Wired Women: Maura Duggan
4:10 PM
Wired Women profiles successful women with ties to Boston who are pursuing their passions. These women serve as an inspiration not only to myself, but to women and girls everywhere who are eager to make waves in their field. This month's Wired Woman is Maura Duggan, President of Fancypants Baking Co. I was introduced to Maura's cookies years ago and they are my all-time favorite cookies. (You know this if you follow along with me on Snapchat). Crunchy, delicious, wholesome; I've been known to snack on them at breakfast. Read more about Maura below...
Style Wire: You're
a smartypants in addition to running Fancypants-- your degree is in
neuroscience and education. How did that switch come about?
Maura Duggan: Before I
started Fancypants, I worked for several years with students who were
deaf-blind at the Perkins School for the Blind (Watertown, MA). The job made a big impact on me, and years
later after graduate school, I found myself thinking about ways that I could
spend more time helping people with disabilities. The idea of baking popped into my head. I started thinking about whether I could
actually make a living by combining baking and working with people with
disabilities. It’s taken a long time,
but today, one of the things I’m most proud of is that we employ adults with
disabilities to help us package cookies.
SW: Did
you always have an interest in baking? What sparked it?
MD: Yes, I’ve always
loved baking! Growing up, my grandmother
lived across the street and she was always making something delicious – most
often cookies, but also fresh pies and gooey brownies. My mother also bakes; birthdays are not
complete without one of her cakes! So,
although I sort of stumbled upon baking as a career, it’s also been part of my
life.
SW: You've
worked hard to get Fancypants Cookies into grocery stores around the country;
what has been the most challenging part of this journey?
MD: It’s definitely been a huge challenge! I think the hardest part is learning how to
set up, and now running a manufacturing facility every day – I’ve had to learn
how to do everything from recipe development, to scaling recipes, to making
sales pitches, to hiring employees and paying bills – all at once!
SW: What's
the biggest lesson you've learned running your own business?
MD: Trust your
gut. There’s no one way to run a
successful business. It’s important to
watch what other people are doing and listen to ideas, but at the end of the
day, make decisions that feel right for you.
SW: What
does a typical work day look like for you?
MD: There really isn’t a typical work day for me. I love to squeeze in a
workout early in the morning and get in to the office by 7am. I always drink (gulp?) several cups of coffee
as I check email. Usually I check in with
our operations director and department managers to see what we’re baking and
decorating for the day. Then, I usually
have meetings from 9am on. On any one
day I could be meeting with our team about improving manufacturing practices or
another team to talk about packaging design. There’s always something new happening and the days fly by. I also travel quite a bit for meetings and
trade shows so I might be planning parts of those trips, too. When I’m at the office, though, I try to
leave around 4 or 5pm – I race home and throw on my sneakers and head to the
playground with my 2 boys (ages 3 and 6).
SW: What
do you think makes Crunch cookies stand out? What's your favorite flavor/why?
MD: What I love about our Crunch cookies is that
they taste completely homemade – and yet still have only 100 calories per
serving! We use ingredients that anyone
can find at their local store like cage free eggs and King Arthur flour so
they’re really a guilt free snack. My
favorite is our classic chocolate chip. There’s just something about the having a bit of chocolate, but not
overly sweet, that gets me every time. Being a parent it makes me proud to know
that we make a delicious treat, that is both school safe and made using
ingredients that I’m happy to feed my own children.
SW: How
do you stay motivated when you are your own boss?
MD: Complacency is a silent killer and my awesome
team at Fancypants reminds me of that every day. Their constant drive,
enthusiasm, and ideas for the future are all I need to keep me motivated and my
head in the game.
SW: When
you're not working what do you like to do in your free time?
MD: I’m training for a
Sprint Triathlon this fall – so these days you could usually find me doing laps
in a pool!
SW: Nothing
pairs better with cookies than coffee, what's your favorite coffeeshop and how
do you take your coffee?
MD: I love El
Recreo in West Roxbury. The owners are a
husband-and-wife team who actually source the coffee beans from their family coffee
bean farm in Nicarugua. The taste is
unreal! They are the friendliest people,
and I love supporting small business. I’m a no frills coffee drinker – just black.
SW: What's
the best piece of advice you can offer to fellow female entrepreneurs?
MD: Believe
in yourself. If you have an idea that
you think can work, go for it! When I
studied neuroscience 20 years ago, there were not a lot of females in the field
but I loved everything about it and wanted to be part of it. The same thing goes for entrepreneurship, if
you have an idea that you love – do it and don’t let anything get in the way.
Follow along with Maura and her adventures with Fancypants Baking on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
No comments: