We were lucky to catch up with Megahn White recently and have shared our conversation below.

Megahn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I am the happiest I have been as a business owner! This career is my second. I did have a regular job and I was miserable. I felt like I wasn’t serving my purpose at all. I would work 40 hours a week at my regular, full time job, and then another 20-30 hours on my side business as The Dog Mom Collective. I would stay up all hours of the night working on small business things and then be exhausted the next day paper pushing at a desk. I would use my weekends to do pop up events as a vendor. Any spare time I had, went to my side business. At 27 I went back to school to be a hairstylist. As a hairstylist I get to set my own schedule to include all the time I’d like to spend on The Dog Mom Collective.

Megahn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a millennial dog mom who wanted something better for my fur babies. In the spring of 2017, I went through a really hard loss. I needed a way to cope. I started thinking of how I could better take care of my golden retrievers, Samuel and Charlie. I read the side of their dog treat bag from a very big name brand and saw all these chemicals and additives that I wouldn’t dare put in my body, so I didn’t want to dare put it in theirs. I started googling dog treat recipes and testing them out. Over time, I found which ingredients meshed together better and why. I tried different flavors out on my own dogs and they helped me curate a very simple, yet delicious recipe other pet parents could trust. As time went on, I started learning to sew. I began creating hand made bandanas for dogs. I enjoyed picking out the different prints for different seasons and putting them together. I got my doggos to model them, my friends dogs, my sisters dogs. Everything started to take off pretty fast. I started making home decor to present and sell at shows that was geared toward dog moms. I was asked to make wedding party favors for a multiple weddings with my treats where I also wrote cute calligraphy sayings on the bag. I made bandanas for the actual wedding that looked like tuxedoes, bandanas to announce pregnancies. I partnered with a local brewery to make spent grain dog treats. I made doggy birthday cakes and cakes for all occasions. I even got to do a gender reveal cake for humans in the form of a dog cake where their dogs ate to the center and it revealed pink icing! If you think there may be a way to incorporate your dog into any life event, trust me- there is. I was even featured on a news segment across the state in July of 2018. As time went on, I began starting to over work myself. I was lacking sleep terribly, my self care wasn’t regular , and I was neglecting relationships that were important to me. Something had to change. I decided to dive head first and go back to school at 27 which was terrifying. After I made the switch, I cut back a bit on availability and products. Not because I didn’t want to make them, but because I physically didn’t have the time. By the time 2021 rolled around, I was a full on hairstylist working full time behind the chair. That spring, I hit another rough patch. I knew something needed to give. So, I put my small business on hold. I took about 6 months off. The holiday season of 2021, I came back with my Pupkin pie sale. I felt great starting back easy and just selling one or two items off my menu. My customers were super happy I was back and it was going great! Unfortunately, shortly after, my oldest dog, Samuel became very sick and passed away. I had a really hard time with his loss. I decided I was done and wanted to close up shop. I no longer could serve others when my heart wasn’t in it. After an almost year hiatus, I decided I was ready to make a come back, but differently than I had been doing. My business, The Dog Mom Collective, had actually been under a different name previously. When I say I rebranded, I REBRANDED. My color scheme was different, my name, my set up, everything. I now focus heavily on Dog Mom apparel and gifts. My treats are still a hit and I make them all by hand. My bandanas look different but are still hand made. I have presales that I launch at different times. As of this being written, I currently am selling my pupkin pies, Christmas gift baskets, and bandanas. I plan to grow my inventory over the next several months and by Fall of 2023, be back to doing in person vendor shows and potentially even have an online store fully launched. I’m taking it day by day to see what my clients love, what they don’t, what works best for them and myself. At the core of my business, I just wanted a better product for my pups and others; I wanted more and better options for us as pet parents. I’m so happy I’m back on that path but with a new direction.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I hand make, hand roll, hand cut, hand package, hand-you-name-it in my business. I legitimately had no idea what I was doing when I first started, but you can bet I was determined! As I mentioned previously, I googled basic dog treat recipes to get a feel for what worked and what didn’t. After a few tweaks, I found what worked best and lasted the longest without compromising fresh, natural, and organic ingredients. I’ve spoken with a few big manufactures but I never felt right around selling my recipe and I also was terrified of all the stories I heard about metal fragments found in mass produced dog food and treats. If I make every single treat by hand, I can inspect every single treat that goes into a bag. There is no potential of metal fragments or scary chemicals in my kitchen like there is in big factories. I’ve learned how to double my recipes, bake times that work better, how many pans I need to have ready and when, and I’ve shelf tested treats for up to a year in my cabinets as well as freezers to make sure they’d last.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that everything is a competition, especially with other businesses. I had a rough start with people ripping off ideas I had in the beginning and it was incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I would think I had a genius idea that was all my own and then later find out 1,000 people had already made it. The thing is, even if someone is copying every single move you make or product, it’s still not yours. My Bandanas were made different from every single other maker I’ve met this far. My dog treats were made by me and the people that loved them, loved them for a reason. There will be tons of other dog treat companies, tons of other Dog Mom companies, but none of them will do what I do, like I do. I rest easy in that thought!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @the.dog.mom.collective
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sircharlesbiscuits

Image Credits
Treasures By Teresa