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Episode 39: Getting Scared and Jumping In Anyway With Christina Moffatt
83 Plays6 years ago
What happens when there’s nothing wrong with your job, but your hobby brings you and everyone around you so much more joy? That is a tricky spot to be in. Could your hobby be more than a hobby? How do you find out? Join us for Episode #39 of The Uncommon Life Project as we explore sweet success with our guest Christina Moffatt, Cupcake Warrior.
Christina faced challenges along the way, both large and small, as she built her business. She talks with us about how to not just shoot from the hip, but find the courage to jump in and take smart entrepreneurial risks. And when challenges come along, how to roll with those punches.
After working for 10 years in corporate U.S.A., Christina Moffatt decided she was tired of seeing people who had no happiness in their day. Her mission became to find out what makes people happy. The answer, she discovered, is cupcakes and dessert. A baker since she could hold a measuring spoon, Christina combined her culinary skills with her management and marketing experience to create Crème Cupcake + Dessert, which expanded from a home-operated bakery to a commercial kitchen in less than a year.
A graduate of Iowa State University and the University of Toledo CBA Program, Christina owns and operates Crème Cupcake + Dessert, and serves as the Director of Small Business Resources for the Greater Des Moines Partnership. She also devotes her time and talents to many local boards. Christina has won several awards for her business including DSM Top List for Best Bakery, Cityview’s Best Dessert, Sweet Equality Best Dessert, runner up for the Iowa Mixology Competition and runner up on The Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. Christina has also been featured in Pastry & Baking North America in the Regional Showcase and Baker in Focus.
what you will learn in this episode:- How to understand your numbers before quitting your day job for a new venture
- Why having your spouse on board is so crucial to entrepreneurial endeavors
- How to scale from a hobby to a thriving commercial enterprise
- How to manage start-up capital outlays
- Delegating so the business does not become your entire life
- The power of people believing in your concept and especially you
- What to do when life hands you something that’s not in the business plan
- How to find good mentors and become a mentor to others
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Transcript
Introduction to the Uncommon Life Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life, a life worth celebrating and savoring.
00:00:30
Speaker
Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Life Project where I am your host, Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Gotta love it. He didn't say the Brian Dewhurst. It's starting to move up. I pulled back from it. I appreciate it.
00:00:47
Speaker
Hey, and we have a great show for you today. As just a common courtesy, if you guys wouldn't mind rating our podcast. Sounds lame and I hate saying it, but it really does help and our marketing team is like getting on us that we don't have more ratings. We gotta get to 100 evidently. Man, it would be huge. I think we'd have a celebration.
Christina Moffitt's Entrepreneurial Journey Begins
00:01:05
Speaker
So let's get into who our guest is today.
00:01:08
Speaker
And we'll go from there. Yes, I can't wait for this one. Huge fan. So we have on the show today, Christina Moffitt, founder of Krem Cupcake and Dessert. After working for 10 years in corporate USA, Christina decided she was tired of seeing people with no happiness in their day. Her mission became to find what makes people happy. The answer that is what she discovered, cupcakes and dessert.
00:01:34
Speaker
Since she could hold a measuring spoon, Christina combined her culinary skills with her management and marketing experience to create Krem Cupcake and Dessert, which expanded from a home-operated bakery to a commercial kitchen in less than a year. Christina has won several awards for her business, including DSM Top List for Best Bakery, CityView's Best Dessert, Sweet Equality Best Dessert, Runner Up for the Iowa Mixology Competition, and Runner Up on the Food Network's Cupcake Wars.
00:02:02
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Christina. Thanks for having me. I know. We need to get some buttons on our mixing board. That's what I heard I was going to have. That's what she signed up. Yeah. This is not going well. Anyway, thank you so much for being on the show, truly. Christina and I had a pleasure of just talking before this. How do we get introduced? I don't know how we got introduced, but I was like, let's just hang out. I think it was Josh Dunwood actually.
