How to Run a Pet Accessories Business From the Netherlands, According to a Pinoy Entrepreneur
A Filipino entrepreneur talks about bringing his products to a global audience.
Bringing products within reach of an nternational market is a tremendous undertaking, but things are bound to become even more challenging when the business is based in one place and the one running it is thousands of miles away.
This is the case with baarcc, a Philippine pet accessories brand whose owner, Lemuel Urieta, is based in the Netherlands. Despite the distance, Urieta successfully runs the business and brings it to a global audience through offering worldwide delivery.
In an interview with The Business Manual, Urieta discussed why he chose to keep running his business after moving to Europe and how he brings baarcc’s products to the rest of the world.
A Grade School Student with a Side Hustle
Twenty-nine-year-old Urieta is originally from Pateros, which he describes as “a humble place” with no skyscrapers and no bright lights–just narrow streets and quiet corners.
“It’s where my dreams first bloomed. I remember walking those streets as a child, dreaming of a life far beyond what I could see,” Urieta recalls. “I’d look up at the sky and picture tall buildings, bright lights, and a future where I could build something of my own. That contrast, growing up small while dreaming big, has stayed with me.”
As a kid, Urieta was already into selling, running a small side hustle as a grade school student where he sold curated stickers and ballers to his classmates.
He did it not just for profit, but also because he loved giving people something they could connect with, something that felt personally made for them.
“That instinct—to create meaning and relevance—has never left me,” Urieta adds.
His humble side hustle soon gained traction. Urieta remembers the thrill of shipping his first orders outside of Manila. “I was just a kid selling sticker packs and ballers, but to me, that moment felt like reaching corners of the world I hadn’t even seen yet. That was magic. That was scale. And it planted the seed for what would later become my life’s work.”
An Idea That Was Left to Simmer
Urieta entered the corporate world after graduating from college, which is something he’s grateful for.
“It gave me structure, marketing fundamentals, and financial discipline,” he explains. “I worked with global brands and applied the same entrepreneurial mindset: be resourceful, be smart, and always listen to consumers.”
Urieta describes himself as someone who builds brands. He calims that his core obsession is understanding people and what they need, what they value, what makes them fall in love with a product.
“That’s what makes me a good marketer, and it’s also what fuels me as an entrepreneur.”
The idea to start a pet accessories brand came to him in 2017. It began with his beagle, Robin, who is now nine years old. He wanted to get a well-designed dog collar that looked and felt premium for his beloved pet, but eventually realized that the market didn’t offer the options he would have wanted.
“The market was full of loud colors, low-quality materials, and outdated designs,” he explains, “Nothing spoke to me. That gap sparked an idea: what if I applied design thinking to pet products?”
For him, the vision was simple—to make beautiful things for dogs and the people who love them. Not only would his products be design-led and consumer-informed, but also pet-approved.
Despite seeing the gap in the market and having a clear vision of what he could do, Urieta left the idea to simmer, grow, and evolve before finally launching baarcc in 2020.
Launching in the Middle of the Pandemic
Using the corporate bonuses he saved up through the years, Urieta was able to fund his initial production and launched baarcc with two product designs and zero outside funding.
“People often assume you need huge capital to start. But the truth is, what you really need is a point of view and conviction,” he says.” I focused on the essentials: strong design, quality materials, and a real understanding of the consumer. From there, we grew steadily—reinvesting our profits into expanding the line, offering more colors, accessories, and eventually scaling our operations and community.”
Today, baarcc is a premium Filipino-born brand offering thoughtfully designed collars, leashes, harnesses, and accessories made for dogs and the persons walking them. It caters to fashion-forward dog moms and dads, particularly cosmopolitan pet owners who see their pets as an extension of their lifestyle.
Getting to this stage, however, was a huge feat for its founder, taking into consideration that the brand was launched in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, launching the pet accessories brand in the middle of the pandemic was actually “serendipitous,” according to Urieta.
