At a Glance

Gaines Family Farmstead is a family owned and operated business that puts the health and safety of dogs first in creating their dog treats. With a focus on creating high-quality products, Gaines Family Farmstead has spent several years on research and development.

Who is Dewar Gaines?

Meet Dewar Gaines, Founder of Gaines Family Farmstead.

About Gaines Family Farmstead

For the Gaines family, creating safe, healthy dog treats is personal, because they lost a dog to rawhide dog treats. Learning that the treats they had been giving their dog were not as healthy and natural as they had thought certainly changed the way that they looked at the industry and the Gaines family started looking into it even more.

Dewar himself was working in marketing at the time, but decided to spend his free time looking for solutions. Then, a couple years in, he decided to go full-time creating his own dog treats that were healthy and safe and made with sweet potatoes.

Specifically, Dewar hand-sliced and dehydrated those sweet potatoes every single morning. They were able to make between 30 and 40 tons of sweet potato treats each day and then would go to the farmer’s markets to sell them all personally.

The company has evolved since then, selling not at farmers markets but through Amazon and Chewy and even selling live through TikTok. It’s gone from a small operation selling locally to selling around the country and beyond.

Dewar’s Journey

What does the team look like at Gaines Family Farmstead? It’s nearly all in-house. There’s one person who lives in Greensboro running Amazon storefronts, Chewy and all of the email marketing and such. And everyone else is in-house, but not necessarily at traditional hours. That’s because Dewar believes that everyone should get their job done, but the specifics of when and where are up to them.

For Dewar himself, that means putting in long days, usually from 9:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night. But as a father himself, Dewar puts a lot of stock in family. For his team and himself, if there’s something important that needs to be done for the family, that’s where he (or his team) need to be. Family is the most important thing.

Growing the Business

The team is still quite small, but the facility that they use to keep everything going? Well, that’s changed quite a bit over the last few years. Just three years ago, Dewar says, they were operating out of his basement. But now? Well, now they have a 10,000 square foot facility that they’re expecting to outgrow in less than a year.

Growing also includes working on new projects. With his new Chief Operating Officer and his cousin taking over most of the operations, Dewar has been able to focus on new tech developments and even using AI tools to help run some of the aspects of the business that aren’t customer facing.

It also allows Dewar to get out and do advocacy work with the National Retail Federation, Amazon, Shopify, TikTok, Whatnot, and even visiting Congress and senators about policy changes. He recognizes that his talents are actually best applied in various other areas, and the running of the business can be turned over to his trusted team. While the rest of the team may not be able to launch new products and improve growth, they can absolutely manage the team and the business as it is.

Business Growth and Revenue Strategies

Even though the company started small and has since branched into more varied markets, it all started out as relatively natural growth. Dewar admits that there wasn’t enough capital at the beginning to start digital ads and marketing. That means it was up to him and the small family team to do search engine optimization and more traditional methods of marketing, even though Dewar had been involved in digital marketing prior to leaving his job.

For the first seven years of Gaines Family Farmstead, Dewar focused on retail presence to gain more economies of scale and to enhance their margin so they could get into more digital marketing. It’s been a learning experience, with that marketing spend previously going to markets such as Meta, Reddit, and Google, but the company has since made a shift. A year ago, they decided to redirect that spending and focus on live shopping and live streaming.

The research shows that those previous markets are getting oversaturated and they’re getting more expensive at the same time. So, even though Gaines Family Farmstead was at a customer acquisition cost of around $35 for a first-time customer, Dewar decided he was going to shift somewhere with less competition and no cost. Live streaming.

By putting all his time and money and energy into this new digital space they are able to gain 10-15 new customers every hour without having to spend anything at all. It’s all about spending the time instead.

Live shopping is still in its relatively early stages, and Dewar is taking full advantage of that. Especially since they were the first pet brand on Whatnot and are still focusing on making new and exciting content on all their live channels.

Growing Revenue

When it came to starting the business, Dewar was willing to put everything on the line. He quit a lucrative marketing job to start Gaines Family Farmstead and that took guts. But it also took money. And the way Dewar was able to do it was by moonlighting on other jobs for as long as it took. And never taking any of the profits.

In fact, for several years he never took a salary and simply reinvested the money into the business. And even now, Dewar is the third highest paid person at his company, not the first. Instead, he considers his first priority making sure that his people are paid. And the second responsibility is to shareholders and making good dog treats.

So, he does those things, and then invests the rest of the profits back into creating new products, testing, live shopping, and other aspects of the business that can help it continue to grow.

Growing the Business

The future for Gaines Family Farmstead is bright and Dewar is looking to make it even brighter. Within the next five to seven years, he’s planning to build the company to a $100 million brand. And he’s doing that by being innovative and being willing to take risks to make big changes. In fact, he fully admits that right now he’s losing money on certain projects that they’re testing, but they haven’t stopped testing. They’re still working hard at it and expecting it to be successful in the long run.

On top of that, Dewar wants to be on the cutting edge of live shopping and related tech. Right now, in terms of the pet space, he’s already there, but he’s not done.

And then there’s AI. He’s looking to integrate AI into the business as much as possible and hopefully have some robotics within the next 12-18 months. It’s about creating a full tech overlay and growing the business faster and more effectively than ever.

Gaines Family Farmstead’s CX Philosophy 

What does the customer experience look like at Gaines Family Farmstead? It looks like treating customers like family. While there isn’t a specific philosophy or a corporate handbook related to customer service, the idea of family first applies to customers as well as the team. It’s something they carry over into everything they do.

When customers have a problem with the product or their dog doesn’t like the product, or if they lose their dog, Gaines Family Farmstead takes care of them as best they can, treating them like family.

Innovation and Adaptability

With the advent of AI and especially the way AI is becoming a part of the digital space, Dewar believes it’s going to start affecting customers in a negative way. That customer trust is going to die at scale and people are going to start looking elsewhere. He believes that people are going to start turning to boutique retail and traditional retail because they want to connect with someone who really knows the product. And he also believes that in the digital marketing space they’re going to be tuned in to live streaming, because it gives them a connection to a real person.

For Dewar, he and his team are doing the live streaming personally, five days a week for an hour or more. Which means people can come directly to their stream and ask questions and engage with the brand. They can be a part of a real community and give people the authenticity that they’re really looking for.

Always Moving Forward

Number one? Embrace failure.

Gaines Family Farmstead is growing fast. It’s doubling year over year and that rate of growth is actually considered unparalleled, especially when the company is not spending millions to do it. Dewar credits that, at least in part, to the fact that everyone on the team is willing to try new things, fail, and look for something new.

Helping the Next Generation

Don’t be afraid of failure. That’s the number one piece of advice that Dewar has for aspiring entrepreneurs that are looking to build their brands. Make sure that you don’t quit on the goal or the dream and that you don’t let anyone tell you that your dream is not a good dream. For him personally it took nearly six years before people started to believe in his dream, but he never stopped pushing for the dream and now, ten years later, he’s achieved it.

On top of that, he advises selling on three big platforms, Amazon, Whatnot, and TikTok. And that would be it. Forget the rest for a while and just focus on those big three. You’ll make more revenue and get in front of more people than any other way. In fact, 55% of every eCom transaction in the US is happening on Amazon, and it’s essential that you are a part of that.

For those selling a hard product going live is crucial. It’ll help you get out in front of your customers. For those selling a service, content is the key.

Authenticity sells and it’s all about being authentic on your live streams. Not salesy or corporate, but authentically you.