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, Josh. And I was like, I would love to just hang out and just kind of hear your story. And Josh knew it was going to be a perfect fit for the podcast. And so I got to kind of hear what was kind of went on in your life. What I love about your story is two things. One, you never really thought you'd be here, let's be honest. And two, it kind of came from, like your bio said, something that you were just trying to help people make be a little happier. So let's start from there, because it's a great story.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah. So I mean, what, what do people love more than sweets? And honestly, like my story unfolded actually out of the recession. So I did not lose my job. That's usually the first question that people ask. I did not lose my mind in the process. Something sweet, the pun is intended, um, came out of it. I worked at an architecture firm and in 2009, everybody knows it was slowing down.
00:03:23
Speaker
Rough. Yeah. Yeah, very rough. And being a director in the company and kind of seeing these long bases come in the office because, you know, jobs are slowing down and they love to design and they don't even have the chance to design every day. I thought, you know what, I'm going to do something. I'm going to bake and take it into the office. And that's where it started from. Because people were losing their jobs. And if you have ever been around a company that has like jobs being lost, morale is not high.
00:03:49
Speaker
No, it is. Christina would made it her vendetta to make people happy. I really did. And I tell people all the time, you know, it was just like people would like smile to see me come into work. I mean, what better thing to like walk through every day and everybody's smiling at. And so that's where it started.
00:04:08
Speaker
Oh gosh, what a great story. Okay, so you're at this like architecture firm, you're a director, pretty high up, people are losing their job, you're bringing this. At what point were you like, I can keep doing this and like truly impact people's lives, maybe for a bigger scale. Did you ever get to that point or not yet?
00:04:25
Speaker
So what ended up happening is that, you know, not only was I bringing stuff and making people happy, but what I noticed is that it was fulfilling something that I missed inside of myself, which was taking me back to my high school on college days where I worked for restaurants and just having that discussion with people and food. So for me, what happened is it kind of spun off and somebody at the office asked me to buy it. And I looked at him and said, OK, yeah, I can I can make that. But what do you want to pay me?
00:04:55
Speaker
which you guys as financial advisors probably never advise somebody to tell you what they're going to pay you. That's like a whole other show.
00:05:06
Speaker
So that was, that's kind of where it started. And then of course, somebody in the office heard that so-and-so was able to buy it for a baby shower. Well, will you do this for a birthday party? So it kind of started just from there. And the rule, yeah, onesie twosies just, I would only do it for people I knew. I didn't, you know, I wasn't insured at that point.
00:05:26
Speaker
And then finally, somebody said to me, you know what, there's this little market that happens on Sundays and there's no food vendors open in the area where they're doing the market. Would you come down and just sell to the vendors down there?
00:05:39
Speaker
And I was like, huh, okay, well that's gonna be like selling to people I don't know, which is a little scary. Um, by then I had some pricing in place, but I thought, okay, if I only have to agree to do it four Sundays, then yeah, why not? So I actually
Scaling the Cupcake Business
00:05:55
Speaker
asked the guy running the event. I said, well, if it's four hours, how many do I bring? And he looked at me like I was nuts. And I said, I've, I've never done this.
00:06:06
Speaker
You don't know what you don't know when you're entering the market. So that's how I really kind of launched into a little bit of a bigger scale was testing it at this market on Sundays. But in my head, this market was really only selling to the other vendors that were down there. It wasn't really forward facing because they just told me we need to feed these vendors.
00:06:27
Speaker
So what was the account that you brought the first week? Yeah, so the first week he said, the guy said, well, it's four hours, so maybe a dozen an hour. And so I went down there with my four dozen for four hours, which now I know is just completely insane. But I sold everything I had in an hour. But the first person that walked up to me asked to buy six cupcakes. And I said, oh, wow.
00:06:54
Speaker
We've got a problem with math. The math is not adding up. Abort mission. I know. I was like, I cannot sell you six cupcakes. And they said, well, why not? And I said, you can only carry four in your hands. I didn't even have boxes to sell these things in because I thought I was selling them one at a time to vendors.
00:07:14
Speaker
So I learned that people wanted to buy more than one. So that was the first week and you came back the second week. You have four weeks of this, right? I had four weeks of it. So second week I went back and I took eight dozen. I thought, well, okay, you know, I'll stretch it out. Maybe the same people come back. I can now sell them six, you know, cupcakes or more.