“People were adopting pets left and right—dogs became their emotional anchors. And as they welcomed them into their homes, they also began seeking products that matched their evolving lifestyles,” he explains. “We were ready with beautiful, intentional designs that helped them express that love.”
Dealing With ‘No’ and ‘Not Enough’
“Jumping off a cliff and building the wings on the way down” is how Urieta describes the experience of starting his own pet accessories brand.
He heard people saying “no” so many times. They told him his idea wouldn’t work and said that his market was too niche. Some even remarked that he was just wasting his time.
“But instead of letting it break me, I let it fuel me. Every rejection was proof that I was doing something different,” Urieta says. “That gave me the courage to keep going.”
As his business grew, he encountered what he calls the “good problem” that comes with going viral. Celebrities, including Heart Evangelista, Nadine Lustre, and BJ Pascual began using baarcc. As a result, demand skyrocketed. Urieta found himself dealing with an overflowing number of orders that his supply chain struggled to fulfill.
“We were sold out for months. That killed me because it felt like I was failing to serve the very community I built,” he recalls. “So we pivoted. We introduced pre-orders. It wasn’t perfect, but it was transparent and personal, and our customers stayed loyal because they knew we cared.”
“Every peso we earned, we reinvested. We expanded our production runs, added new designs, new sizes, and built up our operations piece by piece,” the baarcc founder adds.
Despite the challenges he faced, Urieta believes that those times shaped him and his company into what they are today.
“It taught me to stay close to the ground, to listen actively, and to never get comfortable,” he says. “Challenges are constant, but so is growth—if you’re willing to adapt.”
Running a Business From the Other Side of the Globe
Amidst the challenges and joys of running a thriving business, life still offers a plethora of surprises. For Urieta, this happened when he found himself moving to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, just two years after launching his brand.
While running a business halfway across the world was never part of the plan, Urieta says baarc was always destined to go wherever he did.
“It’s a Philippine-born brand at its core, but now it’s infused with a global perspective. The soul is undeniably Filipino—our optimism, our attention to detail, our deep love for beauty—but living here has expanded my lens.”
Living in the Netherlands has allowed Urieta to understand the global customer a lot better.
“I draw inspiration from every place I visit. Our recent launches carry those stories: autumn-inspired browns and rusts from New York’s fall streets, bright summer greens and sky blues from Amsterdam’s canals, even playful pops of color from markets in Lisbon,” he says. “You see those influences across our collars, leashes, harnesses, and even our new pouches—subtle cultural crossovers that make each collection feel both familiar and fresh.”
Running a Philippine-based business all the way from Amsterdam may not have been something Urieta earlier envisioned, yet that’s where life took him.
“And now, I see it as a gift—to design from here, but to build for the Philippines and beyond; to serve fashion-forward dog moms and dads whether they’re in Manila, Milan, or Madrid,” Urieta adds.
Though distance brought its share of hurdles, Urieta chose to adapt rather than let baarc fall behind.
A self-starter who once did everything himself, Urieta had to learn to trust everyone back home, including his team, suppliers, and community.
“The harder part was emotional: not being in the same country where my brand lives. I’ve had to show up in other ways —through storytelling, design, and creating products so thoughtful they transcend geography,” he admits. “Every new collection carries my roots in the Philippines, but also whispers of other cities I’ve been inspired by—from Amsterdam’s pop of colors to New York’s deep autumn tones. Distance will always be there, but I’ve learned it doesn’t have to mean disconnection.”
From the Philippines to the Rest of the World
Getting baarcc from Manila to Milan, Madrid, and the rest of the world was a completely different ballgame. Urieta has always seen baarcc as a “Filipino-born, world-loved brand,” right from the time he started it.
Recognizing that dogs are loved everywhere and that the needs of pet owners in Manila are similar in other geographies, Urieta sought to offer worldwide delivery. That proved to be yet another challenge.
