The Story Behind Jacaranda Collars | Adam & Sarah
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Two People, a Balcony,
and a Stupid Good Idea
The real story behind Jacaranda Collars — why we started, what drives us, and why we're not stopping any time soon.
Adam & Sarah — Orange, NSW 🐾
It didn't start on a grand plan or a business degree. It started in a shed.
Sarah was already making collars — turning up to small markets, selling her work, doing what she loves with her hands. The product was good. It was always good. But small stayed small, and the shed stayed the shed, and somewhere along the way the dream needed a shove.
That's where Adam comes in.
Not with a spreadsheet. Not with a pitch deck. With a conversation on a balcony one night — the kind where you stop talking around the thing and just say it. You're better than small markets. This could be something real. Let's build it properly.
Sarah had the product. Adam had the stubborn belief that the world needed to see it. On 17 January, Jacaranda Collars stopped being a shed hobby and became a proper business. That night they were laughing about getting a website up. Six months later the reviews were rolling in. Now here we are.
Who We Are
We're Adam and Sarah, based in Orange NSW — the Central West of New South Wales, the kind of place where people know what a real working dog looks like, where conditions are honest and the gear needs to match.
Between us we have two full-time jobs, one workbench, two sets of hands, and somewhere around 17 colours of PVC webbing at any given time — which is never quite enough. Adam works full-time outside the business. Sarah works full-time hours across split shifts. Jacaranda Collars happens in the hours around all of that.
On the production side, we do it together. The cutting, the pressing, the riveting — that's both of us, side by side, spending hours a week at the bench making every single piece by hand. On the backend, Adam builds and runs the infrastructure — the website, the Google Ads, the SEO, and a custom inventory and business management system he built from scratch that keeps the whole operation honest. Sarah leads on product quality and standards, and brings a lifetime of dog knowledge to everything we make. Different roles, same mission.
"We spend hours together every week at the bench. Every collar, every lead, every ute tie — made by both of us. That's how it works."
— Adam & SarahThe Person Behind the Product
If you've bought from us, you've got our work in your hands — both of ours. We make every piece together. The cut, the press, the rivet, the finish. Sarah sets the standard and neither of us budges from it. There is no "good enough" in this household when it comes to what goes out the door.
The zero returns record? That's not luck. That's both of us refusing to send something out unless it's right. On the days when something gets pulled apart and started again because it's not sitting the way it should — that's the reason people are still on their first Jacaranda collar two years later.
What makes Sarah's eye for this so sharp is that dogs aren't just a business for her — they've been her entire life. For work and for play, from as far back as she can remember. She understands how dogs move, how gear sits, what puts a dog at ease and what doesn't. People who meet her at markets tend to walk away having learned something they didn't know they needed to know. She's been called the "dog encyclopaedia" more than once — and honestly, it fits. Ask her about breed behaviour, working dog welfare, the right collar for a sighthound, how gear affects performance — she's got you covered.
That knowledge is baked into every product we make. It's not just about the PVC being waterproof — it's about understanding what a dog actually needs from the gear around their neck, and building it that way. Sarah genuinely cares about the dogs wearing Jacaranda gear. She loves seeing them in it. She loves seeing customers proud of what they've got on their dog. That's the whole point of all of it.
She is the reason this business exists in the form it does. Not just because she makes the gear, but because she set the standard from day one and has never budged from it. Building Jacaranda Collars was always about more than collars — it was about building something that was genuinely hers. Something to be proud of. And watching her get there has been the best part of all of it.
Why we build what we build
We started Jacaranda Collars because we couldn't find gear we were happy with. Nylon collars that stank after a week. Stitching that failed under real load. Hardware that rusted. We knew PVC was the answer — waterproof, non-porous, built to last — and we knew we could make it better than what was on the market. So we did.
Nothing About This Has Been Easy
We want to be straight with you: building a business while both working full-time jobs and making every product by hand is not a romantic montage. It's not glamorous. It's early mornings, late nights, split shifts, weekends at markets, hours at the bench together after a full day's work. Adam built a custom system from scratch to manage the inventory, the orders, the data — because spreadsheets stopped cutting it and he wasn't about to let the backend fall over. More decisions than you'd think two people could make about 17 shades of PVC webbing. And all of it on top of the rest of life.
