of things before they compromise on their dog's safety and comfort. That's why premium pet products have held up better than most discretionary categories.
For EzyDog, that has meant leaning further into what we already believed: engineer the product properly, overbuild it and design for dogs that actually get used hard. The bar keeps rising because owners care more than ever, and honestly, that suits us.
What has been the most rewarding part of leading a pet-focused company?
The customers, without question. Our retailers and customers genuinely love the products and love their pets, and that changes the whole texture of the work. After years in the resources sector, it's a massive difference. Nobody ever sent me a thank-you photo in the resources sector. In this job, people send us photos of their dogs every week, and it never gets old.
Customers are also very quick to tell you when you've got something wrong, and I love that feedback because it helps the team learn and improve.
Can you name some of the individuals who inspire you? What qualities in these individuals do you admire?
The people who inspire me are the ones who make big decisions with incomplete information and back themselves to win. My father and uncle did exactly that when they built EzyDog, and I got to watch it from close range. They had everything on the line, and you would never have known it as a kid. This takes massive, guts.
I'd also say it's a very Australian way of operating, this willingness to have a go without waiting for perfect certainty. It's something we should be proud of rather than train out of people.
What is one skill that you couldn't live without and why?
Decision-making. You have to learn to make decisions continuously and be prepared to get some wrong. Jeff Bezos has written at length about this at Amazon: making calls with about 70 per cent of the information you wish you had, because waiting for more information usually costs you more than making the wrong decision. The stakes are obviously far lower where I've worked, but the principle holds.
I tell my team I want them making calls, not hiding from them. When one goes wrong, the job is to put your hand up as quickly as possible and get on with cleaning it up. Speed of correction matters more than a perfect strike rate.
QUT Degree – Bachelor of Business (Honours) (2008)
Do you have a question for Tim? Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Author
Joanna is an integrated marketing communications specialist with an interest in the Faculties of Health, Business and Law. She holds a Master of Business, Bachelor of Mass Communication and Diploma in Business Information Systems.