00:07:33
Speaker
I ran through everything in an hour and a half again. So third week I thought, okay, I'll just keep doubling it again. Cause that there's gotta be a right mixture in here. At some point I took 16 dozen back sold everything I had. And then the very last week I showed up with 32 dozen cupcakes to sell in four hours. Wow. But what happened?
00:07:56
Speaker
is they found out where I parked my car and they lined up at my car to buy them. And that's when I knew, oh my gosh, this could be a legit business because these people are addicted to sugar and butter and I could legally deal this out the back of my car. Yeah. That's amazing. So over the course of that summer, it kind of galvanized like this could be full time.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that was really, I filed for my LLC in July of 2010 and this was only in October. So this was only a matter of a couple of months that this was blowing up on me. Like 90 days. Yeah. The one thing too I realized from the market is that, okay, now I'm selling to people that I don't know. Um, which again, if people like something, they talk about it. So then I have people coming back saying, Oh, our friends were here last week and bought some from you. And I had to come down and check it out.
00:08:49
Speaker
But then they were saying, OK, well, our company is having a retirement party. Could you do that? Right. Yeah, I could do that. So the bigger orders on the back end started coming in a lot faster, too. I love this story because I know a little bit more about you than I think even Brian. But I love that you're competitive.
00:09:07
Speaker
because there's times when you're taking these orders or bigger orders. And I don't know, I trained for a marathon one time and I was kind of excited to go on every longer run cause I've never ran 15 miles. Like what is this going to be? And there was an excitement and a challenge in there, but I love the fact that you're like, I've never done this before. I don't know how to do it, but yes, I'm in. Like you signed me up for that. So tell me about the couple stories of that. Cause I thought that was a really brilliant part of your story.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah. So I just, every challenge that kind of faced me, I was just like, okay, well, how far can I push this envelope, you know, to see if this really is a business and very quickly, you know, after that market, um, you know, I was really working, still working a full time job. And then I was doing kind of private orders at night. So I was sleeping about four hours at night and then I was prepping all day on Saturdays and then delivering
00:09:59
Speaker
stuff to the market on Sunday. So talk about a marathon. I felt like I was just constantly running and couldn't get out of it. And are you the only one cooking at that point? I am. I am completely out of my home kitchen, which is a kitchen island and everything was being stored in a dining room at that point. Um, it was definitely taking over my house, you know, and hand washing dishes and the sink because you didn't have time to run the dishwasher.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. But that challenge, um, and I think the one that you're pushing at is that very quickly after the market, I went to meet a friend of mine for coffee. Um, and he said to me, you know, you guys have always done the lighting for the events because the company I work for did the lighting. He goes, I could care less about lighting and kind of push to the side. He goes, I need a thousand cupcakes for this event.
00:10:48
Speaker
Wow. Holy cow. And I just kind of sat there dumbfounded it and like a thousand cupcakes. Okay. If I can sell a thousand of these at a time.
00:11:00
Speaker
This could be really good business. So I looked at him and he said, can you do it? And of course I said, yes, because I liked the challenge. Are you sure? And I said, yeah, you know, I'll figure this out. So I went home and I was like, okay, I got to figure this out. How long this is going to.
00:11:20
Speaker
take me to do. You know, I mean, I got to back into this and I figured out it would take me 26 hours of just putting pans in and out of the oven at my little house oven, which not scalable, not going to happen. Right. And in my head too, my four court, you know, kitchen, and I'm like, I'm going to burn the motor out on that thing. Oh, of course.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I knew I had to find a commercial kitchen at that point. And that's where really kind of started to pivot of, okay, I've got to find a commercial kitchen to me and literally just thought I was going to make it to the end and show that I could bake these 1000 cupcakes, but I had to find a kitchen to do it in and that's what happened I
00:12:03
Speaker
Literally kind of, I mean, I didn't even know how to go about finding a kitchen. Um, and I kind of put the word out to a handful of friends that I need a commercial kitchen, like is there a catering kitchen or restaurant at night I could use and come to find out there was a kitchen available. And when the gentleman called me, it was literally diagonal from the office that I walked into every day. And I had no idea there was a kitchen in that building.
