Coles notes background: I've been really into baking for about 15 years now. I've sold a few cakes and gingerbread houses I've made from home but I haven't been able to push farther than that.

(jump down to the bold below if you want to skip the preamble)

About 10 years ago, I went through the whole process of setting up a business plan and right from there, I could tell I was in over my head. I was working in retail and just making ends meet so I had no chance of qualifying for a loan to set up a whole business and no experience in any of the business aspects.

I went back to school for web design and I've been doing that for 7 years now, but I just can't get baking out of my system. I have so many more skills than I had before that would help me with advertising like making websites, social media advertising, creating branding collateral, making and editing videos, photography...

But I still don't have the money to put into getting that first jump mostly because of the laws around baking from a home kitchen (I live in an apartment and have cats).

I've recently had a couple of ideas on how to get started:

• the local farmers' market doesn't require an inspected kitchen for some food items (I could do cookies)
• there is a commercial kitchen I could rent

The farmers' market is the lowest cost of entry I can think of. I can't afford to start up a retail location business. A food truck is totally out of budget (but cheaper to start up than a building location).

But the largest problem I still come up against is this: how can a one-man show produce enough to make a full time business?

• for cake businesses that operate full time - how many cakes a week to you have to product to make a profit?
•  the only way I can think to do this is to have a set catalogue of cakes I can churn out fast like an assembly line. That's not what I want to be doing. I don't mind a little of that but we all know we're in it to be able to do the amazing and fun projects.
• If I tried the route of the farmers' market to start, I don't know if I can product enough to make it worth while.
• I'd like to do custom cookies - not just your average oatmeal etc. you can find at the grocery store. Doing colour flow work takes time.

I've been trying to think how I can partner with existing businesses (like starting out just doing cookies and not take away from their cake business) but it would have to be worth their while to let me use their facilities. Any existing business has already done the 'grunt work' so it seems unbalance in my favour.

And then there's the business side. I can bake, but I have no experience working in or running things on a large scale. I was considering going back to school in a culinary course to learn how a professional kitchen would run, and how to bake larger quantities etc., but really I think it would be more useful to learn about the business side of things - how to source/cost/order ingredients and packaging, how to budget for a baking business etc. etc. More education gets expensive and at 40, I don't really want to go back to living like a student. I'm sure I can research any information I need without going to school, but somehow I think formal education would actually help. I just know that I would need to follow the entrepreneur's path as I don't want to pay for more school to end up working in the bakery at the grocery store. Nothing against those who do that, but it would be a financial step backwards for me.

I've had lots of people say to just start taking orders from home (can't really do that without risk of being shut down because of health inspection requirements) but the cost of renting a commercial kitchen for one cake order really inflates the prices I would have to charge and people are already cheap.

I've considered selling my gingerbread houses as 'craft items' not for consumption but to be honest, the fancier ones I do take me weeks to finish. I couldn't do enough of them to live off of full time.

Anyways, I guess I'm wondering if its possible to do a baking business full time without having a stack of money to start with. I've read all sorts of stories of people starting by building a kitchen in their garage and so on. I live on a single income. I can't afford a house. I don't make enough to own a car (I'm part of a car share co-op). 

Are dreams and ambitions only for those who have a financial head start while the rest of us are doomed to be stuck with the good-enough job?

as a one person business -- no i don't think it could be successful as a full time gig -- too much recurring low ball competition --  just keeps popping up like whack-a-mole -- it's not even about enough money -- there's not enough business to attract to support yourself as one person doing all the work -- unless you win the lottery and you don't need to profit --

it seems more optimistic to open a lunch or breakfast place with a bakery but you have to have employees and be a business person first -- caker second --

or do a wholesale business -- again you'd have to have employees --