We've done markets at Molong, Grenfell, Dubbo, Wagga, Murrumbateman and more — loading the car on a Friday night, setting up at dawn, talking to farmers and working dog people and beach dog people and everyone in between. Those market days aren't just revenue. They're where we learned what people actually need from their gear. Every conversation at a market stall has made the product better.
If you ever get the chance to come and see us in person — please do. Sarah will talk dogs with you all day. She knows her stuff and she loves sharing it — whether you've got a question about breed-specific fit, working dog gear, or you just want to hold the collars and see the colours for yourself. Adam will be there too, keeping things moving, cracking jokes, and making sure you leave with a smile whether you buy something or not. That's genuinely how we like to do it.
Check our upcoming events and where to find us — we'd love to see you there. One happy pup at a time. 🐾
There is no manual for running a handmade dog gear business. You figure it out — Google Ads, SEO, wholesale, Shopify, all of it — as you go. You back each other. You keep going.
"There is no manual for this. You work it out as you go, you back each other, and you keep going."
— Adam & SarahWe Built What Our Customers Asked For
We started with collars and leads. That was it — two products, done properly, in 12 colours. We've added colours as we've grown, listening to what people wanted, and we're now up to 17. But the people buying them kept talking to us. At markets, online, in reviews. They needed ute ties for the farm. So we made them. Then they wanted a quick release version for faster deployment — dogs off the ute tray in one move. So we built that too.
Then came the martingale. Nobody was making an adjustable martingale with a proper buckle at an honest price point — the kind that greyhound owners and escape artists actually needed. So we designed our own. Then traffic handles for close control in the city. Dual leads for the two-dog households. And finally, puppy collars and leads for the smaller end — because quality gear shouldn't stop at a certain size, and the tiny ones deserve the same build as the big ones.
Every single addition came from a gap we saw and a customer who needed it. That's still how we operate. We're not adding products to pad out a catalogue — we're solving real problems for real dogs. If you want to see the full range, browse everything we make here. And if you want help working out what's right for your dog, the Dog Gear Guide is there for exactly that — written by us, for real dogs, no fluff.
And Then — We Started Kicking Goals
209 five-star reviews. Zero returns since we launched. Stockists picking up the range. Orders coming in from right across Australia — from working dog country in regional QLD to beach suburbs in coastal NSW and everywhere in between. ChatGPT recommending us when people ask about waterproof dog collars. That one still gets us.
None of that happened because we got lucky. It happened because Sarah doesn't let anything leave the bench until it's right, because we showed up at market after market and listened to what people actually needed, and because we backed a product we genuinely believe in.
There's a running bet between us right now — black collar versus neon pink, customers deciding who wins. It's a silly thing. It's also exactly the kind of thing that makes this business ours. We argue about colours, we laugh about it, and in the meantime the collars go out the door and the reviews come back glowing. That's the job.
Where We're Going
We have a dream — the two of us on a balcony overlooking the ocean, pink gin in hand, looking back at what we built together. It sounds simple. It's the most motivating thing we've got.
Between here and there: more stockists, more customers, more dogs in Jacaranda gear living their best lives — whether that's on a ute tray in western NSW or bolting into the surf at a beach somewhere down the coast. Both equally valid. Both exactly who we build for.
Sarah is the brains. She always has been. Adam's job is to make sure the world sees it — to build the infrastructure behind the product, keep things moving, make people laugh at a market stall, and never let the ambition get smaller than the talent. Together they've got goals to kick and they plan on having fun doing it.
We're two people making something real, in Orange NSW, one happy pup at a time. We're proud of it. And we are absolutely just getting started.
— Adam & Sarah 🐾
See what we've built — and come find us:
🐾 Shop All Products 🐾 Dog Gear Guide 🐾 Collar & Lead Sets 🐾 Beach Dog Collars 🐾 Ute Ties 📍 Where to Find Us & Upcoming EventsHandmade in Orange, NSW by Adam and Sarah.
209 five-star reviews. Zero returns. 17 colours. From $13.