This Penn State student was looking for a part-time job. He opened his own business instead

Over the summer, Penn State sophomore David Hayes found himself working multiple jobs, unfulfilled and looking for a new solution.

The origin of his new cookie business, David’s Dough, comes from a question he asked himself.

“I was like, well, what am I good at?” he said. “I’m good at making cookies and baking. I already had a bit of a platform, because I’ve been baking for a while now and I post what I bake (on social media) ... Once I started (focusing on cookies), I picked up traction.”

Hayes began baking with his mother as a child, but soon started getting into the kitchen on his own, baking as a hobby and stress-reliever since he was eight.

“Now I’m 19. I’ve been doing it for 10 years basically, which is crazy to say,” he said, laughing.

As for why decided to exclusively focus on cookies for his baking business, Hayes said it’s about efficiency and time.

“I can crank out a bunch of cookies in a short period of time,” he said. “I really, really like baking bread, but it takes hours. Bread is tough to sell due to the amount of time it takes. ... Also, people like the cookies.”

When the Mechanicsburg native isn’t studying criminology or involved in university extracurriculars like Thon or Army ROTC, he’s now running his business, offering pick-up and delivery for a limited menu of home-baked cookies.

While Hayes is seeing success now, though, that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few business-related hurdles for the young entrepreneur at first. Understanding the cost of doing business, what customers to target, how to form an LLC and the legal requirements of running a food-based business were all learning experiences, but he said he feels a sense of accomplishment at overcoming those challenges and continuing with his business plans in spite of them, rather than shuttering and going back to a previous job.

One of his earliest lessons?

“College students don’t have money,” he said. “I realized that pretty quickly, but I realized the parents do have money, so a lot of parents send their kids cookies.”

Regardless of the customer, though, Hayes knows his cookies offer something special they can’t find anywhere else.

“You can’t replicate a homemade cookie,” he said of bakeries and grocery stores selling cookies on a larger scale. “It’s impossible to do it.”

Right now, Hayes offers two homemade cookie varieties at a time, a seasonal option and his classic chocolate chip, which are available at $17 for a dozen.

While David’s Dough is fulfilling Hayes’s goal of replacing his prior part-time jobs, he has big dreams for the business’s future.

“It’s going really, really well,” he said. “My whole thing is not making it mainstream and keeping it about homemade cookies, so I’m not going to open up a store ... but if I can have other people doing the same thing at different schools ... That’s the best-case scenario but right now that’s very, very far into the future.”

For now, Hayes is enjoying tapping into his entrepreneurial side and spending time doing something he loves.

“I really, really like baking. It’s a job, yes, but at the end of the day, I’m doing something I like and I’m getting paid to do it,” he said. “I’m pretty much winning. I can control my hours. I can control how much I work ... and it’s just really cool. It’s a cool hobby and I enjoy it.”

Learn more about David’s Dough at www.davids-dough.com or on Instagram, at www.instagram.com/davidsdough_pa/.