In late 2013, John Hussey was standing in the Minneapolis airport, headed toward a Vikings assignment, when the business that would rearrange his weekdays was still a proposition. Hussey already knew what pressure looked like. He had worked NFL sidelines for more than a decade, studied rules that turn on inches and seconds, and officiated Super Bowl XLV before a television audience of millions. Then someone brought him a pet-adoption website with a crowdfunding component. He put in $25,000 to see whether donors would give and rescues would trust the machinery. Both groups said yes.
The investment was supposed to be an investment. Hussey raised a friends-and-family round; when a co-founder departed, he stepped in to run the company. “I had no idea my investment would turn into a full-time job,” he later said. It is the sort of founder origin that arrives without a garage-door halo or a heroic napkin sketch. He wrote a check, watched a useful experiment begin to work, and accepted that the experiment now belonged on his calendar.
The company became CUDDLY, a fundraising and wish-list platform for nonprofit animal rescues and shelters. Its compact description is Hussey's own: “It's like a wedding registry for pets.” A rescue lists the food, medicine or supplies it needs. A donor chooses something tangible. The transaction replaces the fog of a general appeal with a bag, a bottle, a bed and, often, a named animal waiting at the other end.
First downThe useful pressure of three minutes
There is one scene that explains Hussey better than a tidy dual-career résumé. CUDDLY was invited to pitch at the Launch Startup Festival in San Francisco. The format was brutal in its simplicity: three minutes, a judging panel and more than 3,000 investors in the room. Hussey was nervous. Very nervous. In his telling, officiating a Super Bowl in front of millions was “far less intimidating” than explaining the company on that stage.
It sounds like a punchline until you notice what the two settings demand. On a football field, the rules are established, the crew is trained and the next snap will arrive whether or not anyone likes the previous call. A founder onstage has to establish the rules, prove the need and earn permission for a next play that may never come. Hussey's conclusion was practical: rehearse the pitch and solidify the plan. He did, and says later pitches became less intimidating.
Preparation is the bridge between his careers. NFL officials are evaluated game by game, call by call. Communication, accuracy and consistency affect postseason assignments. In business, the flags are quieter, but customers still grade the work. A rescue needs its campaign to function. A donor wants confidence that help will reach the intended place. A pitch that wanders wastes the clock.
- Translate an unfamiliar product into a familiar behavior: a wedding registry for pets.
- Make trust visible with verified partners, specific needs and progress updates.
- Practice the short explanation until pressure has nowhere interesting to hide.
The second careerA whistle, a wishlist and the same demand for clarity
Hussey's path to the NFL was long before it was glamorous. He officiated high school football, advanced through college assignments and joined the NFL in 2002 as a line judge. He wore number 35 and spent thirteen seasons working from the line before his promotion to referee in 2015. Along the way came playoff assignments and Super Bowl XLV in 2011. He has also served as an alternate referee for two Super Bowls. His stated football ambition remains specific: receive the head-referee assignment for one.
The business habit started early too. At 21, Hussey launched a courier service from his parents' garage. Four years later he sold it to a publicly traded company. CUDDLY was different in subject and scale, but not in appetite. It asked him to move information, money and goods reliably between people who needed them. Couriers dislike mystery. So do officials. So do donors.
Family is part of the operating picture. Hussey's son James is CUDDLY's chief operating officer, and his daughter Emily has led sales. He has written publicly about the pride of building alongside them. When CUDDLY Food reached Walmart, James shared a revealingly unceremonious scene: the chief executive was in a local store stocking product, straightening the display and explaining the mission to a shopper. A founder can talk ecosystem strategy in the morning and still find himself facing an endcap by lunch. Retail has no respect for abstraction.
Hussey's home life carries the mission beyond the office. Public biographies list rescue horses named Ollie, Buddy and Dancer and dogs named Benji and Franklin. He enjoys golf, working out and travel. The details keep a potentially over-neat story from becoming corporate lacquer. The executive who wants to build a national shelter-feeding program also has hay, leashes and presumably several strong opinions about where everyone is allowed to sit.
From ordinary purchase to shelter bowl
The retail betMake generosity behave like a habit
CUDDLY's original model is powered by stories and moments. A rescue posts an urgent campaign, a donor sees it and help moves. The system can be effective, but urgency is a temperamental subscription plan. Shelter animals eat every day, whether or not a post travels. Hussey's latest move is an attempt to make support recur at the speed of an ordinary household purchase.
In 2025, CUDDLY Food launched in select Walmart stores across Dallas-Fort Worth and online nationwide. Each bag sold triggers a donated meal for a shelter or rescue animal. The idea links a pet owner's regular shopping cycle to the less predictable economics of rescue work. Walmart parking lots then became adoption-event sites, bringing local shelters, shoppers and the new food line into the same physical frame.
The strategic ambition is larger than kibble. Hussey has said he wants CUDDLY to cross $100 million in annual revenue and develop a consumer portfolio spanning dry food, wet food and treats. The company would still operate its fundraising platform, but commerce could help create a more durable feeding network. He calls it a self-sustaining ecosystem. The plain-English version is better: if the product people already buy can also support the rescue that needs food, generosity stops waiting for a special occasion.
This is also where Hussey's founder advice becomes visible. He tells entrepreneurs to pursue work they care about, stay focused on results and remember that nobody grows a company alone. CUDDLY's public team includes his children, experienced operators and a board drawn from investing, animal welfare, technology and pet products. The lesson is less sentimental than it sounds. Mission supplies stamina; a team supplies leverage; neither excuses a weak operating plan.
Hussey rejects the familiar language of balance. When he is all-in on the NFL and the business, he says, he does the work. The phrase can sound severe, but his careers contain their own boundaries. A whistle ends the play. A wishlist defines the need. A bag of food has a weight. The work becomes manageable when the call is clear enough to act on.
No final whistleThe next call is already forming
After more than two decades in the NFL, Hussey is still chasing a particular Sunday. After more than a decade at CUDDLY, he is still widening a particular system. One goal is a Super Bowl assignment as head referee. The other is a nationwide rescue-and-shelter feeding program. Both are measurable enough to resist motivational fog.
There will always be a slightly comic contrast in the image: the referee with the stern microphone announcement spending Monday on a company called CUDDLY. But the softness is only in the name. The underlying work is logistics, judgment and repetition. It is getting the right thing to the right place before the clock makes the choice for you.
That is Hussey's story in its cleanest form. A courier moves the package. An official keeps the game moving. A founder moves help toward an animal. Different uniforms, same verb.