We all love dogs, and I’m sure we all love to give them a cheeky taste of the human food we think is goddamn delicious. But as the famous Oreo commercial teaches us, some foods just aren’t good for dogs. Finally, a mother and son are making food that is good for dogs.
Thea Mendes is the owner of DOMUTS, a business that makes donuts for dogs. Sure, it’s a niche market, but it’s clever and original, so you can kinda see why it became popular amongst dog owners. While Thea runs the day-to-day aspects of the venture, it was actually her 11-year-old son, Marcus, who came up with the idea.
One day, as Marcus was helping his mum out with her human donut market stall, he was keen on giving a customer’s dog a little taste of the family wares, only to be told that it would make them sick. Marcus wasn’t having any of that bullshit, so he got to work on researching ingredients that dogs could eat, inventing the DOMUT. Yep, he came up with the catchy name, as well.
Marcus had been asking for his own dog for some time, so Thea took the two birds, one stone approach to the decision. She told her son he could buy a dog with the money saved from selling DOMUTS on the weekends, teaching him a valuable lesson which can essentially be summed up with, ‘money doesn’t grow on goddamn trees’.
The first batch of 24 DOMUTS sold out in a flash and soon after, the duo were selling 250 every week. The hurdle, however, was keeping up with big orders. As the business grew, the family simply didn’t have the resources and the recipe, unfortunately, did not have the shelf-life to be prepared long in advance. Coupled with working full-time and running the family home, it all became a bit too much, so Thea decided to put the business on hold.
With increasing demand from loyal customers and stockists, Thea decided it was time to act. This is why, when CGU Insurance took a stand for small businesses and put a callout offering to relaunch a deregistered ABN, Thea submitted an application. CGU Insurance have helped to re-launch DOMUTS with a bang, offering assistance in refreshing her brand, finding a commercial kitchen to take on the production, enlisting a food technologist to tweak the shelf-life of the product, and setting her up with a business mentor, who worked with her on a business plan, which will assist her in scaling the business. With that help well underway, DOMUTS is on track for one helluva comeback.
Of course, Thea and Marcus are pretty dang proud of the business they’ve built together. “There is no better reward than seeing first-hand results from your own ambition and hard work,” Thea told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
While DOMUTS is a little ways from sustaining the family on its own just yet, Thea and Marcus have big ambitions for the future, and you’ll be stoked to hear that Marcus absolutely got his dog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZaxUNifG_8&feature=youtu.be
You gotta admit, they look pretty damn tasty, even from a human’s perspective.
Ignite your ambition today and apply for a CGU Insurance Ambition Grant HERE.
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