The sweet fragrance of cookie dough wafts through the air as senior Maya Hare prepares fresh dough for eager customers in the Wake Forest area. Hare opened her business in July.
Hare is passionate about the connection to her customers when selling her product.

“I enjoy being able to interact with people. I’ve done a few farmers markets, and I really enjoy when people get to try the cookie dough. They get really excited. Just seeing the smile on their face after they try it, I really like it,” Hare said.

Hare got the idea to start her business from the curiosity of people on social media.

“I’ve always been interested in business, and I’ve been wanting to start one for the longest time. I just wasn’t sure what,” Hare said. “I’ve always had a list of business ideas on my phone, but then over the summer I saw people talking about edible cookie dough on Twitter. They were talking about how it would be really cool if there was a place in Wake Forest that did it, so I saw the opportunity in the market, and I just started trying stuff out.”

Since July when Cookie Dough Co. started, business has improved greatly. Deliveries have become larger and the followers on social media have increased.

“When I first started it was only three or four people, and my first delivery was five houses. My last delivery, which I just did was 14, so I have definitely gotten more deliveries per day that I am doing. Also, when I first started the business, I had 12 followers on Instagram, and I now have about 309,” Hare said.

Her company made some new flavors for the holidays.

“We now have ten flavors Chocolate Chip, Mint Chip, S’Mores, Oreo, Salted Caramel, Sprinkles, Red Velvet, Double Chocolate, Hot Chocolate and Candy Cane,” Hare said.

Her product is sold in a variety of sizes.

“I don’t know how much a batch costs because I sell them in jars. I have a 4 oz, 8 oz and 16 oz jars. The 4 oz is $3.50, 8 oz is $5.00 and 16 oz is $8.00,” Hare said.

The most challenging obstacle of running the business was starting deliveries.

“I wasn’t sure how to deliver because it was my first few deliveries, so I dropped two of them when I got out of the car to deliver it to someone. That was really hard because then I had to go home and make more and bring it back to them because it was my mistake. I would say the hardest part was just my own errors when I first opened it, learning curves basically. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t have many of them anymore, which is good,” Hare said.

Hare has ideas of some advances that can be made to make her business more welcoming to the community.

“I would really like for it to be bigger. That’s kind of hard to do right now, but I’d really like to have a storefront because I know that a lot of people like the experience of being able to walk into a store and see all of your options,” Hare said. “I would still do deliveries because a lot of my market is 13 and 14 year olds and they can’t drive, so I’m delivering it to them and that’s what sets me apart from other companies.”

In the new future, though, Hare’s customers may have to find a new supplier.

Hare said, “I really enjoy doing it, but I don’t think once I go to college I’ll have the time or the resources to be able to do it, so I’ll probably have to stop it there.”