Latest / The Boujee Multipreneur / From Idea to Open Doors: How Megan Schaffer Built Crate Escapes
Transcript
- 0:17SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome back to the Bougie Multipreneur.
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
- 0:21SPEAKER_00: Hilary Heschauer.
- 0:23SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening for a while, you might have noticed we're changing things up a little around here.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: You know, I love talking about business, leadership, money.
- 0:31SPEAKER_00: You know what it really takes to build something on your own.
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: And I decided I don't want to be the only one doing all the talking anymore.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: So I'm bringing business owners and entrepreneurs onto this podcast to have real conversations about what owning a business actually looks like the good stuff, the hard stuff, the mistakes, the lessons, and everything that happens between the scenes.
- 0:54SPEAKER_00: And today I'm excited to have Megan Schaefer here with me.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: She's the owner and founder of Crate Escapes in Westfield, Indiana.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: And what's crazy is that Meg and I used to be neighbors for quite some time.
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: And I got to know her and all of her puppies and her kids.
- 1:13SPEAKER_00: And it's been um quite an interesting process to watch her with this new concept and idea, especially for our area.
- 1:22SPEAKER_00: Meg, thank you so much for coming on today.
- 1:25SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you for having me.
- 1:26SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be here and talk to you.
- 1:29SPEAKER_00: I know.
- 1:29SPEAKER_00: I think that your story about Crate Escapes is very interesting and unique.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: And I would love if you could share with us kind of like how you started this new business idea because it's kind of a new concept, at least for our area, where it's a dog park and bar and it's a unique kind of business.
- 1:51SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about it and kind of just start talking about how you started this whole thing off?
- 1:58SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I first just knew that I wanted to get back in the animal industry.
- 2:06SPEAKER_01: That's what my background was in.
- 2:08SPEAKER_01: I've worked with animals.
- 2:09SPEAKER_01: My first job was when I was like 11 at a horse stable and then worked at Petsmart and I was a dog trainer in a vet tech and I worked for the zoo and was a zoo keeper and left that industry at least full time.
- 2:22SPEAKER_01: I didn't do it full-time anymore once I started having kids and just really missed it.
- 2:27SPEAKER_01: So my youngest was getting ready to start kindergarten.
- 2:30SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, now's my now's my chance.
- 2:32SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to get back and be with animals again.
- 2:34SPEAKER_01: That's really where my heart is, and quickly remembered and realized that it's not an industry that I could be in logistically with being a single parent and having kids and the the income that comes with zookeeping and working for nonprofits.
- 2:51SPEAKER_01: So um I already owned a photography business and thought, well, I'll just open a business.
- 2:56SPEAKER_01: Like, no big deal.
- 2:58SPEAKER_01: Um I, you know, I want to work for myself, I want to do it my way.
- 3:01SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I am.
- 3:03SPEAKER_01: Um, so I reached out to my brother-in-law, who is also kind of in a transition, and he also loves dogs.
- 3:09SPEAKER_01: And we were like, okay, we're gonna let's let's do this, let's start brainstorming what we want to do.
- 3:14SPEAKER_01: Um, and initially we thought we wanted, we knew we wanted a dog park in Hamilton County because Hamilton County doesn't have very many public dog parks.
- 3:24SPEAKER_01: The best, well, at least in my opinion at the time, the best public dog park to go to was in Broad Ripple, and it's just kind of a drive.
- 3:31SPEAKER_01: So we knew we wanted a dog park.
- 3:32SPEAKER_01: We thought we maybe would do daycare boarding, but wanted it to be really like homey.
- 3:37SPEAKER_01: Um, and from just, well, you know, from be from being my neighbor, I love like parties and events and getting people together.
- 3:46SPEAKER_01: So, in that planning, and I think too from being in weddings and seeing those events almost every weekend, I thought, oh, that would be so fun if we could have all of our clients come and come to the dog park and we could have food trucks and maybe have movie nights and obviously have beer and wine and fun stuff, and everybody could come together and just celebrate and kind of have a party with their dogs.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a ton of fun.
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: Um and then as we were building our business plan and writing things up and figuring out costs and all of that, realized, well, really, we could do that.
- 4:23SPEAKER_01: Like, why just do that on the weekends?
- 4:24SPEAKER_01: This actually sounds really fun and amazing.
- 4:26SPEAKER_01: So then we added it in like, what would that look like?
