Creating a Category of One Business Through Visionary Leadership and Relentless Execution with John Bradford at PetScreening

In this episode, John Bradford, CEO of Pet Screening, ranked No. 879 on the Inc. 5000 in 2025. Joins Gene Hammett to talk about what it really takes to build a "category of one" business. Bradford shares how visionary leadership and relentless execution go hand in hand, why founders must be honest about the size of their total addressable market, and how underestimating demand can limit growth. He draws on Pet Screening's success in helping landlords manage pet policy compliance amid America's growing pet population, while also unpacking the importance of strong core values, genuine team engagement, and empowering individuals to contribute to sales in a collaborative culture. Along the way, Bradford reflects on learning from mistakes, taking full responsibility as a leader, and using real market feedback to sharpen strategy, offering practical, experience-driven insights for entrepreneurs focused on long-term growth and leadership. Episode Highlights & Time Stamps 3:01 The Birth of Pet Screening 6:18 Creating a Category of One 8:10 Common Mistakes in Creating a Category 10:49 The Essence of Relentless Execution 12:27 Core Values That Drive Success 14:36 Living Your Values in Practice 16:27 Lessons from Leadership Mistakes 19:18 Conclusion and Call to Action Building a Category of One Starts with the Market John Bradford, CEO of Pet Screening, joins Gene Hammett to discuss what it takes to build a true category-of-one business, starting with the importance of market size. Bradford stresses that even the best ideas fall flat if they do not address a meaningful total addressable market (TAM). He cautions entrepreneurs against underestimating market potential, noting that ideas aimed at small audiences often remain side projects rather than scalable companies. A strong vision must be matched with a market large enough to support long-term growth. Solving a Real Problem at Scale Bradford explains how Pet Screening emerged from his background in property management and technology, identifying a widespread problem landlords face in managing pet policies. With roughly 160 million pets in America and a growing number of pet-owning households, the demand is substantial. Pet Screening's software helps landlords ensure pet policy compliance while reducing fraudulent emotional support animal claims, positioning the platform as a trusted, nationwide solution in the housing industry. Visionary Leadership, Core Values, and Execution The conversation turns to leadership, where Bradford shares how strong core values and daily execution shape company culture. He emphasizes that values must be lived, not just stated, and highlights Pet Screening's focus on equal opportunity, making an impact, and keeping work enjoyable. Bradford also underscores relentless execution, encouraging every team member to understand and support the product, including participating in sales. This shared ownership drives efficiency, creativity, and alignment across the organization. Learning from Mistakes and Listening to the Market Bradford openly discusses the role of mistakes in entrepreneurship, advocating for accountability at the leadership level rather than blame within the team. This approach builds trust and encourages innovation. He also highlights the importance of market feedback, urging founders to seek honest input beyond friends and family to refine ideas and validate demand. The episode concludes with practical insights on how visionary leadership, execution, feedback, and ownership intersect to drive sustainable growth, reinforcing that leadership and scaling are inseparable. Key Takeaways Vision alone is not enough successful category-of-one companies pair bold leadership with disciplined execution. Market size matters; even strong ideas struggle without a sufficiently large total addressable market (TAM). Solving a real, widespread problem creates momentum and positions a business for scalable growth. Core values must be demonstrated through daily actions to foster trust, engagement, and accountability. Involving the entire team in understanding and supporting sales strengthens alignment and execution. Effective leaders own mistakes, creating a culture where learning and innovation thrive. Market feedback is a strategic asset and should come from diverse, unbiased sources. Long-term growth is driven by the integration of leadership, culture, and continuous refinement of strategy. Resources & Next Steps Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level? Explore free training and resources at training.coreelevation.com https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance. Explore More: training.coreelevation.com https://training.coreelevation.com/ Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast https://growththinktank.com/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Mistakes of just making sure that you have a product market fit. Don't fool yourself. Make sure you have a TAM or a total adjustable market that is meaningful, that you really have something to go after. You can have the greatest idea and make a product, but if only a handful of people are going to use it, then it's probably just a sideline hustle, not really a company.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Welcome to Grow Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hemmick. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today, we talk about creating a category of one business. Now, what does it take to create this business that no one else really competes with? Well, you've got to be a visionary leader. You've got to be able to execute like a champion. And today, we're going to have a special guest on the show. His name is John Bradford. The company that he has taken to a category one is pet screening. They are really the only company I've ever heard of that actually makes it easier for

