2025 Caleb Hubert, Calebs Aquatics and Heads to Tails; Aberdeen South Dakota Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Caleb’s Aquatics and Heads to Tails offer a variety of goods and services for pet owners including tanks, supplies, grooming, self-washing stations, fish, reptiles, and birds. Caleb's Aquatics is a retail store that specializes in fish, reptiles, critters, and birds. In addition to selling the animals, the store carries supplies for the feeding and care of the animals. Heads to Tails caters to the more traditional pet market with a wide selection of foods, treats, toys, supplements, etc. While this store does not sell dogs and cats, they also have a self dog wash station and offer professional dog grooming.

In 2019, and at age 13, Caleb's Aquatics started in the basement of the home of Caleb's parents. He had noted that a long-standing pet store in Aberdeen had closed, and fish could not be purchased at any other stores in town.

In 2022, while still in high school, Caleb was able to lease a building and open his first storefront. Moving the business to a stand-alone location allowed him to expand his offerings to include other small critters like hamsters, reptiles, and birds. Just over a year later, the business had outgrown the first location and was relocated to a strip mall in a prime commercial location. Then just one more year later in 2024, Caleb opened his second business, Heads to Tails, which is a pet retail store that offers a variety of goods for pets along with pet grooming and a self-washing station. The second store is located in the same strip mall as Caleb's Aquatics. Caleb is a graduate of Aberdeen Central High School and a car enthusiast.

Caleb first sought out the advice of the Small Business Development Center in 2021 as he was contemplating opening his first storefront. Through the process, there were discussions about tracking revenues and expenses and how hours might be limited since Caleb was still in high school. Caleb worked with SBDC Counselor Mark Nelson to prepare financial projections to understand the revenue needed in a storefront to cover costs. Over the first year in business, conversations continued as sales grew much faster than expected and Caleb was considering a larger location. Once again, projections were completed to help him understand his income and expenses at a larger location. For the most part, Caleb has been able to fund his growth organically, being cautious not to burden his business with extra payments for debt service.

Since its founding, Caleb has grown the web presence of his businesses across multiple social media platforms and offers online shopping for retail products. Caleb's Aquatics Facebook page has over 4,000 followers and Heads to Tails has over 1,000 followers.