I Bet My Life Savings on a Cat Toy — but It Doesn’t Matter. The Bank Is Coming for Everything. Tariffs Took It All. This Is Goodbye.
Marlene’s first shop and a picture of her #1 employee, Sarah at the warehouse.
I’ve checked with my accountant a thousand times. I’ve cried, and I’ve come to terms with it — the numbers just don’t make sense anymore. The tariffs have made our business unprofitable, and that’s the reality of things.
Our Humble Beginnings
Kitty Kurlz was never supposed to be a company.
It started because my own cat was bored, destructive, and completely uninterested in every toy I bought her. So I did what any engineer would do — I started building prototypes.
I spent eight months stuck in my studio, building and refining. I even called my old university professor for help with some of the elastic features that make Kitty Kurlz what it is.
Eventually, I built the version that exists today. I still remember my cat the first time she saw it. She looked at me like, “What have you brought me this time, human?”
And then something clicked. Kitty Kurlz just made sense to her cat brain — and honestly, to this day I still don’t fully understand why she fell in love with it so hard.
So I sent it to friends to test with their cats. Every single one of them loved it. As an engineer, I thought that was impossible — how can every cat like the same toy? That goes against everything I know about cats, and I’m a certified crazy cat lady.
A few years ago, I took a big risk. I quit my job, took out some loans, and started a business. And it went viral. I’m talking TV crews at my house. What great memories.
What Went Wrong
The honest truth is simple: the tariffs changed, and the math stopped working.
I’m not here to argue about whether tariffs are good or bad. I don’t have a side. I’m just a crazy cat lady — I don’t even truly understand what tariffs are. They’re just a fact of doing business. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t. This time, they didn’t.
The magic of Kitty Kurlz has always come down to one thing: a special elastic fiber I import from Europe. It’s the only material I ever found that gives the toy that springy, alive feeling cats can’t put down. I tried dozens of alternatives over the years. Nothing else came close.
When the cost of that fiber jumped 34%, there was no absorbing it. Not for a business my size. I could either raise prices to something no cat toy should ever cost, or swap in a cheaper material and quietly sell you a worse product with my name on it.
I couldn’t do either. So here I am.
Before I Go — Let Me Remind You Why Cats Love Kitty Kurlz
If you’ve never had a Kitty Kurlz in your home, I want you to know what you’d be getting. It matters to me that the last ones out the door go to cats who’ll really love them.
It’s the bounce. When a cat bats a Kitty Kurlz, it springs right back — twitchy, unpredictable, exactly like the prey their instincts are begging them to chase. That’s the part I could never fake with any other material. And it’s the part cats react to instantly.
They’re tough, too. They hold up to the biting, the kicking, and the 2 a.m. flinging across the room.
But here’s the part people fall in love with once they find it: each Kitty Kurlz connects to another one. You can link up to eight of them together to build one giant Kitty Kurlz — a bigger, wilder toy that keeps even the most restless cats busy far longer than a single one ever could.
The Final Sale: Buy One, Get One Free
I have around 600 units left. That’s all that’s left in the world. When they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s a special design, so no one can ever manufacture it again.
I’m selling through every last one to help pay down the loans this business is buried under. And honestly, I’d rather these end up in the paws of cats than sitting in a warehouse collecting dust. So I’m doing something I’ve never done before:
Buy one, get one free.
Take the second one and connect it. This is how most people build their bigger Kitty Kurlz — two, four, eventually all eight linked into one massive toy your cat can’t ignore. If your cat already has one, this is your chance to finally build the full thing. If they don’t, it’s the best possible way to start.
This is truly the final sale. There’s no restock coming. There’s no next batch.
A Sad Ending
I won’t pretend I have it all figured out from here. I don’t.
But I’d rather close this chapter honestly, with the toys you loved going out into the world one last time, than let them disappear quietly into a bank auction.
If the day ever comes that importing my fiber makes sense again, nothing would make me happier than bringing Kitty Kurlz back. I can’t promise that day comes. But I can promise that if it does, I’ll pick up right where I left off.
To everyone who ever bought one, reviewed one, or sent me a video of your cat completely losing it — thank you. You turned a garage experiment into the proudest thing I’ve ever done.
This is goodbye, for now.
Grab one last Kitty Kurlz (and its free twin) while there’s still one left to grab.
With everything I’ve got,
Marlene
Founder of Kitty Kurlz