00:12:30
Speaker
Oh, wow. So every day I walked past it. Yeah, not knowing it was there. So at this point, did you quit your job? You hadn't quit your job yet, right? Not yet. So this was in November. And once I signed the lease for that kitchen, it began to kind of unravel very quickly because word was out that, you know, I had a bigger kitchen rented. So I had, you know, grand openings for the Hyatt Hotel. I had orders coming in for principal and it was really building that backlog of work.
00:12:59
Speaker
So it wasn't really like the weekend birthdays, the one offs and two offs anywhere, which I still had. It was beginning to be a big like, you know, work. Yeah. So at that point it came down to, do I leave this director position, you know, and jump off to know that I'm going to pay myself, but it's going to be very minimal.
00:13:19
Speaker
and test this concept or do I stay in the safe zone and yes my yeah my uh jump Christina jump I know jump and I was just like okay you know what just bought a new house was recently married and my husband actually looked at me and he said you know what you can always go get another job but you'll never have this opportunity or the momentum that you have now
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah. Love your husband. So we decided that I would make the jump and I did in December of 2010. So it was only six months from filing my LLC to like jumping in with both feet. Wow. Well, and I think too, you know, we talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and it is the spouse that is that encouragement, is that backstop.
00:14:08
Speaker
is that truth, you know, that like you can do this and it's a huge part of it. And I would say without their support, like, I don't know if I would advise somebody to do it. Like if somebody was like, Hey, I've got this great idea. My, maybe not first question, but one of the upper questions I'll ask is like, what does your spouse think?
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, are they on board? If they're on board. Because man, this road, this uncommon road is you need to be unified. And if one person is bitter on it, like, it's not going to work well. Well, I want to give us a little bit back and forth on it until, you know, we ran the cashflow as you know, I had an advisor helping on all that. So it was really getting a business plan together for him too, you know, because
00:14:48
Speaker
I mean, honestly, he's a city planner. He lives a very regimented life with planning. So this kind of entrepreneurial thing was very scary to him. But, you know, when the numbers look out and knowing the momentum was there, then he supported it. And the biggest thing to him was, look, you can't leave your job to have a hobby. Like you have to pay yourself something every month. I'm okay with living minimally, but you've got to pay yourself. Otherwise you've got a very expensive hobby.
00:15:15
Speaker
Totally. And I think the way that he did it was wise of like, well, you just can't just quit your job. Like give me a plan, you know, like really give me some thought through this and help me come alongside of you. But yeah, I love it. Okay. So you've jumped, you quit, you're out, you're ready to go, signed your lease. And were the deals then continuing to come in or did it kind of kind of go through a drought stage?
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. So I left my job, you know, and I, I went full time in January and walking into my kitchen. It was January 7th, 2011. I walked in that kitchen and I literally looked at that, my little tiny area and I like burst into tears. I was like, what did I, what did I, what have I done?
00:16:01
Speaker
Because that day, particularly, you know, in January, like everybody goes on a diet. So after I make this decision, you know, I have the still this thousand order that I'm working to coming. But in January, it was like, all right, it's go time. It's time to hustle. So if I didn't have orders, I was out meeting with the event planners, you know, that had weddings coming and things like that, because I was like, OK, like isn't going to stop. I don't have a marketing department to go do this for me.
00:16:31
Speaker
So one of our, one of our favorite books is the E-Myth. And in that book, it talks about, you know, uh, kind of a pie baker getting stuck and trapped in that business and just how to automate a business. And, and so you're in that, how did, I mean, cause you're going from, you know, a hobby out of your kitchen and your car to large commercial orders.
00:16:55
Speaker
Can you talk about like the scale points and training people so that like the quality was to your standards and just some of those challenges? Yeah. So what ended up happening in January is we were working toward that thousand cupcake order. So as I knew I had that order sitting out there, I had to think through how this process was going to take place because it was still me. So I was going to be relying on volunteers and, you know, friends and family to help me get this order through. But quality was,
00:17:24
Speaker
Pivotal to make sure that we were gonna continue to grow so lucky lucky for me out of the gate I had that huge order to start thinking about that process And really what I did is I had two key people come in and train with me one was my mom Who had learned most most the stuff from so she really knew how to make it and then the second one was was a girlfriend who who I kind of came in and trained on the process of
00:17:50
Speaker
was scooping them putting them in the liner what they need to look like timing them all that stuff.
