Big Daddy Biscuits In Expansion Mode

In retrospect, the layoff was a blessing.

At the time, East Atlanta's Lauren Janis could not have foreseen a company making pet treats would have grown as much as it has in the last three years.

But her company, Big Daddy Biscuits, has developed a local and national following among pet lovers who buy the treats from to to Whole Foods.

“I never thought it would be like this,” Janis told East Atlanta Patch.

“It’s been amazing.”

An executive with Delta Air Lines in the Atlanta-based carrier’s human resources department, Janis was laid off in 2008 when the company went into bankruptcy reorganization.

That same year, her dad died and her home had been broken into. Twice.

“I had three things that totally knocked me down and it would have been easy to just stay in bed and not fight,” Janis said.

But her niece and nephew encouraged her to do something she wanted to do for a long time: Be her own boss and chart her own future by diving into something she could truly be passionate about.

The way to it: dog biscuits.

“I found a major passion just by making dog biscuits,” Janis said.

Big Daddy Biscuit fans — the company is named for her dog, — are just as passionate about the treats.

She bakes more than 10,000 biscuits a week using cornmeal, milk, eggs and other all-natural ingredients sourced from Georgia farmers.

And the company has grown to three employees with a fourth about to come online.

To grow further, Janis is looking for fans and supporters to share in that passion by helping her expand.

She is looking for $5,000 to help finance the purchase of ovens to accommodate further expansion, through kickstarter.com, a New York-based website that aims to find donors to fund creative ideas.

Kickstarter, founded three years ago, funnels about $3 million a week between donors and those seeking funding, said Justin Kazmark, company spokesman.

The funding isn’t an investment in the traditional sense; donors don’t get to own shares of the company, he said.

"Donors give because they believe in the idea and want to be a part of supporting someone’s creative vision,” Kazmark said, explaining at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, 10 percent of the movies that premiered there received some funding via Kickstarter.

“Kickstarter is not about an investment and the traditional ROI [Return On Investment] model,” he said. “The idea is that there’s value in the world on things beyond just making money.”

Janis is hoping that Big Daddy’s many fans will share in her expansion vision and raise the remaining $3,600 by April 22.

“We’re growing by leaps and bounds,” Janis said, adding the expansion would bring enough increased volume of work to create a job for fifth employee.

“We’re growing faster than I could imagine.”