I recently sat down with my longtime friend, John Muldoon. We’ve known each other for 13 years now—which feels almost impossible—but right from the start, we bonded over a shared obsession with animals. It’s been the constant thread in our friendship; we actually both have dogs we’ve had for the entire time we’ve known each other (Rocket and Miles!).
About seven years ago, I watched John make a massive pivot. He walked away from a successful career in marketing to go all in on his passion for animals, starting at the San Francisco SPCA. Since then, I’ve watched that obsession evolve into something even bigger. He co-founded a company called Ease, which is doing incredible work to make veterinary behavior care more accessible while deepening the human-animal bond.
To me, John is such a perfect example of how those childhood passions follow us. This is just the latest, most powerful expression of a spark that’s been there since he was a kid!
Krista: I’m really excited to talk to you, actually, because we have known each other for 13 years, apparently, as you told me before we talked on this call—but there are still some holes in your story.
John: It’s kind of fascinating. I just assume you know all the things about me because I was in my 20s when we met and now I’m in my 40s, but there’s a lot that went on to get me here.
Krista: Crazy. Okay, well I always like to start with childhood. How early can you remember loving animals?
John: I feel like I’m in therapy. Let’s start with your childhood. I had to ask my mom before we did this. I was like, when did we get our first pets? Because I kind of always remember loving animals. I was like the dorky kid who could tell you every fact about dinosaurs and all that sort of stuff. And even when I was in third grade or first grade, I think, my teacher asked all the kids, what’s your favorite show? And most of the other kids said some cartoon or something like that. And I said my favorite show was National Geographic Explorer because that was the coolest thing ever. I wanted to learn about lions and all sorts of stuff.
And apparently my teacher called my parents and was like, “You can’t coach him what to say.” She thought I was lying to try to seem pretentious. My neighbor also had a bunch of [turtles]; we ended up hanging out with them for, I guess, a few months before we released them into the golf course. That was like my first random animals. I’ve always loved animals ever since then.
Krista: Okay. Well, tell me—what do you love about them?
John: I love that they’re like little people. I love that they’re sentient and that they’re unique and that they’re individuals and that they have their own thoughts and feelings. And also the evolution of how we got animals. Like it’s pretty insane. I learned last night that sharks have been around for longer than trees. Which is just insane. So it’s endlessly fascinating. Everything about them is just incredible.
Krista: Wait, so that’s one thing I know about you is you’re always kind of like giving random animal facts. I feel like it’s something that you go down rabbit holes on often.
John: Yeah, I remember one of the last times I saw you up here, we were talking about what books we were reading. And I just finished a book about beavers. I’ll just find a book about random animals and just read it or listen to it. So like beavers or pigeons or there’s a book about eels that’s apparently incredible that I’m about to start. It’s definitely just like a special interest. I don’t know if you can explain where it comes from sometimes. Why are you passionate about something is sometimes hard to answer.
Krista: Absolutely. I always like to just see, when I ask that question, what people come back with, what lights them up. Okay, so I think animals is a super interesting passion because almost everyone loves animals as a kid, right? That’s just like a very normal childhood passion. But then we’re kind of told to think of careers and get practical. And most of us—I remember I’ve loved animals since I can remember as well. And I remember being like, okay, I love animals, but I don’t really want to be a vet. And that was like the only path forward. So I was like, well, I guess I won’t try to mold my life around them. Do you remember thinking about that kind of thing when you were young, trying to get practical, or was it even in your mind?
John: I don’t think that was in my mind. I thought I was going to be an inventor when I was a kid. I was like, I like making stuff. My dad’s kind of a genius and has invented some things. And I thought that’s what I would do. My parents never gave me any career advice or expectations; nobody really did when I was a kid. So everything that I’ve done professionally has just been—I always tell people it’s an accident. I’ve now started multiple businesses and done all kinds of things. But there’s been almost no intention. It’s kind of just like something comes along and I just take a step forward on it and if the path seems right then I’ll take more steps. It’s been like an intuitive reactive process to get to where I am.
When opportunities came up to change my career—like I used to have this consulting company that I ran for apparently 20 years before I closed it. I started consulting in 2002 when I was 19 years old.
Krista: Because that’s what you were doing when we met.
John: That’s what I was doing when we met. I was advising startups and doing marketing and building websites and products and that sort of stuff.
Krista: I’m so curious about that shift.
John: So I’d been running a business for a long time when we met. And I really loved it at first. I loved the challenge of meeting a new client and finding out what their problem is and realizing that I’ve solved a similar problem for somebody else. So it was going to be easy to make this person happy and help them reach their goals. You get a high from that the first couple hundred times. But after that, I just stopped feeling—I guess passion is the word. I didn’t have passion for it anymore.
