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An year ago

By Pet Labs
What happens after you win an award? 

One year ago, I was awarded as the "Skilled Youth Entrepreneur of Sri Lanka 2024" but
1. I'm pretty sure there are better youth entrepreurs than me
2. I was fortunate to win the competition

At that time I only had one goal, to start Pet Labs (™️) in Sri Lanka but it went on to a whole different journey 


It has now created a whole new system of sustainable pet nutrition not just for Pet Food and Pet supplement brands but also for individual pet owners who  believe in the power of food - through 
- Innovation
- Education / advocacy
- Improving animal health standards 
- Cross sector collaborations 

Where am I through Pet Labs (™️) as of now?
✅ Scaled upto 15 countries including Sri Lanka
✅ Multiple Intellectual Property rights applied
✅ Pet Labs (™️) blog with 700 active readers per month 
✅ Launched the website
✅ Launched Spotz in my own country 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
✅ Collaborated with several brands
✅ Qualified as a Sustainability Leader
✅ LinkedIn 1.26 K followers 😅 
✅ App ready in a few months 


 I'm more than thankful to:
❤️ SPARK - Youth Entrepreneurship Competition for giving me this kick to enter the entrepreneurial world to this detail, to everyone at The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (Manori Dissanayake, Nirosha Thilakarathna and the team), International Labour Organization Sri Lanka (Erandika Dissanayake) for giving me multiple learning opportunities throughout the year. Not forgetting the great mentorship by Miuli Kalubowila and advice by Roshith Ranasinghe

❤️ To my parents - my biggest strength. Actually I won the award on the day of their wedding anniversary 

❤️ Sanushi Salgado  
My very own sister, my strongest tech support   

❤️ To everyone who has placed their trust in me with their pets and brands

This was not an easy road but I did so quite passionately that time flew by, with all while running my veterinary clinic

It was never a rat race to me but a part of the journey of reaching my highest self; something that was built out of passion, love and strategy -🌟 just for its necessity of saving pets  and for the love of building things from scratch 

Lessons from my journey 
✅ Winning an award should be a start, a validation but not an end of a journey 
✅"An Entrepreneur" shouldn't merely be about ownership of a company but owning your journey for better impact to the world 
✅ Choose your life. Design your work around it 
✅ Be in an abundance mindset 
✅ Entrepreneurship helps grow in mind, body and spirit. Take it to your advantage. 
✅ Be mindful of where your energy flows
✅ Do not judge another business. Scalability, I think, should not be glamourized all the time. People have their own challenges in life  
✅ Don't take things personal
✅ Don't be afraid to pivot 

I'm still learning along the way and I'm glad I've been able to make a silent but better impact through the above initiatives in veterinary. After all, this what happened to me after I won an award 😁
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