Alumni Profile: Megan Coryat, Business Owner of Doggedly Devoted (Music PhD, 2010)

Graduate Center alumna Megan Coryat is the owner of Doggedly Devoted, a dog daycare in Harlem. In this interview she discusses her transition from the Graduate Center to running her own business and offers advice for graduate students interested in pursuing entrepreneurship.

Megan Coryat, owner of Doggedly Devoted.
Megan Coryat, owner of Doggedly Devoted.

What was your area of study at the Graduate Center?

I studied musicology at the Grad Center from 2004 to 2010. My dissertation was titled “Madness, Sexuality, and Gender in Early Twentieth Century Music Theater Works: Four Interpretive Essays.”

You transitioned from graduate school into a successful career and moved from one field into a very different field. What led you to the path you have taken, and how did you navigate these transitions?

I moved into fundraising because of the work I was doing at the Grad Center to supplement my fellowship. I worked for several years at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), the last year of which I was the director of development there. That part-time job allowed me to spearhead several kinds of fundraising: major events (the annual Kessler Award and lecture); annual membership-based fundraising; major donor cultivation; and grant writing. With that experience, and the recommendations of two CLAGS directors under whom I worked, I was able to secure a position at Lincoln Center, and of course, that institution on my resume opened even more doors for me.

Now I operate a dog daycare because I wanted to work for myself, and I believe that good dog play is a great way for dogs to get their physical, social, and emotional needs met. I believe that we can create a safe place for dogs to engage with other dogs, and that ultimately this makes them better pets and neighbors.

What is a typical day like for you?

Now, four years into this endeavor, I have a pretty flexible schedule, which wasn’t always true. But if one of my employees calls out or something goes wrong at the store, I have to drop everything to get over there and fix it. On a great day, I have a leisurely breakfast at home, then head to the store with my son (he’s almost one year old) so we can pet dogs and say hi to the staff. On a less than ideal day, my whole family is there working from before dawn until after we close. Luckily, the more my business matures, the more great days we have!

What do you enjoy most about running your own business?

I love that I get to create the culture of my business. It’s my job to make it a place in which my employees want to work and that people feel good about when they drop off their dogs. I’m really proud of the work we do.

I highly recommend working for yourself and starting a business. I love being my own boss. I love being a job creator, and I get a thrill when I see how my business is helping my employees. I am so delighted every time I see a dozen dogs engaged in play with their friends at my facility, and nothing beats having a client tell you how much your service means to them.

What skills did you learn in graduate school that have helped you in your current pursuit?

I’m not sure I can enumerate all the skills that I gained in graduate school that still serve me well. It’s not too much to say that grad school, especially study of the humanities, shaped who I am today. Some skills are more tangible than others, though, and are easy to point out as critical, including writing skills, presentation skills and public speaking, and teaching.

Negotiating bureaucracy and paying attention to details and deadlines are essential when it comes to operating a business in New York City. I feel like teaching, working, and studying all at the same time prepared me for some of the long and difficult days I’ve experienced as a business owner.

Living on a budget is another major life lesson that shouldn’t be glossed over.

Perhaps most importantly, going through the PhD process was an exercise in perseverance. With a PhD, it’s about sticking with it until you pass all the hurdles and get the degree (and perhaps continue on to the tenure process). The same kind of drive to keep going even when there are setbacks has been essential to my running a small business. I think that neither grad school nor entrepreneurship are for the faint of heart.

What skills do you recommend that graduate students should develop if they are considering entrepreneurship?

Critical reasoning skills will always come in handy. I think that this is the secret skill that the humanities gives us—the power to think critically, examine the problem from someone else’s perspective, and empathize.

Whether you want to continue on in academia, have a career outside of or tangential to the university system, or start your own business, you should develop your soft skills such as collaboration, networking, and problem solving.

And of course, writing well and quickly is so essential to so many endeavors. The years and years of producing articles, papers, essays, and long form written exams will serve you well as an entrepreneur. I am personally grateful for my master thesis advisor for every single poke, prod, and red mark she made on my drafts, forcing me to perfect my MLA citation style (I hope—please don’t look up my thesis in order to test my theory that I finally got it all correct!). It’s not about MLA, I see now. I hated her at the time, but that kind of internal consistency has been a major boon to my branding and marketing materials.

Finally, my advice to future entrepreneurs is to be observant of the world; figure out what need must be met, then be creative about how you can meet it. Do what you love, but don’t expect it to be a great joy ride. There are a lot of ups and downs!