Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Derzapf.
Hi Anna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m not entirely sure where to start my story, so I’ll take you back to the beginning, Houston, Texas. God, I love being a Texan. Rodeos, Buc-ee’s, and brisket run in my veins.
When it came time to choose colleges, I was hell-bent on going to a fancy East Coast university. But on a whim, a friend who was planning to go to LSU bet me that I wouldn’t apply. Naturally, that meant I had to (fun fact: she didn’t end up going). When the acceptance package arrived, the scholarship offer was impossible to ignore, so I decided to take another college visit, this time across I-10 and into the bayou.
Completely unexpectedly, Louisiana and LSU captured my entire heart. Something instinctual felt right, like I was home. Catching nearly everyone I knew off guard, I declined offers from monolithic, historical institutions in favor of a different kind of collegiate powerhouse: an SEC school.
While there, I learned a lot about myself. I realized my desire to study medicine was really a deeper passion to help people combined with a love of science and that there were paths outside of medicine that could fulfill my calling.
Then everything changed in March of my freshman year.
We had heard rumors, but that’s typically all they are… until they’re not. My life, my college experience, and the entire world were about to change.
COVID.
Being sent home before even finishing my first year was devastating. In that moment, I saw two options: continue along the traditional track, or with an uncertain future ahead, finish as quickly as possible and take control of my own path.
Naturally, I chose the latter. I doubled my course load, worked relentlessly, and graduated in two and a half years. In the winter of 2021, I stepped into a world nearly unrecognizable from the one I knew just a few years prior.
At that time, companies didn’t know whether work would be in person or remote, and hiring had slowed significantly. But when competition is high and opportunities are limited, you either wait or you get creative.
Once again, I chose the latter.
I called every person I knew in pharmaceutical sales. My love of science paired with a passion for helping people made the field a natural fit. Despite being told repeatedly that a new graduate would never be hired into that kind of role, I kept grinding.
After months of working another job to get by, a well-timed email to a VP of sales paired with what I’ll admit were relentless LinkedIn messages to members of the team, all finally paid off. I landed a temporary role as a sales representative.
I knew this was my break, and I treated it that way. I worked tirelessly and even pushed to attend company training programs despite the limited return on investment for someone in a temporary position. Eventually, they relented.
When my time there ended, I moved into another role that was entirely remote. While I learned a lot, it reinforced something important about myself: I thrive on face-to-face interaction and relationship building.
That realization led me to pursue a role at the largest company in the animal health industry. When I saw an opening, I pounced. I had never been to Kansas before, but it felt like the start of a new adventure and perhaps, part of a bigger plan. A few years down the road now, and I have fallen head over heels in love with this slice of heaven. Sunsets in the evenings, lake days in the summer, and even the snow in the winter all my heart inextricably linked to the sunflower state.
My time in veterinary pharmaceutical sales taught me several important lessons. First, my age would be seen as a weakness until I proved otherwise. Second, veterinarians do their work for the love of animals, not the money. And third, nobody wants to be sold to, they want to be part of something meaningful and create positive change.
Throughout all of this, I always knew I wanted to start a company of my own. Entrepreneurship runs in my family. I’ve watched my parents, my brother, and others close to me build something from nothing. Seeing their perseverance and success planted that same desire in me from an early age.
Still, I knew that when I committed to something, I would go all in. So I waited for the right idea, something meaningful, something innovative, something I could pursue without hesitation.
That idea came when a coworker briefly mentioned water cremation.
At first I was simply curious, but when I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I knew I had to investigate further. That curiosity quickly turned into obsession.
I spent nights lying awake thinking about what a company built around this concept could become. I began to imagine a different experience for pet owners. One where the passing of a beloved pet didn’t have to feel like a cold and final end. Instead, it could be more akin to a perennial flower in winter: something still carrying life, meaning, and renewal.