• 1:01Speaker 01

  landlords to understand and to work with their tenants and whatnot on the rules of having pets in their buildings and in their homes and in their apartments. All that being said, creating a category one, John and I talk about the visionary leadership side of that. We really look at what does it take to be a visionary leader? It's not just hard work, but hard work is part of that formula. I'll let you kind of lean in and get the details behind that. It also takes relentless execution, your ability to execute and build a team around that. We talk about the importance of values. They've got it narrowed down to three values. He'll share the values with you.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  It's not like you need to copy his values to get it, but what I want you to copy is the ability to live your values. That being said, really looking forward to you getting as much out of this interview as possible. And my name is Gene Hemmick. I am a CEO coach. We do coaching. We do leadership development for companies that are in growth mode. So if you feel like you're growing or you want to grow faster than you are today and create this resilient Growth and predictable growth, then you want to make sure you have the right leadership. And so what we do is is help you upgrade your leadership skills or your leadership mindset. We all do that through not just at the CEO level, but at other levels throughout the company. So if you're curious about kind of our approach, all you have to do is go to our latest training.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  It will help you dial in. It's absolutely free. Just go to training.co elevation.com. And you can sign up today right away. What you'll get inside that is the mistakes that are common in this journey and this path. So you can avoid them. We will share with you the actual five steps of scaling a company. And you being the leader that that can create a company that grows without you. Hopefully that resonates with you. If you want to sign up for that free, just go to training.co elevation.com. Now here's the interview about creating a category of one with John Bradford. Hey, John, how are you?

• 3:03Speaker 00

  How are you, Gene? Good to see you.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I am excited to talk to you today. We're going to talk about visionary leaders and and really, what does it take to drive? Success, you know, long term for a business. Tell us about your company, Pet Screening.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so look, we're a software product. There's a there's 160 million pets in America and about 70% of households have a pet. I know you've got two, I just saw them, but I've got two as well. And every household has 1.6 pets. So I had this idea to create a software product that helped landlords. So think apartment complexes. I mean, the US military uses us at some of their bases. They have pets, but there's policies they have to follow. They have to know that they should keep their pets vaccinated. They got to pick up the poop if it goes to the bathroom in the common area, keep it on a leash, etc. So we're a software platform that helps landlords and property managers better manage their pet compliance and their populations. And I know you travel a lot being a successful business guy. So when you get on an airplane, you see a lot of pets on airplanes.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Sometimes people slap a vest on and call them a service animal. In the housing industry, there's a lot of bad actors that try to pass pets off as emotional support animals. And we we stop a lot of that fraud. So that's one other thing that we do. So yeah, software product based out of Charlotte, nine year old company, growing fast, having lots of fun.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just kind of curious because I know that a lot of people take advantage of these little best things.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Do you ever see anything odd like they made this snake their emotional?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I mean, look, you'll see there's an article I've seen a couple of times where this guy takes an alligator out to baseball parks and things as his emotional sport alligator. Just so you know, there is no regulatory agency in the planet that would ever really say that's emotional sport. That is pure media propagating some real nonsense. The reality is there are rules out there under the Fair Housing Act, the airlines have the Air Care Access Act and public places have the ADA. And, you know, I, I served in the House of Representatives for almost a decade in my state. So I really understand like these laws because I helped make them. And so I see some of the nonsense, like someone saying a peacock is an emotional sport animal or a pig. And, and it's just, it's ludicrous. So, you know, we, we try to help bring some, the common sense barriers to act in the boundaries. So.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Well, I will tell you, we did just sign up my, one of my dogs, because he's really attention needy, needy kind of dog. And he's going to go to Georgia Tech's campus during finals week.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Like a.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Is a little bit of a stress reliever for the.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  And that's a, look, that's a real thing. Look, I have a daughter who, who had, she got bit by a tick at 11 and developed Lyme disease. We had no idea she has it. And she has a legitimate service animal that we spent a lot of money to get them trained because she has amazing, you know, really bad anxiety attacks. Like you wouldn't even believe, you'd have to experience it to see it. And so our dog like has saved her life. So that's a case of a real need. And so I don't turn my nose up to those folks. It's the bad actors who are trying to get away with it, which is frustrating. But that's part of what we do at Pet Screen is we stop some of the bad actors.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Well, John, we have you on here because we want to talk about, you know, creating a category of a business. I think a lot of people dream of this. I mean, at one point in time, I dreamed of it. I feel like I'm, I've kind of scratched the surface on creating the category, but I've never heard of another company that does what you do, software for landlords around compliance. What, what got you thinking about creating a category of one business?

