We recently connected with Meghan Hogan Tauber and have shared our conversation below.

Meghan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their sales to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details.

When I started Hogan Made, I came from working in the non-profit sector, and saw the challenges from a mid sized to very large sized non-profits faced. I worked directly with our clients and know that even the smallest donations helped from time to time. I vowed that I would give back to my community in a way that would work for my business. I launched the Purch the Merch Community Giving Program in 2016 and started sponsoring smaller non-profit organizations in the Tampa Bay area.

I have been fortunate to be paired up at just the right time with each organization and a few times a year, I will donate 5% of my sales for an entire month, including matching funds from friends, family (I mostly force them all to match my funds) and other small businesses. In an effort to make it easy for everyone I decided to do all the work because I know from experience that when someone approaches a non-profit to ‘partner’ with them, it just creates a LOT of work for them. I wanted this to be a fun, easy way to raise funds. Matching funds, aside from those forced out of my family, have no minimum and no limit, making it affordable for anyone to contribute.

I have sponsored organizations like the Stano Foundation, Pepin Academies, Feeding Tampa Bay, Glazer Children’s Museum and Janis Ian’s Pearl Foundation, raising over $13,000 since Hogan Made was born. This is a program that continued through the pandemic and will continue as long as this business is up and running.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

If you’re not familiar with who I am, let me introduce myself! My name is Meghan Hogan Tauber and I was born with art in my veins. I have dabbled in just about every art and craft known to mankind and, while in college at USF, I was introduced to printmaking. I picked it up and put it down a few times and one day my mom suggested that Ybor City in Tampa REALLY needed a good t-shirt to show the unique flare from this historic neighborhood. Ybor City is best known as the Cigar City. Built on the cigar industry, Ybor is rich with history and well known for its chicken population. Yes, I said chickens. This immigrant community was formed with people moving to Ybor to work in cigar factories, taking their food and pets with them. The chickens have remained a quirky, entertaining and sometimes annoying part of the area.

So, when mom said Ybor needs a good shirt, naturally, a rooster smoking a cigar screen printed on shirt was the answer. Since then, we have set up at the Ybor City Saturday Market every Saturday from October through May, pleasing locals and tourists with our funny, unique tees.

Ybor was just the beginning of this design journey. Tampa neighborhoods all come with their own unique flavor and identity, so why not make tees for each community, I thought. We have captured historic Hyde Park, West Tampa, Seminole Heights, Bayshore Boulevard and more on our soft, comfortable tees, tanks, hoodies and other products. All this lead us to the slogan, “Tees for YOUR community.”

Today, we have an online store, we sell at the weekly market and have our tees in the Ybor Visitor Information Center, Hotel Haya and Visit Tampa Bay’s retail store in downtown Tampa.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When I started my business, I was in NO way ready to do so, but when the chips are down, you’ve got to trudge forward and get to work. After working incredibly hard for other people my entire life, I guess I had just had it. I quit my job one day and started my business the very next day. All I had in my pocket was my final paycheck, so I had to start cheap. I bought used equipment, and really cheap shirts. I found the cheapest vendor fees around for local markets and put my outgoing personality to the test! I made $130 at my very first market in April of 2016. I’m pretty sure I spent 6,000 hours preparing for that windfall. Each week I sold more, refined my process, and soon was able to afford to upgrade to a nicer shirt. About a year later, I invested a little money in a small screen printing setup, which seriously increased production. Every so often I would add a design or a new product, like stickers, tea towels and then embroidered hats and shirts. I’ve taken the journey slow and steady, and it’s payed off.

Shortly after staring my business I was introduced to the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, a county program that helps entrepreneurs. I was overwhelmed by the free resources and their willingness to help me get to the next level, introduce me to other like-minded folks and get me to a networking stage that I felt comfortable with. These resources are all over the place and since then, I have made it my hobby to help others just starting out. Sharing resources is the BEST thing you can do for a small business that is just getting going (or even earlier), so I have volunteered with a program that does just that and am always willing to talk, help and support anyone thinking about taking the step into small business!

How did you build your audience on social media?

As the small business journey began, so did my social media journey. I had NO idea how to use Instagram, had only used Facebook for personal reasons and seriously thought I had absolutely no business taking this leap, but, it’s an absolutely necessary marketing tool for every small business these days. When I made my Facebook Business Page and set up my Instagram for Business, I simply started by asking friends and family to join and follow me. I would occasionally ask them to share my posts or tag friends that might like what I’m doing. I took time to seek out local businesses that I support as well as started following businesses that were similar to mine, or that I saw as “that’s where I wanna be some day!” People and businesses started following me back, and then random people started following me. I took a few classes to up my hashtag game, improve graphics and create more engaging posts.

I did spend a small amount of money here and there on Facebook ads, but eventually decided that I would rather have my real audience, real people and customer be my followers. I am not, by any stretch, a social media guru, but I feel good about the decision not to spend a lot of money on ads to get followers. Insights are key. I finally realized this after really taking a look at what was working, what was popular and what posts were getting the most attention. Once I felt good about that, I started boosting posts, rather than paying for ads. I found this to be much more effective and a way better use of my money.

Advice for anyone just starting out? Well, I would start with those closest to you. People know people. Your friends of friends know people and THAT is who your core audience will be. Your friends, family and co-workers are HAPPY to share things for you – just ask. I gave away a LOT of shirts in my first year so people would post pics of themselves and tag me. It’s a small price to pay to get the word out. Giving things away is also a GREAT way to get noticed. Tag-a-friend giveaways are a great way to get noticed and you get to know your followers that way!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hoganmade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoganmade/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hoganmadebetter/