Building a Family-Owned Dog Treat Brand and Scaling on Amazon with Dewar Gaines

Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the All-in-One Sales and Marketing Platform. Today's episode is one of three special interviews I recorded with entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses selling an Amazon store, and I recorded these interviews on site. At Amazon Accelerates 2026, Amazon's annual seller conference. Here's a stat that might surprise you. More than 60% of sales in Amazon stores come from independent sellers, most of which are small and medium sized businesses. Could be you one day for your nation. And we'll be diving in as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Rune is an ultra thin AI note taking device that attaches to your phone and turns conversations into notes and actionable takeaways. Get ten percent off at rune.ai slash e-of. That's rune r-n-e dot a i slash e-o-f. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. Highlevel gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 supports. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. High level fire.

dot com. Dewar Gaines is the owner and operator of Gaines Family Farmstead, a family-owned business producing all-natural American-made dog treats. What began in his kitchen with single ingredients, sweet potato chews, has grown into a nationally recognized brand with a team of more than 20 people. Driven by a commitment to quality, sustainability, and family, doors built a business that competes with major pet food brands while staying true to his North Carolina roots. And do were we love. Starting with origin stories, so take us back.

To that kitchen in those sweet potato chews. What the heck was going on. Sure. So I Big time dog person. Our families are big time. I'm My mom and dad both grew up breeding dogs, actually. Uh, and I actually lost a dog to raw hide poisoning, which I didn't even know was a thing. Um

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