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I mean, it's simple. Like I like to say that our product was started by a property manager for property managers. So I, I was an IBM. I know you're a P W C guy. I was in sales. I was taking my bonus money, Gene, buying real estate, really as a hobby. I was growing a rental portfolio, thinking that would be my college education money for my kids when they got there. Now my kids are in college. And I still have my rental properties, by the way. But then I started a management company and started managing houses for other people and grew that to be very successful. In fact, I was on the Forbes list four times in a row with that company. But all that said, I saw an opportunity. We are very pet friendly. I mean, we allow pets and I don't think, Gene, I don't know about you, I don't think all German shepherds are dangerous. A lot of times, German shepherds, pit bulls, they get a bad rap. They say, no, German shepherds.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  So I thought, what if I could create a product that showed the data a little better? So I did it and I put my money where my mouth is, as so they say here in the South. And I had an idea and I went for it and my company was the first guinea pig, no pun intended, and I saw we had something. And then I went to friends in the business and they started using pet screening. And now one out of like, one out of every seven long-term rentals in the country trust our platform. It's crazy.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  You don't know this and most people don't. We have fifteen real estate portfolio.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Oh, really? Oh, good. Awesome. Congratulations.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  We have a few of them on Airbnb and we definitely have little pet problems too, so.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, it's funny. We launched into vacation rentals this year because people want to go on vacation with their pets. So, yeah. So, yeah, I just started this company with an idea, Gene. I think that's, you know, I know your background, like, I'm just a scrappy. I was the kid that sold lemonade, cutting grasses, cutting grass. I just, if you have an idea, you got to go for it. And I have a lot of friends who have ideas and they never go for it. And it's like, an idea is an idea until you actually execute on it. And that's something that I did.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  What are the mistakes people make in this journey of creating a category of one?

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Well, one mistake I would say is when people have an idea, they go to their closest friends and family and say, hey, what do you think about my idea? And then, of course, no one's going to tell them it's a bad idea because they like them too much. And so they don't really populate it, I think, with the right cohorts to say, do you really have something good? In my case, I had an idea. I actually pitched it to a, we talked about EO, or I pitched it to my EO or showed it to them. And I'm like, this is like a really good idea. So I think mistakes of just making sure that you have a product market fit. Don't fool yourself. Make sure you have a TAM or a total adjustable market that is meaningful, that you really have something to go after. You can have the greatest idea and make a product, but if only a handful of people are going to use it, then it's probably just a sideline hustle, not really a company. So, you know, I mean, I don't know, I just put my money where my mouth is.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  That's all I can tell you. I think that says everything.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  I'm kind of curious if you leaned on work out there like Blue Ocean strategy or anything like that to help you create the vision for your business?

• 9:12Speaker 00

  No, I mean, look, I am not a know-it-all. I don't, I don't mind telling you, sometimes you fake it till you make it with a smile because you do the best you can, right? I mean, a lot of times we say we've been flying this plane, still bolting the wings on. I just love pets and I want to, I take my dog camping. I like to take my dog anywhere that's reasonable, but I know there's certain places I can't, I shouldn't take my dog. So I just wanted to have a product that could help make the world more pet inclusive, no matter where you live, workplace, day or travel. And I started in the live component, which has been rentals, but now we've moved into the stay component, vacation rentals. So I don't know, I think people want to take their pets places, but there's a relationship with the host or the landlord and they got to follow the rules. It's a very simple, you know, two directional relationship. And I feel like our product is helping solve that.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  When you think of visionary leadership, what are the key components that have helped you create this successful brand?