Opening a Dessert Lounge
00:17:55
Speaker
So I had my mom to make the mix her to help kind of on that production side and making sure that whole piece was okay. And then I actually frosted and finished every single one of those by hand.
00:18:07
Speaker
Because at that point, I didn't have anybody that had that same technique that I had, but also this was going to be such a pivotal moment for us in our, in my company that I wanted to make sure I finished them all. And I knew what they all look like going out the door. So that first moment, I think we had, I don't know exactly. I want to say we probably had at least 12 volunteers come help us maneuver that order.
00:18:29
Speaker
Geez. Get it through. So that hit in February of 2011. I stayed up for almost 24 hours straight, finished that order because I couldn't sleep. I was so excited to deliver it and kind of nervous at the same time.
00:18:46
Speaker
Um, did you have to drive them over there? Was that a nerve wracking drive? I was so nerve wracking. And I just kept like, when you bring the baby home from the hospital, it was very much like that. And I just kept thinking, okay, I don't even know if I want anybody else to touch these boxes because if anything gets dropped or slides, we've done relationship.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. So we, luckily it was at the convention center, which was directly across the street from the bakery where we had our little kitchen. So it was not that far to dry, but those two blocks are excruciatingly painful. Oh yeah. Just even worried about getting rear ended with all of them in your cars, a whole nother level of paranoia.
00:19:29
Speaker
But we made them over there and then got them set up. And then I actually took my mom that night to the event because she was such a crucial point person in getting this event done. And her and I stood there and watched a thousand people enjoy the product and everybody starts to talk and ask where they were from. Devour your product. It was, it was amazing. And I couldn't believe how many showed up on social media. Like it was just amazing to me.
00:19:59
Speaker
And that really launched us because it was the right clients. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, if I could have dreamed of landing an event in Des Moines, it would have been that event. The right expendable income, the right demographic, the right people to talk about it. It just unfolded. And I mean, the one thing is when you serve your product to a thousand people and they like it, you, the company exploded overnight.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yes. So cool. I love it that's not that much marketing. Like you just do the right thing, make the right product, and then let the customers do the marketing for you. I love that. Well, there's so many, it just seemed like, I don't want to use the word fad, but there's just a lot of cupcake dessert shops that have opened in the last 10 years.
00:20:45
Speaker
But you, you make a lot of different stuff. And I remember being in West Des Moines, working for a different company at that point, but, uh, went to several events that you catered and it was just like, I mean, your food is phenomenal. So it's, it's kind of surreal to, to have you on now talking about that time. Cause I was like sampling your food at these events. So super cool. Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
What comes out of that then? Like, cause social media, obviously you have a brand and a product that's, you know, can just spread like wildfire on there. And at that time, you know, I don't, I didn't know the whole market at that point, but you were getting a large portion of the commercial business, right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we were, there was another company that existed in town that sold cupcakes, but not on the scale of what we just produced. And really what was proven at that event is that we were going to be a company that could
00:21:39
Speaker
produce large orders, which was awesome for us. But coming out of that event, when I came into work, because we're closed Sunday, Monday on Tuesday, when I came in, my phone mail was so full, you couldn't even leave a message.
00:21:54
Speaker
It was completely full. And then I had tons of emails requesting orders. And that's when I knew I needed to hire somebody. I was like, I can't, I can't do this. Like I can't check the emails. I can't make all this. You know, I just felt like, how am I going to deliver and be out there still getting, you know, projecting, getting the marketing piece done, making sure we have orders in. And that's when I decided to hire. But again, I didn't have an HR department to flush out applicants. Oh yeah.
00:22:21
Speaker
You're not doing the Myers-Briggs on everybody. You're just, yeah, you breathe. Get in here. Come on in. And how do you flush out people for the food industry? You know, I was terrified. I was like, I don't know how to hire. Did you have much of a retail presence at that point? Or was it pretty much just all catering?
00:22:38
Speaker
all catering kitchens, so no retail, just renting the one kitchen, and kind of sticking to that model, because we really wanted to prove that we could grow this big enough to eventually open a brick and mortar, but we were trying to be very smart about that. It's a huge investment. Because doing those at the same time probably would have taken you under potentially.