“Worldwide shipping sounds glamorous, but in reality it’s extremely operational—full of testing, negotiating, and refining,” Urieta points out. “I spoke to fellow entrepreneurs, tried multiple couriers, and studied what other small brands were doing—from how they priced and communicated timelines to which partners they trusted with something as personal as a customer’s package.”
After several bouts of trial and error, Urieta eventually chose DHL for its door-to-door tracking, consistent timelines, and respectful customer experience. For Urieta, shipping needed to feel seamless—not stressful.
Baarcc’s packaging was designed with travel in mind. Compact yet premium, it is made of 100% recycled and recyclable paper “so it arrives as beautifully as it left,” Urieta reveals.
“Our packaging, branding, and visual language were never boxed into one country. The colors we choose—from a deep, rich brown to a Parisian blush—were meant to feel at home anywhere,” he adds. “So global shipping wasn’t an ‘expansion plan,’ it was simply being true to who we already were.”
Urieta has made it a point to set clear expectations on delivery timelines with baarcc’s customers. Most international orders arrive in 5 to 10 business days. Should there be any potential delays, the company maintains a straightforward approach to informing its customers.
“The goal was never to be the cheapest, but to be the most considered. If someone in Barcelona or Seoul chooses a collar made by a Filipino brand, the least we can do is make sure it reaches them beautifully, safely, and on time.”
Worldwide Shipping: Doable But Requires Effort
Urieta believes that entrepreneurs from the Philippines should definitely consider shipping their products to other countries.
“We Filipinos often underestimate what we create,” he points out. “But when a customer from Spain tells me their baarcc collar from 2020 is still in perfect condition, that’s proof. Filipino-made can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the world. So why not share it?”
“Filipino design is world-class, but it needs to be backed by strong systems,” Urieta adds. “If you can deliver with excellence, you have every right to hold space globally.”
For him, worldwide shipping isn’t a “vanity metric.” It’s not about being able to say “We ship worldwide,” either. Careful planning and thorough research are needed to get itright.
Urieta recommends any Filipino brand looking to ship internationally to start by looking at data before proceeding.
“Look at your web traffic, see where people are visiting from, and run small Meta ad tests in promising countries,” says Urieta. “Use that insight to spot demand, then operationalize. It’s less overwhelming when you take it step-by-step: test, learn, scale.”
He reiterates the importance of setting customer expectations early, emphasizing how clear communication can help build trust. This can be done by letting the customers know when they can expect their order to arrive, how it can be tracked, and what they should do in the event that problems arise.
Urieta also reminds entrepreneurs to create packaging that will survive the courier journey and still “feel like a gift” when it arrives.
Last but definitely not the least, the baarcc founder recommends having customer support ready. This entails preparing templates, FAQs, and a clear returns policy.
“A confident customer is almost always a repeat customer,” he says.
Growing Intentionally and Internationally
Five years into operations, and baarcc still shows no signs of slowing down. It’s just getting started, according to Urieta.
“We’re growing quietly, intentionally,” he reveals.
Baarcc is looking to expand into new accessories and Urieta has slowly begun designing for the home.
“Think elevated pet furniture that blends seamlessly into your space—pieces that feel like part of your home, not something you have to hide away.”
True to baarcc’s identity, the brand has also built an international presence that goes beyond shipping. It expands reach through storytelling.
“I want the world to see what Filipino brands can do—that we can be premium, poetic, and powerful—all at once,” Urieta says.
The Filipino, Netherlands-based entrepreneur, who was once a dreamer from the quiet streets of Pateros, says he’ll keep dreaming, keep refining, and keep walking Robin, his beloved beagle, under Dutch skies.
“I’m also exploring something entirely new here in Europe, maybe a vegan milk brand, but I’ll save that for another interview,” he hints. “Whatever the product, I’ll always be in the business of building beautiful things—one idea at a time.”
Read more:
How This Pet Care Brand Pivoted Its Strategy
How This Business Became Shopee’s Highest-Rated All-Natural Treat Shop
Boehringer Ingelheim’s ‘Stop Rabies’ Program Targets a Rabies-Free Philippines