• 10:02Speaker 00

  We know, first, I'd say how I was raised. Like, I'm an incredibly hard worker because my mom and dad are incredibly hard workers. My mom and dad, I do not know of any harder working people than my mom and dad. My mother was always, she worked in the school system. She was always good friends with the custodians, the bus, the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers. I don't know, she always just gave attention to, I think, people that a lot of people turn their nose up. And so I just, I just saw that. So I feel like I'm a everyday guy who treats everyone very kindly and I can disagree with you and not hate you, which is kind of a talent these days. And I lead by example. My last business, Gene, we, I mean, I am very, my family would say tight. I say fiscally responsible, but I didn't want to pay cleaners. So every week we'd close our office

• 10:46Speaker 00

  for two hours and the whole team would pitch in to clean the office. I always cleaned the toilet. No joke, I put the gloves on, I cleaned the toilet because I felt like if I could clean the toilet, then my team would never have a problem cleaning the toilet if for some reason I was out of town the week that, you know, we were cleaning the, you know, the next week and I had to be traveling. So I think leading by example and, you know, do, do what you say you're gonna do and if you goof it up, admit it. I don't know, pretty simple stuff. I don't think I have any like words of wisdom other than common sense, but seems to be working.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  You know, there was another phrase that came into the conversation before we jumped into inviting you on the podcast, which was relentless execution. I think a lot of people tuning in here would be like, I'd love to have relentless execution across my culture. So what does that look like with your company?

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, everybody sells. I mean, my chief legal counsel is a selling legal counsel. I'm a selling CEO. I mean, our person working Zendesk is a selling person on Zendesk. Like we, you have to support the products you, you, you sell. And so we have a team that's very passionate about pets and very passionate about what we do. And I think relentless execution is making sure that everyone has buy-in. Um, and I mean, I'm, look, we're, we spend every dollar like it's our last dollar. We're incredibly efficient. And we'll make a dollar stretch to five. And I think that's tenacious. That's almost sometimes relentless asking, you know, we get, we get pitched a lot on sponsorships and so we don't take a lot of base sponsorships. We're negotiating different sponsorships for ourselves and trying to get added value where we think we can bring value and it's a win-win.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  And that takes relentless, uh, execution maybe, but definitely relentless tenacity of, of asking questions that are maybe just out of the box.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Well, I want to kind of open this up a little bit because we've talked about, you know, visionary leadership. We've talked about relentless execution. What is, what is, we haven't talked about or addressed in your, you know, development of your fast-growing company to this point?

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, look, we have three core values. A lot of companies have core values, some that will have 10. We've kept it very simple. We have three and we, we just don't talk about them, Gene. Like I tell my team, we, we live by these. And if you ever think we're not living by them, it is incumbent on you to pull me to the side and tell me that you don't think we are. And, and they're very simple. One, everyone deserves an opportunity. We have people that didn't go to college. Maybe they went to the military, which is its own type of college itself. We have some people that got GEDs at night. I just want good work ethic, good attitude and, you know, show up and when you're here, be all with me. So everyone deserves an opportunity. We have a young man with Down syndrome, Sam Jordan. He's capable, he's competent, he's a hard worker and he works at our company and everyone loves, his name's Sam, everyone loves Sam.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Uh, and he's just amazing. So everyone deserves an opportunity. That's one. Two, make your mark. Come to our company and make your mark. I don't say positive mark. I think if you make a negative mark, Mark, um, Gene, you won't be here very long, but come and make a difference. Everyone at any level has a chance to put their fingerprints all over what we're doing and, and that's important to me. And then lastly, our third one, laugh more and have fun. Like if you don't enjoy what you do and if you're not laughing, you know, it's not like maybe going to a comedy show laughing. It's just enjoying the people you work with, the, the, the product that you're selling. We bring dogs to work. We have probably 50 dogs in the office. That makes it fun. But those are three things that are very important to me and we really advocate for them and we push for them and we just don't talk about it. We live by them. And I think that's been a big part of our success. As silly as it sounds, I think it has been.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Not many people know this and if you're a long time listener, you probably know more about this, but we wrote a book called How to Have Tough Conversations. I wasn't planning to write that book. That wasn't the original plan. Actually, the original plan before I wrote any book, um, was to talk about living your values. And it's, it showed up probably 60 to 70% of the interviews here where people have talked back and said, this is such a critical thing. I know why they say that mainly because it's the hiring and, and the development of people. But if they're not aligned with the values, it's a very frustrating place to work. When you think about the living your values, is there any like really tactical element that you feel like you do that really helps you guys live those values?

