An entrepreneur set up a company making purring plushies — and is aiming them at stressed-out millennials and Gen Zers.
Katharine Burke was burned out while working in tech. On one particularly bad day, she came home to her cat, Wren, and all she wanted was a cuddle.
Wren, being a cat, operates on her own terms and was not in an affectionate mood at that moment.
“I thought to myself, it’d be nice if I could just find a little purring hot water bottle to take her place when she was uncooperative,” Burke told Business Insider. “I went online because I was just going to buy it. I was really surprised when I could not find what I was looking for.”
Burke decided to start making plushies herself and set up a company called Purryfuls, and left her job a couple of months later to focus on the project.
They launched at Toy Fair New York last weekend.
Plushies are hot
There has been a boom in plushie sales among adults in recent years.
Plushies are “hot right now,” Brian Benway, the senior tech and gaming analyst at Mintel, previously told BI. In Mintel’s Traditional Toys and Games report, published in October 2024, Benway said that plushies were particularly in demand, with sales growing significantly.
Some attribute plushie popularity to millennials clinging onto their youth, but others think it’s because there is less judgment about alternative interests and hobbies.
Burke said she wasn’t aware of this when launching Purryfuls, but it’s the age group she’s targeting. She isn’t surprised that Gen Zers and millennials are turning toward stuffed toys.
“I still remember my teddy bear — that was the first comforting device that I had,” she said. “My key mission here was just to make something that would bring a little bit of calm to someone’s day.”
Burke realized that a lot of the things that stressed her out — fights with insurance companies, DMV bills, unexpected expenses from leaking pipes — would probably be stressing others out too.
“It’s meant to be a little moment of calm, a little moment of joy in your day, so that you can take a break,” Burke said.
The idea isn’t to replace real pets but to be there when you need their comfort, and they have better things to do.
There are several different settings, including a sleep mode, in which the Purryful purrs quietly for 10 minutes to help you drift off.
Purring is healing
Purring is thought to be healing for cats and a sign of happiness.
In Margaret Atwood’s “MaddAddam” trilogy, an idealistic, genetically spliced humanoid species has coopted the cat’s purr to heal physical wounds. This may not just be science fiction, though, because academic research suggests purring could be good for us, too.
A article published in the Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin journal in 2023 featured a small study of 65 respondents of different ages, all of whom had pet cats for varying amounts of time. The cat owners reported that their cats’ purrs had a relaxing and calming effect.
The authors noted the function of a cat’s purr is not entirely understood, but previous research found that mechanical vibrations have been shown to promote self-healing in humans.
In another study that looked at the impact of a pet cat on mental wellbeing during the pandemic, owners described their moggy’s purrs as grounding and comforting.
Millennials and Zoomers have both been described as “anxious” generations, and Burke wants Purryfuls to be there to help if it can.
“I don’t know that I want to say that things are harder for one generation over another — they’re probably just different,” she said.
“But I do feel that now what we’re getting is people saying, no, I’m not going to follow the path you prescribed for me. I am going to make my choices for myself based on what I like, and what feels right to me,” Burke added. “That’s something I can really relate to — and that’s exactly what I did.”
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