Krista: I remember observing that. You remember seeing me just be like, “Someone else wants to hire me? This sucks.”
John: Once you have that feeling, something has to change. And then it was weirdly a friend that I went to high school with. She is a corporate attorney for Oracle and she didn’t like that either. She’s actually a way crazier animal person than me. She has like nine dogs. And she was like—we’re hanging out one day and she says, “I’m applying for this job at this animal shelter.” I was like, what? They needed an attorney. She’s like, “Yeah, they needed an attorney. I think it’s like my dream. You get discounted vet care, all this kind of stuff.” And I was just like, hey, amazing. If they ever have a job opening for what I do, let me know. I never thought I would work for somebody else. I always thought I would just be self-employed my whole life.
And she got that job. And then, six months later, she texts me a job posting and says, “Is this what you do?” And it was for a digital marketing manager, which I could do in my sleep. I was like, yeah, I could do that. And then I was on a precipice. I had a really good reputation; people wanted to work with me and I was making good money. And this was going to be on an hourly rate. It was going to be a 90% pay cut to go work at the nonprofit. And I just—it felt right. So I did it.
I went and had my first job interview. I made my first resume when I was 35 years old. I’d never had a resume before. Never done a job interview before. I went and just treated it like a consulting client. I got hired and I kind of found my people there too. I worked in the corporate world and then now I was on a team of all women who loved animals. They were super talented; any of these people could have made a ton of money in Silicon Valley doing other stuff. But they cared about animals and they were like, “That’s what we dedicate our lives to.” Some of them have been there for like 10 years. And I was like, oh, I’m finally home. I’m with my people. And that first year especially was the happiest year of my career. And maybe even like one of the happiest years of my life too.
Krista: I didn’t know that whole story. Isn’t that interesting? I mean, passion is so dependent on exposure. What would have happened if your friend hadn’t sent that to you?
John: I don’t think so. So many things in my life have just been some weird coincidence or accident that I just let the curiosity let me go a little bit down that path. A lot of it just really worked out. But yeah, it is an accident. It’s random.
Krista: So I want to hear about Ease, but I also want to hear about Badger.
John: I’ll tell about Badger first because I can segue into it. So I had a dog. This is Badger. It was my first dog that I had as an adult; it was not my family’s dog. He’s my little guy. When I found him on the internet, I didn’t live in an apartment that could accept dogs, but I saw his picture and I was like, I guess I’m getting a dog. He had to stay at a friend’s house for like a month while I found a new place to live that accepted dogs.
I loved him very much. He ended up—I got him when he was two and he had some emotional and behavior issues and he actually attacked somebody and had to be euthanized when he was six. It shattered me as a human being. I just remember crying in the shower. I thought I would never be happy again. I’m smiling now because I have to, I guess, but it was very, very sad. And that is the reality for a lot of people.
Later on, I learned what a board-certified veterinary behaviorist is. That experience with Badger shaped everything that I do now. When I was working at the animal shelter, I learned that behavior problems is one of the number one reasons that pets are surrendered to shelters. And then when they’re in shelters, they have way worse outcomes because do you want to adopt a dog that barks and lunges and growls on leash or do you want to adopt a dog who doesn’t?
So I learned that there’s an access to care problem. With behavior, there’s a huge constraint because there are only a hundred specialists in the world who are these vets who specialize in behavior. Because there are so few, most pets who need help will never get it. And so what is the outcome? It’s a damaged human-animal bond, frustration, and the animals suffering—they’re stressed out and anxious. Sometimes they get surrendered and sometimes they get euthanized like Badger, which is just a tragedy.
The person who became my co-founder, she figured out that there could theoretically be a scalable way to help more pets with behavior problems. And I was a person who had almost two decades of experience building scalable solutions to things. So we partnered up and we built this company that completely changes the landscape for whether people can access this kind of care. Now they have a better option. We’ve been building for years; let’s call it three years, even though we’ve only been live for just less than two years.
Krista: Yeah, for sure. It’s been super interesting to watch your journey because when I met you, you were not passionate about your life. You had passions—you loved climbing, writing, reading—but your daily life was just not something that you enjoyed. And now we talk and, I mean, you’re exhausted.
John: I am very tired. I had a lot of coffee just in order to talk to you.
Krista: But it seems like you love what you’re doing.
John: I do. Every single day I wake up and it is very hard. We like invented a category for the company, so you have to explain it to people. It’s not like opening up an ice cream shop where everyone knows from the sign what you do.
I’ve never been more tired. I’ve also never been happier.
Krista: That’s just been so cool to watch. I love that line: “You’ve never been so tired, you’ve never been happier.”
John: My cousin was in a band that became successful. Before it became successful, I called him on his birthday one year and I was like, “How are you?” And he’s like, “I’ve never been poor and I’ve never been happier.”
Krista: I love it. What are your thoughts on balance? It seems like we both kind of failed on the balance front.
John: We’re not good at it, you and I. We need to be in a support group. I’ve never been good at balance. I don’t think it’s for everybody. Arguably the lifestyle I’m living right now is not completely healthy; I definitely don’t sleep enough. And I know that eventually that will shorten my life or something.
But when you feel pulled towards something—now I’m on a mission. I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through with Badger. Even when I’m most exhausted, if I talk to somebody and they’re like, “Hey, we were thinking about surrendering or euthanizing our dog,” which I have that conversation with people every week—and now that we found you guys, we have hope. Later they’re like, “Hey, things are way better. Everyone’s happy. We were literally about to give up.”
I talked to a vet tech the other day. He and his partner were a week away from euthanizing their dog because his anxiety was so bad and he was just suffering so much. Euthanasia is a humane solution to certain issues, even though it’s very sad. He was on his lunch break, crying in his car, talking to me on Zoom. Their other option other than us was $2,000 and an eight-hour drive away. We do help for less than $200 same day. Last time I heard from him, the dog is doing much better. That fuels you even if you’re exhausted. I want to help as many people or animals as I can. I can sleep later.
Krista: Do you ever think about the difference between passion and purpose?
John: I feel like doing what I’m doing now is my purpose. It took the culmination of all my experience and skills and personality in order to actually execute it. I think the passion drives the “want to,” and then the purpose can be bigger. If you can help somebody and you don’t do it, you’re not living up to your purpose. But if you don’t want to do it, then you don’t have a passion to do the thing that you need to do. You kind of need both ingredients.
Krista: What are your thoughts on making your passion or purpose like your career?
John: I think it’s kind of a dream that’s sold in order to sell something else by a lot of people. If you love gardening at home, should you become a gardener? No, it’s completely different. You end up being a business owner where there’s all kinds of pressures and stress. If you make your passion your profession, it changes it. You’re no longer just doing the thing that you love.
I would give counter advice: do whatever you want to do for money. My girlfriend has a great career; it’s not like she wakes up in the morning like, “I can’t wait to go do the thing I’m doing.” One form of balance is if you can have something that makes you money and then something you love, and you actually have the time and ability to do both. I think that’s probably better for most people.
Krista: But you didn’t follow that.
John: Well, I’m not very smart. I also didn’t really think about it before I did it. There are things that are challenging and fun from a professional standpoint, like building all the tech that Ease runs on. I enjoy the challenge of building something.
Krista: It’s not like you quit everything and went to work at a farm. You’re doing other things that are around your passion.
John: Absolutely. I’m learning to play the piano and there’s no hope I’m ever going to make it. It’s really, really fun. I always steal a quote from this climber, Alex Lowe. People would ask him, “Who’s the best climber in the world?” and he would always say, “Whoever’s having the most fun.” It helps you not take stuff too seriously.
I love pigeons, as you know. I know Dion Campbell—she runs Be Nice to Pigeons. I rescued one sort by accident and fell in love with them. Now when I go for walks, I carry birdseed with me. Now the pigeons recognize me; they’ll fly down and hang out with me.
Krista: Give us the background—why is it a good thing to feed them?
John: I don’t know if it’s a good thing to feed them. There’s a pigeon man where I walk my dog who is kind of my hero. He has a giant bag with different seeds and he has a camera on his hat to look for pigeons that have “string foot.” If you catch one, you can remove the string from their feet; if you don’t, it can cause them serious injuries.
I picked up a pigeon one day that was laying on the ground and drove him to the wildlife rehab center. I was very invested in this story and eventually, I got to release this pigeon. When I did, he flew up and landed on my head. He obviously recognized me. Pigeons are very smart; they can remember who’s been nice to them and who’s been mean to them. Now I’m a pigeon lover.
Krista: Do you have any advice for anyone on how to lean into their inner dork more?
John: Find people around—find people who are like you who aren’t going to judge you. Our friendship was pretty pivotal for me. I was maybe not so happy with who I really was, but you sort of embraced that side of me because you’re also a total dork. Finding your tribe can make a big difference.
Krista: Supporting yourself is the key. If you find people that are not judging you, that are supportive, that’s just magical.
John: It’s beautiful. There’s a board game store in San Francisco and it’ll be filled with sort of dorky people playing games with each other. It’s just the most positive environment. Seeing this group of people—which I’m part of—just feel happy and safe. I love it so much.
Krista: Thank you so much. This was so great to get you on here.
John: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