00:22:58
Speaker
Right. Right. And we really, again, our cupcakes were so different for the market. A lot of them are filled and pushing the envelope with our flavors. We wanted to figure all that out before we jumped in and how to retail location. So, but getting this very daunting, trying to scale a business speak from real experience here.
00:23:18
Speaker
And I think, and especially in that, like it was so smart to stay catering because if you spend all the money on retail and you know, it's just, it's a different business. And so I think in that, you know, we had on the guy, um, the ice cream bars, I can't think of them now.
00:23:36
Speaker
But he didn't talk about, you know, yeah, you get the big orders and it's like, shoot, I got to buy bigger mixers. I need a truck. I got to have more ovens. And it's, you're kind of constantly reinvesting the profits to handle the next order, all the while hoping the next order doesn't dry up. Right. So how did you kind of manage the, the capital intensiveness of all of that?
00:23:58
Speaker
Right. I mean, especially taking on that thousand cupcake order was pretty crucial. And for me, I had some really good mentors that I went back to and I'm like, okay, I need to figure this out, you know, and that's where they helped me figure out, okay, if they're serious about this, they've got to make a down payment and then they've got to be completely paid, you know, 30 days in advance because otherwise it could have taken me out of the gate because I had to buy extra PAMs, extra product, all that stuff out of the gate. And so that was really, really good advice that has saved me. I mean,
00:24:26
Speaker
years because we always do it that way now you know everything has to be a deposit and then paid in full before we ever even start mixing anything which is a little difficult to manage in your cash flow you know cuz you're sitting on that waiting for that event to come but it's at that point when any debt in the business
00:24:46
Speaker
No. So everything that we did was bootstrapped. It was just from my, I didn't have, um, alone. I didn't have anything, everything that we were making. I was pretty much putting back into the business. Um, I did pay myself a very minimal salary. Um, but everything was going. Yeah.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, just don't let us go backwards. He said everything going back in the business to continue to grow it. So at that point, no, I mean, we were not even a year in, but hiring that first person was key because it allowed us to grow a lot faster once we hired that person.
00:25:24
Speaker
Um, and the person that finally I decided to hire because I didn't know what the heck that I was doing was actually, uh, my mom, she left her job at 23 years to come on as my first full time. Oh, that's super cool. So the fun story, because you mentioned Thelma's out of that is that the kitchen that we rented, we only had had half the kitchen, but on the other half was Derek and his mom Lana. Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
So a decade in, you've been going almost 10 years. What is kind of like the one thing you would tell our listeners in terms of like, I wish I would have known this sooner? You know, for me,
00:26:03
Speaker
It really is that life is not going to stop on the backside. So as an entrepreneur, um, even though you have a great plan and the cash, the economy is always going to impact you and you're always going to have your life continuing to impact you on the backside.
00:26:19
Speaker
And for me, it's how do you deal with that? How do you delegate responsibility so that the business doesn't become your entire life and swallow you? Because it can happen very quickly. I mean, the burnout rate's intense for small business owners. What's the percentage rate? Because obviously, you're the greater demand. So what's the percentage rate of failures in small businesses? Love to know.
00:26:43
Speaker
You know, I don't know the exact statistics on that, but I can, I mean, from here, say I can tell you, you know, 50% fail within the first year. Yeah. I think it's 95 over the first five years. Yeah. It's pretty high or they, it's not even that they failed. It's just that it didn't fit their lifestyle anymore. So before they go further in debt or, you know, cause we could have pulled the trigger at any time in the smaller kitchen and not had, you know, taking out loans and things like that, but making those decisions early on.
00:27:12
Speaker
So I want to talk about, cause your mom is now you're hiring your mom. She quits her job. This is a great story. Like what's going to happen. Go, go into that. Let's go. Okay. Yeah. So I hired my mom. She comes on and we were actually able to grow very quickly. So after bringing her on, I was able to get out, do more of the marketing.
00:27:29
Speaker
She's doing production. We actually brought on two more people after that. And then came a pivotal point where we needed to move because we had outgrown the kitchen space. So fortunately enough, we found another kitchen, moved to that and literally landed in that kitchen and then found out that the Ingersoll location was available.
Facing Personal and Professional Challenges
00:27:51
Speaker
And so we went and looked at that location. That would be our brick and mortar location.