- 4:29SPEAKER_01: And ended up finding out that this was a concept that existed all around the United States.
- 4:34SPEAKER_01: We just didn't have it here in Indiana.
- 4:36SPEAKER_01: Um, so then we started visiting these different dog bars all around the country.
- 4:41SPEAKER_01: And the first one I went to, I was immediately like, yes, this is perfect.
- 4:45SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what I want to do, and completely diverted from the idea of having the rest and focusing more on the dog bar concept.
- 4:56SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
- 4:57SPEAKER_00: I think the the great point here is that you had to do a lot of research before you started this.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: How many of these dog park bars did you visit?
- 5:07SPEAKER_01: I visited over the course of the first couple years, probably went to seven or eight.
- 5:13SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're really all of them are they're the same in the in that they're off-leash dog parks that like integrate indoor-outdoor where dogs are just running loose.
- 5:25SPEAKER_01: There's obviously a lot of bars that are dog friendly, and some of them have dog parks like out back that's fenced in.
- 5:30SPEAKER_01: Um, but all of the dog bars are all bars that have liquor and beer and wine and have dogs running loose.
- 5:38SPEAKER_01: Um, but then they varied too in their size.
- 5:40SPEAKER_01: You know, some of them were very uh like dive bar ish and it was just like adults only.
- 5:46SPEAKER_01: Others were a bigger, you know, several acre campus, also offering grooming and boarding and daycare and retail and stuff like that.
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: So it was it was nice to see the variation between all of them so that when we were planning, we could kind of decide, oh, I I really liked that about this place, I didn't like that about this place, and decide how what we wanted ours to look like.
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 6:09SPEAKER_00: So it took you quite a while to do the research behind it.
- 6:12SPEAKER_00: And then at this point, were you making your business plan and reaching out to investors?
- 6:18SPEAKER_00: What was the next step?
- 6:19SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um, so first what I had done, I actually reached out to the Indiana Small Business Development Center at the very beginning just to get information from them.
- 6:32SPEAKER_01: And I took a few classes on like how to start a business.
- 6:36SPEAKER_01: And he they gave us access to a mentor who then had like a business plan program that we could use to get all of our stuff put in and help organize it so that when we went to the banks, we weren't just like, hey, I have this crazy idea.
- 6:51SPEAKER_01: Do you want to give me some money?
- 6:53SPEAKER_01: Um just to look a little bit more professional.
- 6:56SPEAKER_01: Um, they also were able to give us different like market reports, which was really hard to find since this doesn't exist in this area and not a lot of dog bars exist in general.
- 7:09SPEAKER_01: Um, but obviously the bank wants to know that it's viable.
- 7:13SPEAKER_01: So um got access to that also.
- 7:17SPEAKER_01: So that yeah, as we were planning, we we wrote the business plan first and started reaching out to banks and learned a lot about a lot of things in that process.
- 7:30SPEAKER_01: We it was funny because when we first started, you know, we had an idea in our heads of, okay, I'm I like this much money seems like that that'll be good.
- 7:39SPEAKER_01: And then as we would go further, we'd be like, oh no, maybe we need to double that number.
- 7:44SPEAKER_01: And then we would go further and it'd be like, oh, oh shoot, nope, nope, we still need more than that.
- 7:49SPEAKER_01: Um, I didn't realize how expensive commercial everything is.
- 7:54SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 7:54SPEAKER_01: You just added more zeros and zeros and zeros.
- 7:56SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, yep.
- 7:57SPEAKER_01: So it would, it was hard because you would feel like, you know, like I knew how much money I had to put into the business.
- 8:04SPEAKER_01: And I obviously pulled in my sister and brother-in-law and how much money they had, and then we're like, oh, we need, you know, X amount more now.
- 8:11SPEAKER_01: We can we'll find it, we'll find it, and we would find it and then be like, okay, we're good.
- 8:14SPEAKER_01: And then nope, you need you need more.
- 8:16SPEAKER_01: And so then we would start looking for more.
- 8:19SPEAKER_01: So um, when we I took some other like marketing class, and it was focused on social media and growing your audience and that kind of thing in social media.
- 8:33SPEAKER_01: And I had posted that we wanted to build this concept in Westfield, and the post kind of blew up, and then the Indiana Indianapolis Business Journal reached out and did an article, and that's actually what ended up helping us find a lot of our investors is business people read that magazine apparently and read it, and people started reaching out, and that was also a really critical point for us because without those investors, we wouldn't have been able to do it.
