Exploring Life & Business with Claire Morgan-Heredia of Doozers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Claire Morgan-Heredia. 

Hi Claire, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I struggled for years to find a career path that made me happy. I’ve always enjoyed baking, but I never imagined I’d be able to make money doing it. Through a serendipitous turn of events, I got a job at a Midtown Bakery & Cafe in Negaunee in November of 2018. Right away, I was inspired by the work and the atmosphere and, especially, the owner, Marybeth Kurtz. Marybeth saw potential in me and took me under her wing, pushing me to be creative and learn new techniques. In May of 2019, I applied to become a vendor at the Downtown Marquette Farmers Market. My acceptance resulted in the creation of Doozers. The entire process of running the business was exhausting and thrilling; I’d bake at Midtown all day during the week, and then half of the week I’d bake in my home for Doozers in the evenings. While my husband DJ didn’t initially take any interest in the baking and preferred to focus on our social media, event displays, and marketing, he soon realized the baking was becoming an “all hands-on deck” situation as we started to outgrow our home kitchen. DJ learned how to do nearly everything on the baking side. Between the two of us, we did all we could to grow our business and get our name out into the community. 

In the fall of 2020, right after the birth of our daughter Ida Mae and amidst the realization that baking out of our home kitchen was no longer feasible, we began renting the kitchen at Midtown during the evenings. Marybeth was integral in our growth and allowed us the space to learn and experiment. For the next two years, DJ and I took on custom orders, vended at craft shows in the surrounding areas, and sold our baked goods at the farmers market, as well as countless festivals, events, and pop-ups. 

Finally, after years of working full-time at Midtown and hustling on nights and weekends with Doozers, DJ and I took the plunge and decided to pursue a storefront with Doozers and focus our full-time efforts on our former side hustle. We are in the process of putting together a commercial kitchen and opening a storefront in the Gossard building in downtown Ishpeming. Almost three and a half years since our first Saturday morning at the Downtown Marquette Farmers Market, we have our dreams within our grasp. We are excited – tired, yes – but excited. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The smooth parts have been finding new and fun recipes to try, or coming up with cool graphics for our social media accounts, or meeting fellow business owners and super cool customers who love cookies as much as we do. That’s the stuff that comes naturally to us. 

As a whole, though, the process has not been smooth. We have essentially run our business in the after-hours while I continue to work during the day and DJ takes care of our daughter. What that all means is that sleep can be hard to come by and sleepless nights are more common than we’d like. We’ve learned the importance of scheduling our week ahead of time so that we make sure we get doughs mixed or cookies baked or ingredients ordered, while still allowing for us to get sleep. 

We’ve also had to learn which events work best for our business (i.e., which events draw the most enthusiastic of cookie fans), and how much to bake for events. In the beginning, we sometimes brought home more cookies than we sold. Even now, sometimes we estimate wrong and have more leftovers than we’d like. I try to keep in mind the phrase, “Never a failure, always a lesson.” As long as we can glean some sort of lesson out of what may feel like a complete loss, then we’re okay. We will always be learning. 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Doozers?
We are a cookie business based out of Ishpeming. We make all sorts of hefty-sized gourmet cookies, as well as frosted sugar cookies, hand pies, and various other sweet treats. We specialize in decadent flavors and interesting combinations that you might not make at home. Our most popular item is our “Definitely Not Oreo,” which is essentially a giant, soft, homemade Oreo cookie. We are also well known for our hand pies, which resemble jumbo pop-tarts. We love to play off of common flavors or junk food brands and then jazz them up to make them our own. We also try to utilize local ingredients as much as possible, which definitely takes our products to the next level. For instance, we use locally-made vanilla extract (shout-out to Yooper Sisters!) in pretty much all of our items. Most importantly, all of our items are made from scratch. 

Contact Info:

• Instagram: gimmedoozers
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gimmedoozers

Image Credits
Zachary Schneider