While researching other pet aftercare services, I noticed most offered similar, straightforward options and standard urns. But when I looked at my own dog, I realized when his time eventually comes, I won’t want to simply mourn his passing, I’ll want to celebrate his life. Our pets are with us for such a short time, and their memories deserve to be honored with gratitude and joy.
That’s when the storybook theme for the company came to life.
Books have always brought me comfort during difficult times. They transport you to other worlds, lifting you out of darkness and reminding you that even when a story ends, something meaningful continues beyond the pages. Whether that be in the imagination or the lessons, books don’t have a shelf-life, they breathe endless life into letters on page.
I wanted pet owners to feel the same way. To see the passing of their pet not as the end of a story, but as the beginning of a new chapter…
A tail to remember.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’m not afraid of hard work. In college, I spent weeks volunteering alongside the National Guard and leading disaster relief teams, helping communities devastated by the economic hardships of COVID and catastrophic hurricanes. Because of that, when it came time to prepare the future home of Tails to Remember, I actually found joy in the manual labor. Ripping up carpet, hauling debris, and removing cabinets brought a sense of progress and tangible accomplishment. That all being said, I didn’t expect the physical labor to be the easy part, but, boy, did I learn the real challenge was mental endurance.
Patience has never been my strongest trait. In many ways this has served me well. It pushed me to graduate early, pursue ambitious career goals, and ultimately start my own company, but when launching Tails to Remember, impatience collided with the reality of construction delays, contractor schedules, shifting timelines, and constant reassessment of what was possible. Psychological fortitude became the most brutal lesson I was forced to learn.
The road to opening, just one week ago, was anything but smooth.
In the fall of 2025, I walked into veterinary offices excited to introduce a new aquamation service that would be opening in just a few short weeks. At the time, I genuinely believed my timeline was realistic (haha). Final preparations were on schedule, and the most important piece of equipment, the aquamation machine, was scheduled to arrive Monday.
I eagerly awaited its arrival. But when hours turned into days, I suddenly found myself in an incomprehensible scenario with my entire life savings sitting on a broken-down flatbed trailer at a Love’s gas station somewhere in Missouri.
When the machine finally arrived at 10 p.m. Thursday night, it was wedged backwards inside a box truck with no way to safely unload it. I won’t go into detail on how we managed to move it, but I will say this: sometimes God places exactly the right people in your path at exactly the right moment. That night, under the stars in the loading area behind my little business center with a dream, some forks, and a lot of two-by-fours, we unloaded the 3000 pound pet aquamation machine and placed her inside to spend her first evening at home.
Finding farmers willing to partner with us took another kind of persistence and presented a wholly unique challenge. I made call after call explaining the water produced through aquamation becomes a nutrient-rich fertilizer which could benefit their land. Many farmers laughed. Some hung up. A few asked who had put me up to this prank. After probably 100 phone calls, one farmer took the time to listen. That one conversation opened the door to an entire network of farmers interested in the idea of participating in a new, sustainable process. The same thing happened when I tried to find gardeners willing to accept the ashes from communal cremations as bone meal. Explaining how and why you have extra bone meal can be… an awkward conversation. But while contractors worked on plumbing and electrical installations, I was sitting feet away in my office making call after call, searching for my “yes.” What kept me going after entire days of “no’s” was the knowledge that it would just take one. One person. I knew they were out there. They would love the idea and be excited to partner and make positive change; therefore, I perceived this as time spent in search of my company’s partner, not time wasted cold calling farmers. It may have been delusion, but delusion satisfies anxiety while tenacious grit accomplishes the dream.
As another aspect of the brand’s genuine, eco-friendly nature, I attempted sourcing furniture and decor from local resellers. I loved the idea of filling the space with unique pieces, each having their own story. But after months of scouring estate sales and thrift shops, I made a massive concession and gave IKEA a non-insignificant amount of business. While this did hurt my heart, I learned sometimes building the bigger dream means temporarily setting aside smaller ones.