• 14:56Speaker 00

  You know, I don't think this is impactful, but I've heard it so much that I guess it is. And it's natural for me. Every day when I go to the office, I literally, we have about 34,000 square feet. We've got 180 employees and we've largely hired in the Charlotte market. So we've probably 130 people that come into the office, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays. We're hybrid and we're in an old textile, at least to make denim materials. It's a million square feet, huge facility. And I go in and we have three offices all next to each other, separated by loading bays. The fire marshal wouldn't let us close it in. So I go from one office to office two to office three. They're all right next to each other and I walk up and down every aisle, every day, saying hello to everyone. I tap them on their shoulder, I tap them on their seat

• 15:39Speaker 00

  and they'll turn around. Sometimes they're on calls, but I just give them a quick wave. If they have a dog, I typically, you know, pet it or if it's a, you know, pet its belly. I just do that to be visible, to say hello, to be social, to show that I'm present and also a big smile on my face. And I do it because I enjoy it personally. But I've heard from a lot of people that that's something they've never experienced before. So I don't want to like take credit for that, but I will say that surprisingly, it has landed really well with our team that I make myself available, which, and I sit in the same size cubicle that everybody else has. I don't have any special office. I just sit with everyone else. So anyway, again, not, I think these are very common sense things. I'm not trying to make myself to be a martyr here. I just, those are some things that I think have made our culture consistently similar

• 16:24Speaker 00

  since we started to where we are now. Cause as you get bigger, it is harder to maintain that.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  John, we've been talking about creating a category of one company through visionary leadership and relentless execution. And I kind of want to ask you about some mistakes or the journey you have to be the leader you are. We're not all made to be leaders out of the womb, as they say, or even out of college. What is something that you used to believe in leadership that you no longer see works at your company, the way it scaled?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  You know, we've, we've made a lot, we've made a lot of mistakes. Um, I, I guess the way that I try to run my company is this, I want to be a, I say a jet ski. I don't want to be a ship that change, that turns two miles in the ocean. I want to be a jet ski and pivot. Um, you know, I see these people that do this and they, they all day long go like doing this, trying to make a decision. Um, we, we sometimes just got to make a call, like make the call. I trust my people, but we goof it up. Like I don't mind admitting we've made mistakes. We will make mistakes. Show me an entrepreneur that hasn't fallen and scabbed their knee, you know, I mean, and so, and I don't have some genius answer for you other than just tell you that, you know, we learn every day. What I will tell you is this,

• 17:40Speaker 00

  I say this a lot. It's my company. It's my fault. So if someone on my team does something boneheaded, because it has happened, I don't sell them out. I take the full credit for the boneheaded move. I'm like, it's my firm. It's my fault. It is not, I will fix. Yes, I will train the team better, but it's all on me. And by jumping in front of that train, I don't sell anyone out. Now if that person does it again, we're going to have, we got, we gotta have a different discussion. So just trying to tell people it's okay to make mistakes, but if you don't know, don't guess. Like if you don't know, it's okay to say, I don't know, but I'm going to go find out. It's how I think you, what you do next that makes someone. And so trying to make sure we live by that, but trust me, we've made lots of mistakes and we'll continue to make mistakes, but we fix them. That's the difference. We own them and we fix them. I mean, what else can you do, Gene? I mean, really?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  That's a great place for us to wrap up today's conversation, John. I, I want to reflect back on some of the things, just for our audience, like creating this category one company isn't, you know, going into the basement and just like thinking so differently about everything else. It's getting out there into the marketplace and, and getting feedback. And what you've just talked about with visionary leadership, relentless execution. On top of that, you've talked about, you know, just you leading by example and you being the kind of keep the, the leader that your company wants and taking ownership of this. I love this last part. I just wanted to highlight that for anyone listening, that if you have problems in your company, it's not about blaming

• 19:06Speaker 01

  other people. Take ownership. Be the leader here because that's what they need. Um, and, and mistakes happen for all of us. We learn more through mistakes than we have from any of our successes. I believe in that.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  John, I want to wrap up here with it. Thank you for being here.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me. Well fun.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  For any of those out there that are kind of on the verge of growing your company and you want to be a better leader, make sure you come to our latest training where we help you stop being the bottleneck of your growth. Just go to training.coreelevation.com. It will help you become a better leader today. We're going to share with you some of the core principles and the strategies that we walk our clients through that will help you become a better leader and create the kind of company that runs without you. So just go to training.coreelevation.com. John, thank you so much. And everyone else listening in, when you think of growth, you think of leadership, think of Growth Think Tank. As always, leave a courage. We'll see you next time.