What if the most effective therapy for stress, burnout, and anxiety didn’t come from a pill or a practitioner, but from a room full of puppies? Francesca Albo is betting on it, and the market agrees. Today on The Angel Nest, Francesca joins David to talk about Puppy Sphere, North America’s leading puppy wellness company, which is on track to top $6 million in revenue this year across 13 profitable locations in the U.S. and Canada, all bootstrapped without outside investment.

Francesca and her co-founder Leia met in a dog park. Both were escaping corporate burnout, both wanted to build something in the pet space, and both had tried and failed at earlier pet startups before landing on puppy yoga. What made Puppy Sphere different wasn’t the concept — puppy yoga already existed — but the execution. Francesca describes their working relationship as a clean split: she brings the big vision and the bold bets, Leia builds the systems and protocols that make scale possible. The result is $14 million in all-time revenue across locations that are profitable, not just open.

The episode gets into the operational realities of running a business around live animals. Puppy Sphere doesn’t keep dogs on site. It partners with local shelters and breeders who bring puppies in for each class and take them home after. Staff are certified in pet first aid and trained through a proprietary Puppy First program. Every guest signs a waiver. There are escalation protocols for anxious animals. The liability question comes up, and Francesca handles it directly.

Now the founders are ready to scale and looking at what that actually requires. The business runs on two tracks: public classes, memberships, and class packs make up about 80 percent of revenue, while corporate wellness events, bringing puppies to offices at companies like Google, TikTok, and Amazon, account for the other 20. That corporate side generates millions with no outbound marketing spend at all, entirely on inbound demand. Francesca walks through the investment thesis, the unit economics across markets, and what she plans to do with capital as the company moves beyond its bootstrapped roots.

You can find contact information for Francesca Albo and learn more about Puppy Sphere at theangelnest.com, where you can also reach David with suggestions, story ideas, or questions about the show.