One dream I was not willing to set aside, however, was urns, and I paid the price for my conviction. In starting this business, I knew I wanted to source made in America, handcrafted urns. I bought a special engraver to etch personalized photos into these keepsakes and worked incredibly hard to find local woodworkers who could create something beautiful and meaningful for pet families. After months of planning, I finally secured a craftsman and placed a large deposit. Then, just weeks before launch, I received the news that the urns were not and might not be completed at all. Suddenly, I was out $1,000 staring down an already delayed launch date without a vessel to return ashes in, so I once again began reaching out to woodworkers, praying I could find my partner. One after another, people initially agreed then days later declined the project.
With only two weeks remaining before opening, I faced a cascade of setbacks. Not only did I still not have urns, but the plumbing was ineffective, the exhaust fan would not function properly, and my contractors had to be replaced after a screaming argument broke out in my office. Meanwhile, a pallet carrying 1,000 pounds of supplies arrived and had to be manually moved piece by piece to another area of the building. As if that weren’t enough, my boyfriend was hit by a woman who ran a red light, and the very next morning I unknowingly sat in a mess my apparently sick dog had left in the driver’s seat of my car. At the same time, my website needed updating, and marketing materials for veterinary offices had to be revised. Each new challenge felt like another test of whether this dream would survive. Every setback felt like a stab to my chest, as if something were trying to pry the dream from my hands.
When it all became too much and the future felt so far away, I sat down, turned on my phone, and recorded a video message to my future self. Through tears and exhaustion, I told her no matter how this turned out, I was proud of her. Proud that she tried. Proud that she had given every last ounce of energy, courage, and determination to bringing this dream to life. Proud that she swung for the fences. I assured her that if it all went down in flames, it was never meant to be because I was going to give it my all. I promised her I would fight like hell, so she better never for a second question our dream. Then I ended the recording, put it in a file labeled “Open in 2030,” and never looked back.
Who knows where I’ll be then, but I can assure you of one thing: I will be so freaking proud of the woman who recorded that video. Because when the world punched her in the face, she stood back up. When they tried to rip the dream from her hands, she went to work, grew calluses, and strengthened her grip.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
After years working in animal health, I became increasingly aware of a gap within the pet aftercare industry. Veterinary professionals and pet families often carry an enormous emotional burden during end-of-life decisions, yet the options available have changed very little over time. I wanted to create something that offered genuine partnership, meaningful options, and environmentally responsible solutions during one of life’s most difficult moments.
That vision led to the creation of Tails to Remember.
Tails to Remember is a water-based pet aftercare company specializing in aquamation, a gentler alternative to traditional flame-based cremation. Our mission is to provide compassionate, dignified, and personalized aftercare experiences that help pet families honor their companions with love rather than solely grief.
What sets our company apart is our holistic approach to pet memorialization. We believe aftercare should extend beyond the technical process itself and become part of a meaningful remembrance experience. Families can choose from carefully curated memorial keepsakes, including our cedar urns, which are handmade in the USA by a small, family business out of Texas. These handcrafted chests along with our other offerings are designed to celebrate the joy and story of each pet’s life. We also provide fully customizable engraving completed in-house, allowing families to personalize memorial items with names, messages, or meaningful artwork.
Sustainability is central to our mission. The aquamation process naturally produces nutrient-rich water which we donate to local agricultural partners whenever possible, supporting soil enrichment and community farming efforts. In addition, residual materials from communal processes may be responsibly utilized as soil amendments for gardening partnerships.
Our brand is built around the belief that a pet’s passing does not have to represent only sorrow. Instead, we aim to frame it as the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another, honoring the life, love, and story shared between pets and their families.
I am especially proud that Tails to Remember was created with both veterinary professionals and pet owners in mind. We strive to reduce emotional strain on veterinary teams while offering families more personalized and compassionate choices during a deeply vulnerable time.
Ultimately, Tails to Remember is about more than a service. It is about creating an aftercare experience that is thoughtful, environmentally conscious, and centered on preserving the dignity and legacy of our beloved pets.