- 9:02SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that's important to for everyone listening to know like that you really had to get a lot of investors behind and all the resources that you did use, Meg, you know, that are local and some of them free to use just to get out there and get the name out there that way people could find you and then just tell you, like, I'd like to invest, right?
- 9:22SPEAKER_00: How are you?
- 9:23SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like mine.
- 9:24SPEAKER_00: You're like, okay, yes.
- 9:27SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah.
- 9:28SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember watching a video or something on starting a business, and the girl in it was just talking about how anybody can do it.
- 9:37SPEAKER_01: It's not hard to do, like it's it doesn't take like a genius, you don't have to have like a Harvard degree, or it's not impossible to do, but it's it's very hard to do just in the work that's involved behind it, and just like keep on keeping all like keep pushing because it's not easy.
- 9:57SPEAKER_01: Anybody can do it, but it's hard and you can do it.
- 10:01SPEAKER_01: You just gotta keep keep working and keep trying and keep pushing.
- 10:04SPEAKER_00: I know so those first few years, I think are the most difficult.
- 10:08SPEAKER_00: Would you agree?
- 10:09SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
- 10:11SPEAKER_01: Oh yes, which you always hear and people always say, but when you're actually in it, you're like, Oh yeah, people said the first few years are hard, and man, yeah, really hard.
- 10:21SPEAKER_00: It's like with kids when they say, like, this is hard at this point, and you're like, Oh, it'll be fine.
- 10:26SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, Damn, it really was hard.
- 10:28SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: Like, they weren't getting about that.
- 10:30SPEAKER_00: They were right, yeah, surprising, they were right.
- 10:34SPEAKER_00: Um, what's like one thing that really surprised you the most about getting this business started?
- 10:41SPEAKER_01: Um I think oh gosh.
- 10:44SPEAKER_01: I mean, all of it's kind of been surprising.
- 10:47SPEAKER_01: I was surprised how like there's a lot of the bank part, I think was the hardest.
- 10:55SPEAKER_01: Um, we talked to so many banks, and I feel like it's so cliche because you hear that so much with everything, like you're gonna get a lot of no's and it's really hard to not get discouraged when you're sorry, my something's going off.
- 11:09SPEAKER_01: Um when um you know, people are telling you no and that can't happen, and the this sounds crazy and that kind of thing to not let it get to you and trust your gut and keep trying.
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 11:27SPEAKER_00: Um not let them like pull you down and you know, exactly.
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 11:34SPEAKER_00: I remember that too.
- 11:35SPEAKER_00: I think I went to 10 or 11 banks to get my first business loan.
- 11:39SPEAKER_00: And you know, you get discouraged a little bit after those over and over again, right?
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
- 11:46SPEAKER_01: And some of them give you the crazy looks.
- 11:48SPEAKER_01: Um, and there were people like there were bankers that we talked to.
- 11:51SPEAKER_01: We literally had one guy that was like, I don't even like to go to Lowe's and see dogs.
- 11:55SPEAKER_01: Like, why would I want to go to a bar and have dogs around?
- 11:58SPEAKER_01: That sounds awful.
- 11:59SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, so you're not my bank.
- 12:02SPEAKER_01: Thanks anyway.
- 12:03SPEAKER_01: I don't think this is gonna make sense for us, but um, which person in the bank is a dog lover?
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: Can I have that person?
- 12:11SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can I talk to them, please?
- 12:13SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 12:13SPEAKER_01: And it was, and there were some that were super nice, but they were just like, yeah, no, like, no, you we can't do it.
- 12:21SPEAKER_01: So we were obviously very grateful when we when we found a bank because there were times that I thought we're we're not we're not gonna find nobody's gonna give us the money.
- 12:29SPEAKER_01: This isn't gonna happen.
- 12:30SPEAKER_01: So I know, I know.
- 12:32SPEAKER_00: So let's fast forward to it's open.
- 12:35SPEAKER_00: Tell me about I think the next hurdle for most business owners is getting people in the door.
- 12:43SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I think I mean we leaned really heavily on social media.
- 12:49SPEAKER_01: Um in the beginning, I think for us, the beginning, it was a big rush in the beginning.
- 12:58SPEAKER_01: We we still are seeing a lot of new people every month, but it's gone down from what it was when we first opened, you know, when you first open and everybody's new because every, you know, because you're brand new.
