We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taki & Derrick Bailey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Taki & Derrick , looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
AJ’s Dog Bakery wasn’t a business we planned on starting, but a happy outcome of such a traumatic tragedy. On August 18th our lives changed forever. We had been on a family vacation in Mexico and received a call from our dog sitter telling us our beloved mini schnauzer, Apple Jack wasn’t doing too well. The dog sitter gave him a rawhide dog treat. Unfortunately, Apple Jack got extremely ill from the treat and because of the sitter’s lack of care resulted in his death. We were absolutely devastated. It seemed so unreal. We didn’t want this to happen to any other family and also enjoy baking as a family so we created AJ’S Dog Bakery. To honor our boy Apple Jack, to heal from such a traumatic loss, to educate pet owners of the dangers of rawhide bones, and to bake high quality dog treats with LOVE and all natural ingredients for your fur babies! We hope that your fur babies enjoy them! We know our boy Apple Jack would’ve!
Taki & Derrick , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We got into the industry after tragically losing our pup, Apple Jack to a rawhide treat. We wanted to create a safer alternative for pet parents while also letting our creative juices flow in our treats. When we started, we didn’t know where we would niche down at but we enjoy making fun and cute decorative grommet dog treats for your fur friends for any occasion, holiday and season! All of our treats are hand cut and decorated for perfection! They are all grain and gluten free, preservative free, no artificial flavoring or colors and dehydrated for extended shelf life. We bake all of our treats to order to maximize freshness for your pets as well.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
A lot of our clients come from local pop ups and social media groups! We try to do a market every other weekend in different locations throughout the city of Denver and surrounding cities and from there we have been able to make many connections with customers of all types and even other small businesses interested in selling our treats in their retail spaces! It has been an awesome way to grow our business and meet so many incredible pet owners!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ajsdogbakeryco.com
- Instagram: @ajsdogbakery
- Facebook: @ajsdogbakery