Every decision we make is guided by the belief that even in loss, something meaningful, gentle, and good can remain, as we treat every pet and every keepsake as if it were our own, pouring our heart and soul into everything we do.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Risk taking… I’m a fan. I’ve dabbled in it a time or two, but its allure can be dangerous because even a small taste can leave you craving more. In my experience, the high when a risk pays off erases the memory of any prior fear or past loss. All this being said, I believe there has to be a method behind the madness when it comes to finding success and increasing the probability for a favorable outcome. Meaningful progress often requires stepping beyond comfort, but risk should be guided by intention, purpose, and a willingness to prepare for the possible outcomes. To me, successful risk taking is not about ignoring fear, it is about evaluating what is being gained against what is being lost and moving forward when the potential value justifies the uncertainty. Throughout my life, I have taken several major risks. From traveling with only a backpack and a loose outline of a plan, to relocating across the country for professional opportunity, to ultimately investing everything I had into building Tails to Remember, risk has often followed my strongest convictions.
Travel played a formative role in shaping how I think about uncertainty and opportunity. From a young age, I was exposed to cultures and communities far outside my own. I’ve walked alongside my friend, Tina, as she shared stories of her family, once divided by the Berlin wall whose remnants laid beneath our footsteps. I’ve spoken with the Missionaries of Charity nuns and witnessed firsthand their dedication to the most vulnerable of orphans. I’ve stayed at the best hotels in the world and visited the most rural, depraved slums. My exposure to the raw diversity of humanity laid an essential foundation to the person I am today, and my perspective on life.
As I grew older, I began taking more independent travel risks, primarily booking last-minute trips with minimal planning and only a pack. Those journeys occasionally led to uncomfortable moments. I’ve been stranded in Istanbul, horribly ill in Morocco, and frostbitten in Tromso; however, those experiences also created some of the most profound memories of my life. I built lifelong friendships between hostel bunks in Amsterdam, rode a scooter for days through the Ha Giang loop, and splashed around with the elephants at their sanctuary in Chiang Mai. Most importantly, I’ve learned risk often opens the door to experiences that cannot be planned or purchased.
One of my most significant professional risks was relocating to Kansas to pursue an opportunity in the animal health industry. Abandoning Texas for an entirely different state was intimidating to say the least. With no friends, no experience with winter weather, and essentially no clue about the Midwest, I stepped into the role as the youngest sales representative in the company (yet again). I chose to risk failure and embarrassment to challenge preconceived notions about the limitations of my experience. To prove my capability through good, old fashioned hard work and determination. Ultimately, I trusted in my preparation, my values, and my God. I was willing to bet on myself. I saw a path laid before me with divine stones, and I interpreted this as an invitation to trust what God had planned for me. I am so incredibly thankful every second of every day that I took the risk because it brought me to my destiny.
The largest risk I have ever taken was committing fully to building Tails to Remember. I invested every penny of my savings, every second of my time, every bit of my energy, and every piece of my heart into transforming how people experience pet aftercare. The risk was substantial. Failure would reverberate into colossal financial and personal consequences, but my motivation has never been to avoid risk. It has always been to pursue the possibility of creating positive change. In this case, within an industry which has remained largely dominant in that domain for decades. For me, the fear of not taking the risk is greater than the fear of total collapse. Regret will eat away at the soul ten times more than the grief of having tried and failed.
I take risks in pursuit of hope with the foundation of faith and all I have experienced. I know God has equipped me to meet the challenges and endure the hardships. So yes, I like a good risk, and I may have risked it all only to wind up heartbroken in the end. But I also might change the industry. I may revolutionize a field laid stagnant for decades, overcoming a fear of uncomfortable change. A risk in exchange for the chance I may transform how we confront death, not with gloom and darkness but with light and joy because we cannot turn back the clock. We cannot unread the book, but we can turn the page, dip the quill, and write a new chapter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tails2remember.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tails2remember/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579595893220
- Other: https://share.google/PpoBu3R0WmpqzOq9t
