UChicago alum Daniella Morgan-Pascualvaca, A.B. ’22, appeared on Shark Tank on March 1 and secured a deal with investor Mark Cuban for Mella Pet Care. Morgan-Pascualvaca is the chief of staff for the veterinary medical device and telehealth company and made the Shark Tank appearance alongside Mella’s CEO Anya Babbitt and COO Ben Seidman. She spoke with the Maroon about her journey with the company and appearing on Shark Tank, which she describes as being on the “bucket list of almost every entrepreneur.”
The First Accurate Underarm Thermometer
Mella started with identifying a problem that needed a solution: veterinarians were using rectal insertions, an invasive and time-intensive technique, to record the temperatures of pets who were at risk of infection, inflammation, or other medical conditions. Mella’s flagship product, an underarm thermometer for veterinarians, created a better experience for both vets and pets.
“We wanted to give [veterinarians] a way to see more pets and make each of their pets’ lives more comfortable,” said Morgan-Pascualvaca.
With the success of their noninvasive technology, Mella added an at-home version for pet owners to their line of products, with which pet parents can use the recorded temperature as a first line of defense. The thermometer is placed under the foreleg or hindleg of the pet, with results simultaneously being synced to Mella’s app to track normal or abnormal temperatures. The company now boasts an “ecosystem of digitally connected devices,” including a home pet scale, and operates in “1,300 clinics and 1,000 households in 15 different countries.”
As the “first accurate underarm thermometer,” Morgan-Pascualvaca attributes the positive press to Mella’s early success marketing to national and international distributors. Rather than solely being a hardware-software company, she sees a major tenet of their work as education-based. The company runs a blog and podcast to educate pet owners on the importance of monitoring their pet’s health.
“Most pet parents are going once a year to the vet,” Morgan-Pascualvaca said. “But during those other 364 days of the year, you’re not having this interaction with the vet. [The podcast] helps mediate those conversations and ask those frequently asked questions for pet parents.”
Mella’s Metcalf Interns
Morgan-Pascualvaca, who graduated in 2022 with a degree in biology and economics, joined the team with a background in veterinary medicine. “Temperature, along with heart rate and weight, are the three main vital signs,” Morgan-Pascualvaca said. “As a pet assistant, it fell on me to [record the temperature], and it was the worst part of the visit because the pet is going to bite you, scratch you, or squirm. And afterwards, the pet is going to cower in the corner and hiss and growl at the vet for the rest of the visit.”
Mella has collaborated with UChicago’s Jeff Metcalf Internship Program for product development and marketing. Morgan-Pascualvaca joined Mella as a Metcalf intern in autumn 2020. She said that she was instantly given responsibilities. “You’re really almost part of the executive team as an intern,” Morgan-Pascualvaca said.
She credits the Metcalf Program and entrepreneurship classes offered at the Booth School for her current job as chief of staff at Mella.
Two students in the College, second-year Oia Eng and third-year Pauline Borisova, currently work at Mella and receive funding from the Metcalf Program. Borisova, who applied in autumn 2022, sought to join a startup with “hands-on experience,” focusing on those local to Chicago. In an interview with the Maroon, Borisova said that she is appreciative of the range of responsibilities given to her, of which her ongoing project is developing a more user-friendly mobile and desktop app. She and Eng work with the designers to think about how the app layout translates to a desktop format and whether users will use certain features.
While Eng initially started in marketing, she has transitioned into product development, something she expected entering a startup.
“I thought it’d be a great experience to work at a startup because you’re able to wear a lot of different hats rather than being stuck in one role… It’s helped me think about a company holistically because I’m not only doing marketing campaigns, but I’m also thinking about what is a good timeline for the app,” Eng said in an interview with the Maroon.
Catching a Shark
Babbitt, Seidman, and Morgan-Pascualvaca pitched on behalf of the company to the show’s five “sharks,” a term used for the show’s investors. They ultimately secured a deal with Mark Cuban, who is noted for his sale of Broadcast.com, an internet radio company and for being a minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, with a 6 percent stake in the company worth $250,000. The deal valued Mella at $4.2 million.
The process to get into the “tank” in the first place, however, was just as difficult as “catching” a Shark. According to USA Today, about 35,000–40,000 applications are submitted each year, with only 88 airing on television (a 0.02 percent chance). Morgan-Pascualvaca recalls getting cherry-picked by a casting director.
“[The casting director] said, ‘You have one of the coolest products I’ve ever seen. We’ve never had anybody on the show who’s talked about pet products in this way,’” Morgan-Pascualvaca said.
While Mella was able to bypass about “75 percent of the process,” there still remained comprehensive 40-page personal essays, background checks, and video pitches on top of the standard 50-page business application.
“They asked so many questions about ourselves, how we work as a team, not just the financials of the business itself but who we are as people,” said Morgan-Pascualvaca. As the pitch date drew closer, Mella’s presentation team had to practice in front of an increasing number of producers over Zoom. “A lot of success was due to the fact my dad is a social media coach,” said Morgan-Pascualvaca. “We would rehearse the pitch 50 times and he’d go, ‘It’s not there yet. Try again.’”
Morgan-Pascualvaca said having Cuban as a partner has been significant to the growth of Mella.
“He’s always there. He answers emails within five minutes. It’s almost like having another partner in the business as opposed to a celebrity billionaire,” said Morgan-Pascualvaca.
With the partnership becoming official, she is optimistic that Mella can benefit from the increased media exposure and continue its core values of educating vets and pet parents.
