How Did Your Business Start?

Business By kaybray3 Updated 28 Jul 2016 , 12:47pm by kaybray3

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kaybray3 Posted 25 Jul 2016 , 6:23pm
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So how did everyone get their start in the caking business? If you have your own bakery, what was the defining moment that made you take the plunge and start your own business? If your business is based out of your home, do you work another job or is baking your only income? My dream is to one day have my own baking business (preferably a bakery) but I just don't know if I'll ever reach that "it's time to do it" moment. I work full time and make a good wage so I'm terrified to throw it away and take a gamble on having my own bakery. So I'm wondering how all of you began your business venture, what did you have to do to get it started? What were the biggest sacrifices and how is your business doing now?

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ElizabethsCakeCreations Posted 27 Jul 2016 , 6:25am
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Bump :-)

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costumeczar Posted 27 Jul 2016 , 11:41am
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If you want to start an actual storefront bakery you should have two years of living expenses saved up before you do so that you don't have to worry about income while you're establishing the business.

I started a home-based business because I wanted to do something that would let me work full time but be flexible enough to deal with my kids when they were little. The sacrifices were weekends and sleep...When you work for yourself you don't have a 9-5, you have an "until I wake up until I go to sleep," as they say. After 20 years of wedding cakes I started selling online cake supplies and decorations, and I'm probably still working as much as I used to, just in a different way.


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Webake2gether Posted 27 Jul 2016 , 12:47pm
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We have a home based business. My husband I are a two person team. We decided to put a commercial kitchen in our home so that we could be legal to sell here and have the flexiablitly of working when we could. I have two young sons whom I also homeschool so me being here for them and my husband was the driving force behind why we did it this way. Sacrifice how much time do you have bc there's a lot of sacrafice lol. Weekends for sure are usually the first thing lost we work while everyone else goes and does fun stuff. Over the last few months we've become more efficient and we work smarter but it was a tough learning curve for sure. We don't work late nights bc neither one of us are any good working late. So prepping as much as we can ahead of time has been vital for us while maintaining quality and freshness.

my husband has a full time job as well. We really work multiple jobs and like @costumeczar ‍ said its really from when you wake up to when you go to sleep. Our business has grown steadily over the last 11 months. We are in the slow period right now. As with any business there will be feast or famine and you have to be wise in both times. saving and planning for the slower times bc unless your a "cheap cake lady" (please don't sue me costumeczar lol) there will be slower times. 

Taking the plunge into a bakery storefront just wasn't the right choice for us. Unfortunately the cost involved kills every storefront bakery here. The cost to rent a building or build is crazy here compariable to city's like Chicago and our state is not small business friendly so the cost to have employees is suffocating to a lot of small businesses. Then there is the whole depending on other people to have a successful business didn't sound appealing to us either lol. So we will keep our business simple and remain the two of us and maybe one day have a storefront but no onsite baking and definitely not rely on other bakers or decorators I live in a bizarre place where there is no loyalty and you can't rely on people. Finally we spent almost a year putting together a business plan and learning just about everything there is to know about running a business well all that we could stuff in our brains lol  and we are always learning better ways to run it. 

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costumeczar Posted 27 Jul 2016 , 4:20pm
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Quote by @Webake2gether on 3 hours ago

 As with any business there will be feast or famine and you have to be wise in both times. saving and planning for the slower times bc unless your a "cheap cake lady" (please don't sue me costumeczar lol) 

Bwuhahahah! I'm dying.

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Webake2gether Posted 27 Jul 2016 , 4:56pm
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Lol thought you'd appreciate that ;)

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Natka81 Posted 28 Jul 2016 , 3:48am
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I am a baker by nature,  started about 6 years ago, selling just dessert cakes to a store this continued for four years. One year ago decided to go into wedding cake business. I have about one wedding cake and two birthday cakes per month, which is more than enough for me right now and want to keep it that way until kids get older( youngest is 4 )

I also officially work  part time for my husband (construction business ) from home office as a secretary. 

I have been married for 16 years and have five kids.

Couple things I  learned from making cakes for 6 years:

Working on cakes until 2 am totally doesn't worth it. 

There is a  way many more cake ladies then I thought. 

I don't want my dream, of opening my own bakery, come true. 


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kaybray3 Posted 28 Jul 2016 , 12:47pm
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It seems like the path I've taken so far sounds a lot like some of yours. My full time job is extremely stressful (I think of it as being part lawyer because I have to know an astronomical amount of different laws and part mathmetician because I crunch numbers all day long too) so after awhile of being under this stress, I developed a very rough case of anxiety. I've never had it before in my life until I began this job so it really hit me hard. Baking has been my outlet, I've been doing it out of my home for about 5 years and I find that it's really the only time I'm actually happy while working. I had no idea I had this huge love of baking, if I would've known when I was younger (I'm 32 now), I probably would've went to pastry school. I do enjoy teaching myself though, it can be frustrating at times which I'm sure all of you can relate! Both my husband and I work full time jobs and my income is needed to help pay the bills each month (we split everything 50/50 and we've never argued over money before so I think our plan works well:). I enjoy dreaming of having my bakery and creating pretty, delicious items every day but I don't know if I'll be able to bring myself to take that big leap. So I think as of right now, I'll continue baking and daydreaming about my own bakery!

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