- 13:10SPEAKER_01: Um so uh in my photography business, it was just me that I needed to worry about.
- 13:19SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot different when you have a whole team and a whole business and then now a bank loan that you got you gotta pay to make sure people are coming in and learning about outreach and marketing and all the things that I'd done at a much, much smaller scale before and to figure out how to reach people and how to get people in.
- 13:41SPEAKER_01: Because I for us, I I feel like a lot of people knew about us, but then the hardest part after that was getting them to actually come in.
- 13:50SPEAKER_01: I mean, even now we still say, Oh, I've I've heard about you guys and I just haven't had a chance to come out, because it is kind of a weird concept, and we have a lot of people that will come the first time without their dog just to kind of see what it's all about and see if they've they're okay with bringing their dog next.
- 14:06SPEAKER_01: And I get that.
- 14:07SPEAKER_01: Um, because it is it is a weird idea and a weird concept that a lot of people haven't heard about before.
- 14:11SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's the hardest part is not only making sure people are aware that we exist, but then actually getting them to come through the door.
- 14:20SPEAKER_00: I know.
- 14:20SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know how they say you have to like get in front of someone like so many times, x amount of times before they they buy your product, etc.
- 14:28SPEAKER_00: It's like they had to see and hear about you so many times before they say, like, okay, I'm actually gonna go there now, right?
- 14:35SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 14:36SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 14:36SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: So you do most of your um marketing just social media to get people in.
- 14:43SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else that you do to kind of get them through the front doors?
- 14:47SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do.
- 14:48SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've worked with a few different things with magazines and commercials and online ads.
- 14:55SPEAKER_01: Um, since we are right across the street from Grand Park, also, that's obviously a huge pool of people that the first year we were just kind of blindly hoping they would see us and come over.
- 15:06SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't work that way.
- 15:08SPEAKER_01: We found out very quickly.
- 15:09SPEAKER_01: So this summer we did a lot of art of ads targeted for just the Grand Park area so that when people were out there, you know, playing playing baseball and they had a rain delay, or it's it's a hundred degrees and the parents are just sitting out in the sun, they realize they can just walk across the street and there's air conditioning and beer and do those kind of targeted ads.
- 15:32SPEAKER_01: Um, also, you know, we have a ton of apartment complexes that are around us.
- 15:38SPEAKER_01: So partnering with different apartment complexes and different businesses that are complementary to us to be able to get word of us out to other people because obviously then that's a whole new base of customers that those groups have that you can introduce yourself to also.
- 15:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like it's never-ending, right?
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: Like the the marketing and putting yourself out there.
- 16:04SPEAKER_00: You have to constantly keep, you know, putting it out in there and just over and over marketing, right?
- 16:12SPEAKER_00: It's you have to get new customers in all the time.
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
- 16:16SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it can be it's it's a never-ending, always something.
- 16:21SPEAKER_01: And then there's always new new ideas too and new things that you never know if you should try.
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
- 16:27SPEAKER_00: I'm always worried about print advertising.
- 16:30SPEAKER_00: Um, at least for my businesses, they don't, it doesn't do as well, it seems.
- 16:34SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's the the word of mouth, and I'm sure that you probably hear that the most too.
- 16:37SPEAKER_00: Like that's probably how you get the most referrals for new new dog memberships, right?
- 16:42SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: I know because I love your concept of the dog membership.
- 16:47SPEAKER_00: And as you know, my dog Max or Maxi Boo, as I like to call him, uh loves loves it there and literally jumps out of the car so fast to get inside and do his doggy day care.
- 17:01SPEAKER_00: I would say his least favorite thing is the bathing that we do there with him, but he does he does it, he just looks at me like, why, why would you do this to me, mom?
- 17:12SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
- 17:13SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 17:14SPEAKER_01: The you the dogs start to learn too which direction the bath is and they'll go to leave.
- 17:18SPEAKER_01: And then when they see the owners turning that direction, they're like, Wait, no.
- 17:22SPEAKER_00: I know.
- 17:23SPEAKER_00: And you have so much, you know, here you have like the bar, and then you have all the events that you do to bring people in.
- 17:30SPEAKER_00: How is that working to have different events all the time to bring in like potential new people?
- 17:36SPEAKER_01: The yeah, the events are really like the bread and butter of the business because that's where most of our day pass people, people from further away, for them to be willing to drive out.
