How Believing in Miracles, and EO, Kept a Cookie Company From Crumbling

In May 2024, after nine years in business, Shahira Marei shut down her production facility, laid off her staff, and ran up nearly US$1 million in debt trying to keep her dessert company, Dirty Cookie, alive. Then, because she did not want to let her customers down, she called four of her competitors and offered them the company. "It was not worth anything to any of them," she says. "I was just giving them my recipes and my clients and saying, take care of them for me."

But first, she had to attend EO's Entrepreneurial Masters Program (EMP), which she had signed up for a year earlier, before everything fell apart.

On the first night, Shahira stood up in front of about 80 people and broke down. "I have no money," she told them. "I am not going to have a business after I go back from EMP. I have no team. I do not even know what I am doing here."

On the last day of the program, she stood up in front of the same class, this time with a different message. "I do not know how," she said, "but I am going to come back next year with an amazing comeback story."

She called the four companies to cancel the deal. When one asked how she would do it with no money and no team, she said, "I do not know yet, but I believe in miracles."

Today, the company’s stuffed cookies are available at Kroger and Walmart, and Shahira expects sales to exceed US$10 million and possibly reach US$20 million within two years. Getting there took faith, EO friends, and an honest look at what she lacked. But the story starts earlier — in a car in Egypt.

Shahira Marei (EO New York)

Finding Her Mission

Shahira was 14 when her family moved from California back to Egypt after her parents' divorce. The culture shock was intense. Children her age banged on the family's car windows, begging. In turn, Shahira begged her father to give them money.

"This is not the solution," he said. "If you really want to help these kids, go back to America, finish your education, and then come back and give them jobs."

From that moment on, she had a mission.

Unfortunately, the 2011 Egyptian revolution closed the door to her homeland, so her dream of creating jobs shifted to America. To gain experience, she got a job at Boeing and rose to program manager. At 24, she became pregnant, and said to herself, “The second she pops out, we are going to start any kind of business. I do not care what it is."

Five months after her daughter was born, she signed a five-year lease for a 300-square-foot space in a mall, not knowing what she would put there. Shahira asked what the mall needed, and the landlord suggested a dessert shop.

"I thought I was building a business, but I realized I was the one being built. EO has changed my life."

- Shahira Marei (EO New York)

After two days on Pinterest, she had her idea: a chocolate-lined cookie cup that held a shot of milk. She designed a mold with an engineer friend from Boeing and recruited a junior-high friend who could bake. For three months, her family and helpers made cookie shots every night in the friend's home.

The Dirty Cookie opened in 2015, built for indulgence over virtue. As the brand's tagline puts it: "In a world of clean salads, we say be a Dirty Cookie."

A Public "No"

Dirty Cookie took off, catering Kim Kardashian's birthday and the sets of “Grey's Anatomy” and “Scandal.” When COVID shut down catering, Shahira sold DIY cookie shot kits online, landing on Good Morning America and the Today show.

On Shark Tank in 2021, Mark Cuban questioned Dirty Cookie's corporate gifting model. Robert Herjavec offered a deal on air, but it fell through afterward.

Still, the show changed the company's trajectory, giving it credibility. Afterward, she was able to raise US$3 million from an angel investor.

Losing Almost Everything

By the end of 2021, soaring ad costs had made Dirty Cookie unprofitable. Shahira kept spending, sure things would improve. In 2022, she moved into wholesale, landing Disneyland and several stadiums.

Manufacturing became her biggest challenge. One co-packer stole from her, then gave her four days to clear out. Another took her on, then went bankrupt three months later. In September 2023, at the start of the Q4 busy season, no co-packer would even take her call. So she took over a facility herself, at US$100,000 a month she did not have.

By May 2024, she had lost nearly US$1 million. Her business partner left, warning, "I think you must be addicted to pain." Shahira had not seen her daughter in two and a half months. She had emptied her 401(k), sold her house, and taken out loans. She planned to give the business away after EMP.

People, Cash, Strategy, Execution

The first speaker at EMP was Verne Harnish, EO's founder. He told the room that a business needs four things: people, cash, strategy, and execution.

"I have no people, I have no cash, I have no strategy, and I have no execution," Shahira told him.

"So, you do not have a business?" he asked.

"Exactly," she said.

But that would not be true for long. Somehow, naming the gaps helped her see a path forward and her four days away from the business at EMP gave her space to clear her head and strategize with other founders.

By the second day, she had decided to try again.

Answers to Her Prayers

At an EO Los Angeles event in July 2026, Shahira reminded
Mark Cuban of her Shark Tank appearance. 

Change happened fast. First, an New York EO member introduced her to a cookie co-packer who took her in and told her not to worry about the money, saying they would figure it out later. 

Then she reconnected with David Landeck, an old friend who had just exited his company. She told him she had no money, and he told her he was not looking for any. Landeck, now her business partner, sat down with the numbers and helped her see them objectively, not emotionally.

Then the breakthrough came: to invent a category no one owned. Established brands filled the refrigerated dough aisle, but no one sold a stuffed cookie there. Shahira pitched retailers. Kroger said yes at the end of 2024. Walmart signed in May 2025.

The next summer, at an EO fireside chat with Mark Cuban, she reminded him of her turn on the show and told him he had been right about corporate gifting, which had nearly bankrupted the company.

"See, I was right about something," Cuban said. Then he pushed her toward the GLP-1 market, but she was already a step ahead: A protein-fiber cookie launches next year.

Building a Person, Not a Business

Shahira has thought a lot about her journey. Surviving 2024 "built so much confidence and faith in myself," she says. She no longer believes the point is to build a product, sell it, and exit.

"I thought I was building a business," she says, "but I realized I was the one being built." She explains that she is now closer to God, as her faith has "1,000x’d.” She believes her business journey has helped her become the best version of herself.

She also gives EO some credit, too: "EO has changed my life,” she says. “I am indebted to EO forever."

Shahira Marei (EO New York) is the founder and CEO of Dirty Cookie, maker of cookie shots and stuffed cookies. Interested in becoming an EO member like Shahira? Learn more here.