Amazon launched a full-scale attack to bankrupt this pet startup.
Bezos had Prime, faster shipping, and cheaper prices.
And Ryan Cohen? Love letters to dogs.
Today? Chewy is a $15B brand.
This is the insane story of how Chewy won the pet war against Bezos: 🧵
As of 2025, Chewy has grown into a $15B pet retail powerhouse, one of the few companies to beat Amazon at its own game.
So how did a scrappy startup operating out of a cramped Florida office manage to pull it off?
Here's the full story behind this epic David vs Goliath fight:
From a young age, Ryan Cohen hated school.
He wanted to build something on his own and felt college would hold him back.
At 19, he dropped out and never looked back.
He took one lesson from his dad to heart: always put customers first.
A lesson he would soon put to use...
In 2010, while searching online for pet food and toys for his dog, Ryan Cohen spotted a clear opportunity.
The experience was frustrating.
• Slow delivery
• Outdated websites
• No real customer service
No one was treating pet owners like premium customers online.
Cohen realized pet spending isn't rational- it's emotional.
People buy the best food, toys and care for their pets.
That emotional connection was missing online.
He set out to build a customer-obsessed pet retailer that competes on trust, convenience, and service- not price.
In 2011, Chewy was born.
Cohen poured in 100% of his life savings: $100,000 from a previous business venture.
He treated it like a life-or-death mission, working 18+ hour days, doing everything from customer support to warehousing decisions.
Cohen was obsessed with customer experience.
He saw trust and loyalty as his only edge over Amazon.
He personally wrote:
• Birthday cards for pets
• Thank you notes in boxes
• Sympathy cards when pets passed
As he put it: "We were building a brand people would cry over."
By 2012, Chewy made over $26M.
But Cohen refused to take profit, he doubled down.
Every dollar went back into the business.
The result?
• Staff grew from 30 to 300
• The revenue hit $200M in 2013.
• Warehouses expanded from 1 to 7 by 2016
And Amazon took notice...
In 2018, Amazon launched Wag, a private-label pet brand to compete with Chewy on price.
It was Amazon's direct move against Chewy by targeting its customer base.
Promoted through its own listings and ads, Amazon hoped Wag would shift the market in its favor...
Amazon's core weapons:
• Cheap price
• Huge selection
• Fastest shipping
• Prime loyalty ecosystem
• Unmatched logistics and scale
This was enough to beat most competitors. But Cohen didn't compete on any of those.
He chose a completely different battleground...
Cohen knew Amazon could always beat Chewy on price, speed and spending.
So he did the only thing Amazon couldn't...
He built Chewy around emotion.
Cohen said, "Amazon is efficient, but emotionally sterile."
By 2017, Cohen sold Chewy to PetSmart for $3.35B in cash.
Cohen built it by following his father's advice:
"Always put the customers first."
And that advice paid off.
I hope you've found this thread helpful.
Follow me @GeniusBusiness_ for more threads on underrated 100% original business, finance, and marketing stories.
Could you help me reach 100k by October?
Like/Repost the quote below to spread the word:
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.