- 17:48SPEAKER_01: Um, it is usually those events, especially the phone parties.
- 17:52SPEAKER_01: Um, so we really wanted to focus on a lot of events, both, I mean, from visiting the other dog bars and following them on social media and seeing all the fun stuff they got to do.
- 18:04SPEAKER_01: Part of it is just me selfishly.
- 18:05SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, I want to, I want to do that.
- 18:07SPEAKER_01: I want to have a puppy prom and I want to have a Halloween, a Halloween party.
- 18:12SPEAKER_01: And that looks like so much fun.
- 18:14SPEAKER_01: So, and it is um a ton of fun to plan those.
- 18:17SPEAKER_01: So I think it gives people a reason to come out and it just helps build the community.
- 18:23SPEAKER_01: Cause when there's an event and you know, competitions, we quickly found that people are not interested at all in them being in the competition.
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: Um, when we tried to involve the people, they were like, Nit pass.
- 18:35SPEAKER_01: Um, but if their dog is part of the competition, everybody will sign up.
- 18:39SPEAKER_01: Everybody will sign up for their dog to be in, you know, a pie eating contest or a costume contest or a hula hoop contest or whatever it is.
- 18:49SPEAKER_00: Um, so I remember that one of the last ones I was there, the dogs had these t-shirts on, and I was like, Why are all these dogs having t-shirts on?
- 18:57SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, Oh, it's a wet t-shirt contest.
- 19:00SPEAKER_00: Yes, yep, yeah, it was like, oh my gosh, it's too cute.
- 19:04SPEAKER_00: But I was like, Are we supposed to put t-shirts on our dogs?
- 19:07SPEAKER_00: I'm so confused.
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: They sometimes don't pay attention.
- 19:10SPEAKER_00: I just come, honestly, I'm like, let's see what's going on today.
- 19:13SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 19:15SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 19:16SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna add your Instagram tour note, but how would you like people to get in touch with you?
- 19:23SPEAKER_00: Or how do they come and visit the Crate Escapes?
- 19:27SPEAKER_01: The easiest way is just by going to our website, which is CratescapesWestfield.com.
- 19:33SPEAKER_01: Um, right at the top, there's a button you can click for signing up for either a day pass, really any of the links that talk about day pass or membership or daycare, uh, takes you to the same platform.
- 19:46SPEAKER_01: And from that, you can get in all your information, all of your pets information, upload the vaccine documentation so that way when you come in, everything's done and it makes check-in super smooth.
- 19:56SPEAKER_01: But the website also gives you all the information you need to know about requirements and rules and all the things for getting getting in and having a great time.
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 20:07SPEAKER_00: And because this is the bougie multipreneur podcast, you know, I'm gonna have to ask you what is your bougie splurge, Meg?
- 20:15SPEAKER_00: Like, what's something that you love spending money on?
- 20:19SPEAKER_00: And because I know you, I know you don't spend a lot of money, but let's pretend you do spend your money a lot on something.
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: What do you spend your money on?
- 20:29SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, you asked me this in the beginning.
- 20:31SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh man.
- 20:32SPEAKER_01: Um, I think really the thing that I'm most willing to spend money on is experiences and things I get to do.
- 20:40SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm usually not a like hair makeup nails, but I love to travel and see things that I don't normally see.
- 20:47SPEAKER_01: So, like I ran like on my birthday this year, I decided like the week before to fly to Seattle and book a whale watching tour because I've been dying to see Orcas.
- 21:01SPEAKER_01: And it was literally not even like a 24-hour trip.
- 21:04SPEAKER_01: I flew out to Seattle earlier in the morning, did the whale watching tour, flew back and did an overnight flight that night on the way back home.
- 21:11SPEAKER_01: Um, but I try to do that.
- 21:12SPEAKER_01: I try to take a trip by myself at least once every year because I think that's important and that is what fuels me and makes me feel better and makes me feel good.
- 21:22SPEAKER_01: And even though I'm a busybody and I always do something super active while I'm gone, I I feel so much better when I get back.
- 21:29SPEAKER_00: Kind of filling filling up your own cup for once, right?
- 21:32SPEAKER_00: Yes, for sure.
- 21:34SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
- 21:38SPEAKER_00: I love coming to Create Escapes.
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: I love you as a friend, and I'm so happy for you.
- 21:44SPEAKER_01: I love you too, and thank you for having me.