We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Megan Hoy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Megan below.

Hi Megan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started my cookie journey at the start of 2020 and never in my wildest dreams imagined I would have come this far!

Finding cookies was my saving grace. I started playing around with the idea of decorating cookies shortly after my mother lost her battle with Ovarian Cancer as a form of therapy.
We have always been extremely close my entire life so when she passed I was devastated and felt utterly lost. Fast forward a few months to my daughters second birthday, I was struggling to think of a way to somehow have my Mother be apart of the celebration even though she couldn’t be there physically. Something I should mention for this to make sense is that the day my Mother passed and the weeks that followed I saw Monarch Butterflys EVERYWHERE so they made me think of her.
Long story short I love party planning and have always had a passion for baking so combining those two just seemed natural.
My favorite has always been making and decorating sugar cookies and thought that would be the most fun way to include her, so Monarch Butterfly cookies it was! When I sat down to decorate the cookies all of my intrusive thoughts disappeared, I was able to breathe again. It was something I hadn’t felt in a while and I was beyond thankful for it. Cookies are my happy place, my therapy. I put so much love into each cookie so every time a client says how much they enjoy my cookies it means the world to me that I can bring someone so much happiness in a yummy package!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As stated before I got started with cookies because of my mothers passing but stuck with it not only because of the happiness it brought me but how much it brings to others.

I offer decorated sugar cookies for any occasion big or small. I also offer DIY Kits and cookie decorating classes both online and in person. I hope to expand the products I am able to offer but for now that keeps me very busy.
Some clients come to me with a theme or color palette they would like to use with tons of inspiration photos but others just send me an invite to the event, a theme, or some of the individuals personal likes and give me creative freedom. Both are fun to work with and I try to make the experience as fun and stress free as I can.

I would like clients to know that I put so much love into each cookie from beginning to end and am so honored that they chose Monarch Baking Company to be apart of their special moments, it truly means the world to me.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I started sharing on my social media platforms I told myself that I wanted authentic followers that I could engage with and were following me because they wanted to not because they were told to. I don’t stress to much about algorithms and making reels that are just there to generate views and have nothing to do with my business. I try to let things happen organically, but with that being said though I do put the work in, I make sure to be active and post every day, sometimes multiple times a day and look to see what times the engagement is the highest. I also make sure to engage with similar or complimentary accounts to my own business because you can help each other and reach certain audiences you may not other wise reach.
I’m very proud of the engagement I have received and am extremely proud that I stuck with my authentic way of achieving that rather than falling into the darker side of social media that can have a huge impact on your self worth. You don’t need to be someone your not just for follows.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Creating cookies started of as a hobby, a part time hustle to keep this SAHM busy, I never meant for it to become what it did! I started my business right when the pandemic hit so my DIY kits became a staple. Shortly after that I started creating a few holiday cookie gift sets and a custom order here and there, before I knew it clients began referring other clients who in turn began referring their family’s and so on until I was taking on more than I could handle!
It took me a while to find my groove and my comfort zone but once I did there was no looking back. My small dining room table hustle became a full blown ‘I now have an entire room in my house dedicated to cookies’ business and I couldn’t be more grateful!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.monarchbakingcompany.com
• Instagram: @monarch.baking.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/monarchbakingcompany
• Other: email; [email protected]