Meet Meghan Blair | Owner/Head Baker/Cookie Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Meghan Blair and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Meghan, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I’ve always loved baking. I always remember helping my mom bake when I was little and it’s just something that as always stayed with me. I’ve played with the idea of starting a bakery business of some sort for a long time but it was something I kind of just dabbled in from time to time and it never really turned into anything. Then about five years ago I got really into baking cookies. At first I was seeing all these unique cookie recipes on Pinterest and then I realized how boring the cookie selection I was finding at the time was. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t go wrong with a classic chocolate chip cookie, but it’s been done. And something I used do when I first started playing with the idea of a bakery business was trying to create unique and different flavor cupcakes. So I started doing that with cookies, and I just started experimenting. And there were only so many cookies I could eat so I would bring my experiments to where I was working at the time and one of my coworkers said I should turn this into a business. I was super unsure of myself, except for a few cupcake orders here and there I had never really tried running my own business and I honestly had no idea how to run a business. But, I always knew I never wanted a typical 9-5 job, I always wanted to be my own boss, so I gave it a try and started The Mad Batter Cookie Company in December of 2017. That Christmas I had 9 orders and it has slowly been growing ever since. Every year I would get more and more orders, I continued to grow and develop my menu and cookie flavors, I started to figure out my brand identity and in 2022 I started to do markets and really build my brand on social media and so far it looks like this year will be my most successful year to date.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

I started Mad Batter five years ago, because I was bored with the same old cookie flavors. So I started experimenting and started making unique and what I like to call quirky cookie flavors. I like to take the unexpected and turn it into a cookie. My mom’s favorite dessert is banana cream pie, turned that into a cookie. I love coffee so I created the Double Espresso Chocolate Chip cookie, that has espresso in the cookie dough and crushed up chocolate covered espresso beans mixed in with the chocolate chips. Saw a box of pop tarts at the store, why not build a cookie around pop tarts. I tend to take my inspiration from the world around me so if I see a specific dessert, or food, or even just an ingredient I’ll just start building a cookie flavor in my head. I like to think that’s what sets me apart from other small business cookie shops.

I think the cookie I’m most proud of is the one I created based off of Harry Potter, called the Butter Beer Sorting Hat. It’s a sandwich cookie made with Butter Beer cookies and filled with a marshmallow vanilla frosting. The very middle of the frosting is one of the four house colors and then I cover that with a ring of white frosting so you can’t see the color inside, and then when you bit into the sandwich you’ll see your house color. That is the one cookie that is always guaranteed to sell out at markets and its been one of my most ordered cookies this year.

I’m most excited just to see how I can keep growing. I’m excited to see how far I’ve come with my brand identity, I feel like I’ve really found the look and feel of my brand now. I want to keep growing and experimenting and I hope to open a store front in the next couple of years. I feel like I really started to hit my stride this year and I’m just so excited to see what comes next.

Getting to where I am today was not easy by any means. The first couple of years went really great, I was getting a lot of orders and I really felt like I was getting somewhere and then the world shut down and essentially so did I. But I used that time to continue to experiment with new flavors and post so I could stay on people’s minds and once things started to get back to normal I started getting orders for all the new cookie flavors I kept posting about on Instagram. 2020 was still definitely not my best year ever, but Mad Batter was still kicking. Its also hard since this is not my main source of income yet, so it’s challenging to juggle my full time job with the demands of being small business owner, especially when you are your only employee. I’m Mad Batter’s head baker, cookie creator, social media manager, graphic designer, packager, delivery person, and so on, so it can be hard to find enough hours in the day to get everything. But, this is what makes me the happiest and genuinely love what I do, so that makes it easier.

I think one of the biggest things a learned in the last 5 years is that a dream is only going to take you so far. The dream is where you start, but if aren’t willing to put in the work, then a dream is all its going to be. Nobody is just going to hand me a cookie shop. It’s time for me to be a big girl and I have to be the one to make this happen, no one else is going to do the work for me.

Another big lesson I’ve had to learn is that you are 100% going to fail, something at some point will go wrong, and thats ok. Take the time you need to be upset, to freak out, to panic, and then take a deep breath and move on and figure out your next move.

I always wanted to do good in the world, cookies are my way of making the world a little happier one cookie at a time, because cookies make people happy, it’s an undeniable fact that you cannot be upset when eating a cookie. So I’m just doing my part.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I wish I had places to suggest for this, but I never have time to go out. I’m always too busy making cookies!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

My two biggest supports are my mom and dad. They never let me think I couldn’t start my own business. My dad was my biggest promoter. He was in the hospital for an infection one time, and he called me saying I need more business cards and i need you to bring me cookies, I’ve been telling all the nurses and staff about the business. I was like “dad, you are in the hospital to get better, not be my marketing manager.” He passed away last March, and it was hard to keep going with this, because he would always get so excited when I would get an order and he would seriously tell anyone that would listen about me and my cookie business. I know he would have been so proud of me for starting to branch out to markets this year and he would have shouted from the rooftops about this interview.

And my mom, I seriously couldn’t do this without her. I wouldn’t be doing this without her. She’s the one that taught me to bake. She encourages me through the good and the bad and never lets me think I can’t do something or that this is impossible. She helps me out when she can at the markets. And she’s really just my biggest cheerleader, and I honestly would not be able to do this without her.

Website: www.madbattercookieco.com

Instagram: @madbattercookieco

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madbattercookieco

Other: TikTok: @madbattercookieco