Nashville's NoBaked Cookie Dough breaks into national retailers
Nashville's NoBaked Cookie Dough breaks into national retailers
The company manufactures more than 4,000 containers of the edible dough each week
Seven years ago, Megan Feeman felt burnt out, so she started making cookie dough. After selling just ten tubs, the 23-year-old called her corporate job quits.
Her half-baked decision has paid off. Today, Feeman’s NoBaked Cookie Dough dons the aisles of almost 400 stores across 27 states.
DashMart, DoorDash’s digital convenience store, is the most recent retailer to say “yes” to NoBaked. The ready to eat raw dough is available for purchase in all 36 cities the app serves.
Kroger also picked up her product. The Cincinnati born supermarket is selling the uncooked dessert in its Tennessee and North Alabama locations.
Feeman, who was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 alongside her husband last year, says that while the success is sweet, the journey has been all but cookie cutter.
A raw idea
Like many Belmont alums, Feeman tried to make it in the music business. After college, she took a role on Music Row. A year-and-a-half into employment, she realized she had no business in the music business or in anyone else’s business. She wanted to start something of her own.
It didn't seem far-fetched to Feeman, who comes from a family of entrepreneurs. Her parents own and operate a flooring company in Kentucky.
“I didn’t know what business I would start, ”she says. “I just knew I wanted to work for myself, and I started thinking about what I liked and what others might like.”
Cookie dough came to mind. Her egg-free recipe uses specially treated flour and is safe to eat.
“Most people know raw dough is risky because of the eggs, but a lot don’t realize untreated flour can have e-coli,” she says.
Edible cookie dough wasn’t mainstream. There were only a few brands on the market.
Feeman decided to take her raw idea and run with it. She began working on a website.
On March 30, she was ready to roll; the website went live and Feeman received her first orders. She fulfilled all 10 that weekend. That weekend she also decided to quit her job.
“I felt like I had sold 100,” laughs the now 29-year-old entrepreneur. “I was all in from that point forward.”
Her now-husband Jimmy, supported her hasty decision.
“We weren’t making a lot of money, but we also weren’t spending a lot,” says Jimmy. “Megan was really into minimalism and our rent at the time was $1,300 a month — which we split between the two of us.”
Megan began reaching out to local influencers, offering samples in exchange for features on their feeds. The following week, her alma mater rang and asked if she’d be interested in participating in a pop-up event at the end of April.
NoBaked was a hit at Belmont’s Record Day. Feeman sold 40 containers of cookie dough.
She also felt validated. Her social media strategy was working. Two teen girls from Portland, Tennessee drove an hour to buy NoBaked. They discovered it on Instagram.
Feeman continued to pedal her product online and at pop-up events. She became a fixture at local farmers markets.
Setting up shop
In July, Jimmy quit his job and joined Megan as a cofounder. The newly engaged entrepreneurs set out to start a storefront.
The two found an affordable space off West End Avenue. There was only one problem. They weren’t exactly an ideal tenant profile.
“Not a lot of people were going to lease to two 23-year-olds who had been selling cookie dough for a couple months,” says Jimmy.
Megan wrote a letter to a landlord. It moved the needle, and NoBaked into a building.
In October, the couple set up shop in a 750 square foot suite near Centennial Park and added four new flavors into the fold. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Cookie Monster, Red Velvet and Brownie Batter joined their three “OG offerings” — Chocolate Chip, Confetti Sugar and Cookies N Cream.
The so-called scoop shop emulated an ice cream parlor. Customers could enjoy the dessert in a cup or a cone.
The couple got their first taste of success, in the first six months, selling $300,000 of edible dough.
“We thought we had figured it all out,” says Jimmy. “We thought we had the Midas touch.”
The Feemans were eager to open another store — in March they did. They opened their second location in Louisville, Megan’s hometown. The couple paid for the buildout using every “credit card they could qualify for”.
Megan and Jimmy got married in June. Things were going well, so well that the Feeman’s thought they should franchise the business. That September NoBaked’s first franchise opened in Springfield, Missouri. Two more franchises followed in October — Lexington and Chattanooga.
The newlyweds also opened another scoop shop of their own — this time in Germantown.
Operating stores and assisting franchisees was a lot. It was too much to manage alongside e-commerce. The Feeman’s decided to focus on scaling the scoop shops, and shut down the site.
Crummy times
From the outside, the two appeared to have it all — four stores, three franchisees and a baby on the way — but 2019 was a crummy year for the couple. They felt unfulfilled and financially strained.
“We weren’t doing what we liked anymore,” says Megan. “The scoop shops took our attention away from the actual product. We were spending our time training managers and franchise owners.”
Their out of town stores were struggling. Jimmy tried to come up with new ways for franchisees and managers to attract customers. Nothing seemed to stick.
In November, they decided to pivot and become a product company again. Megan mapped out a plan and turned the online store back on.
The Feeman’s weathered the winter, but it was bleak. By February, Megan was eight months pregnant and paycheckless.
“We had overextended ourselves last year building out the new Edgehill location and with our sales volume dropping month after month we hadn’t paid ourselves in 7 months,” explains Jimmy. “The site was on but we still had to manage our stores and assist the franchisees. We couldn’t completely pivot.”
Tornado, covid and a baby
March hit Nashville and No Baked hard. On the third, severe storms ripped through town. A tornado torpedoed their Germantown store. Three days later, Tennessee’s first case of COVID was confirmed. Social distancing guidelines ensued shortly after, shutting down all their scoop shops — not just in Nashville but everywhere.
For the first time in a long time, the Feeman’s felt free. With the scoop shops closed, the couple was able to go all in on e-commerce. They pulled their full-time employees over to a single store and started pouring money into online ads.
“We had a friend in digital marketing who told us to start committing $400 each day (to online ads),” says Jimmy. “At that time, Facebook and Instagram ads had the best returns since 2014.”
It worked. NoBaked — which averaged around $20,000 a month in online sales since turning its site back on in November — raked in over $160,000 revenue the last two weeks of March.
Sales continued to soar. NoBaked was no longer gasping for air; it was growing. The cookie dough company saw a 1,600% increase in revenue over the next 12 months.
In April 2021, the couple crowdfunded a $450,000 investment to support the growth. They also cut the bow on their Fifth and Broadway location. NoBaked signed a lease for the location two years prior, but the pandemic put things on pause. It has become their most successful storefront.
That Christmas, the ad age came to an end and NoBaked pivoted…again.
“We were spending somewhere around $100,000 a month on Facebook and Instagram ads,” says Megan. “We weren’t seeing the same returns. They’d become ineffective.”
They cut all of their online ad spend and got focused on grocery stores. By July 2023, the Feeman’s had broken into 300+ supermarkets — including Fresh Market.
Today, NoBaked manufactures more than 4,000 containers of cookie dough each week.
The company has plans to heat things up even more in 2024. The Feeman’s have set out to raise a $1.5 million seed round this spring. They’ll use the funds to ramp up production and place their product in more retailers.