Episode 7: Embracing Creativity with Wagboards
Maddie welcomes Amanda Yu-Nguyen to the podcast and shares that the two get along because of their similar personalities. They host events together and grow alongside each other. Their businesses started around the same time.
Amanda started Wagboards during the Covid-19 pandemic. After a friends wedding there was no reception, the bride and groom sent guests home with to go charcuterie boards that they could enjoy safely at home. Sitting in her family room with her board, Amanda looked over at her dogs and said “what if someone made charcuterie boards for dogs?” She texted her sister about it asking about pricing and her sister was immediately interested in getting one. Amanda realized there was space in the pet market for her idea. She wanted to make it unique with treats people can’t find in big retail stores.
Maddie and Amanda laugh about how business owners get their ideas from odd places and let it take over their lives. Before she created Wagboards, Amanda worked in public health and higher education. She’s still doing her full time job in university health and wellness while balancing her Wagboards responsibilities.
Amanda thinks of herself as a creative person because she loves trying new things. Even if she isn’t good at something, she tries. Wagboards helps her work with her creative side. Maddie shares about her creative background. She shares that if you told her years ago where she’d be today, she’d think you were crazy.
Amanda shares that she has two dogs, both are rescues. One is from a family chicken farm, she’s one of 14 puppies born on the farm from two different dogs on the same day. Amanda says when she’s bad she and her husband joke that she could have been a working dog. Their other dog is a foster fail that they saved from a euthanasia list. Her husband, Tony, saw him at a shelter 2 hours away. They called the shelter the morning the dog was supposed to be euthanized. The shelter held the dog until Amanda’s family could go to get him.
Her dogs now serve as quality control pups for Wagboards. They have very different personalities. They get along and love to play with each other. Amanda uses hide and seek games with the dogs to test which treats to use on the boards. Maddie shares that her dogs also have big, fun personalities. They chat about grumpy sibling activities.
Moving on, Maddie asks Amanda about being part of Modern Companion’s recent barkcuterie night. Amanda says that she loves Modern Companion’s dedication to creating events that serve the community in person. Amanda starts every workshop with introductions. She said the group went around looking at pictures of each other's dogs and swapping stories. She said it was clear that everyone there was passionate about their dogs and supporting small businesses. Amanda says there’s something powerful about getting off of social media and meeting people in real life. There are opportunities to learn from each other.
The two laugh about how people want to eat Wagboards treats. Maddie says she used to pour out buckets of treats to show people how treats she carries are human grade by eating one in front of them. Amanda says she has eaten many of the cookies, she just doesn’t want to eat the proteins. She says they just take like very bland cookies or crackers.
Amanda also attended Modern Companion’s first Barking Lot Pawty and sponsored Fall Fido Festival in the past. They’ve partnered many times over the years. Amanda also does workshops in the Atlanta area. She’s partnered with hotels and done grazing tables. Maddie shares that she had a dessert grazing table at her wedding. Amanda says that she just did a 6 foot grazing table for a new pet business in Atlanta. She said it was cute to watch dogs realize there was an entire table covered in treats.
Another client of Amanda’s wanted to do a galentines workshop with her friends. They made custom barkcuterie boards to bring home to their pets.
Wagboards will be 4 years old soon, Modern Companion will be 6 in January. Amanda and Maddie share how Wagboards and the Modern Companion retail store opened around the same time and how the years have flown by.
Amanda says she wasn’t sure what the reception would be like for a barkcuterie business. She says she’s proud that she’s been able to be part of people’s lives in a meaningful way. At the end of the day, she’s been able to make boards for people announcing their pregnancies, proposing to their partners, and has celebrated multiple birthdays with some clients.
Amanda shares that she’s been part of some bright moments in people’s lives and has also been there with some clients for harder moments. She shares that she’s been part of bucket lists for some pets. She says dogs are there through the best and worst of people’s lives. To her, helping people celebrate that through her boards is very powerful.
She shares a funny story, she was featured in the New York Times 3 months into starting her business. She wasn’t even shipping things yet. Amanda received orders from all across the United States. It forced her to think about the direction she wanted her business to go in. She’d been driving around Atlanta delivering boards and was pushed into finding a way to create boards she could ship. Amanda loved being around dogs and testing treats, but hadn’t been thinking as much about the business side of things.
Maddie says she loves tapping into what the community really wants and that Amanda does the same. They talk about Amanda’s love of the Instagram face tattoo filter. She uses it on her stories regularly, it’s become part of her online persona. Maddie says she thinks people are drawn to personality and that's why she thinks Wagboards and Modern Companion have thrived over the years.
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