00:27:57
Speaker
And it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen in my entire life because it had not been remodeled for 20 years. But in my head is where I knew that we would add the cocktail lounge and actually become creme cupcake and dessert. So, um, you thinking this is, you know, genius, you know, the banks will be all over this story. They're totally lining up vision lining up again.
00:28:20
Speaker
I would even go in. I'm like, come on, like you've had a bad day. Do you want a drink or do you want a cupcake, like sugar, alcohol? Like it's, it's. You gotta choose one. So I went into my own bank and was denied a loan. That hurts. I heard, I tell Brian, like there's so many businesses, I think they shut down like great ideas. Cause they're just horrible. Yeah. So. But how did that happen to your psyche? Like were you like, Oh, maybe it's not as good or you're like, I don't care. I'll go to the next one or like, tell us how that impacted you.
00:28:50
Speaker
I was like, why am I banking with you? Because for me, I mean, I had quite a bit of, you know, working capital in the bank that I bootstrapped, you know, but I mean, coming out of recession, nobody told you that they didn't want to lend to you or couldn't lend to you was actually the case. And so for me, I was like, well, screw you. I'll just go to another bank. And I went to seven banks and was denied. Wow.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah. So that was really gut wrenching. Cause then I kind of paused and said, Oh, maybe I'm not supposed to do this. You know, maybe I'm supposed to just stay happy where I am. You know, we can stick with the cupcake bakery side of things. Like maybe they're right.
00:29:31
Speaker
Seven times. What was your husband's response? Like he was like, well, he was just like, I, I think it's still a great idea. Cause it really came from us traveling and really wanting that after dessert spot to go to that didn't exist. But he was just like, maybe this just isn't supposed to happen. Like, you know, I mean, you've had a lot of signs that appointed you where you're supposed to be. Maybe this is telling you, you know, to not do this. So out of the blue, um,
00:29:57
Speaker
A guy I went to grade school with called me and said he was transferring banks and wanted me to come talk to him about our concept. And in my head, it was just like, no way. I'm not getting denied by somebody I know. That's where I draw the line. Yeah. That's some self-respect here.
00:30:15
Speaker
And then I'm thinking back in my head, was I, you know, where we was, did we get along in school? Like, what did I say to him? Like, hopefully, you know, thinking through all that, but I went to literally, and I tell people this, I went to a small town bake. I went to Slater, Iowa, which is a teeny tiny town. Yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I walked in and I told him my concept and he's like, okay, hold on. I'm going to go get the president of the bank. And I remember looking at him going, you, you could, you could do that. There's a president here. Like I can talk to them because I had been to these bigger banks where it was just one person denying me. So the president of the bank walks in and he's, he knew exactly what I was trying to do.
00:30:53
Speaker
Oh, that's so cool. He had been to a concept, um, very similar in St. Louis that was chocolate and a craft cocktail lounge. And so he said, let's, let's make, let's see if we can make it happen. And, um, they did, they made it happen. Uh, they believed in the concept more importantly, they said, you know what, we believe in you, right? So we're rolling the dice on you. Um, your numbers look good, but we know it comes down to the individual to actually make it happen.
00:31:18
Speaker
Right. Wow. Yeah. So you did it. What year was that again? So by the time we got the loan, it was actually rolling into 2012. Oh wow. Because we had gone to see the location initially in October of 2000. Um,
00:31:37
Speaker
11. And then by the time we got the loan, it was in April of 2012. And the owner of the spot that we rent sat on the location because he believed in the concept that much and wanted it in his building. Cool for you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah. So, okay. So you got the, you're in the building, you're in the building and clean it all up, went back to my architecture friends, um, who helped design the space, uh, which was great. Exactly. Um, got, got the space designed. Um, we added in that night component where we now have plated desserts and a bar, which I had never run a bar in my entire life. So found a mixologist to come in and help us, you know, design that.
00:32:23
Speaker
And we get open on August 3rd of 2012. We opened our doors in Des Moines and it was very well received. I mean, the whole dessert lounge concept really took off because there's nothing like it. It's a great date night spot. It's great. And honestly, it's really what still sets us apart from our competitors. So we have a whole craft cocktail lounge in there and we're open at night for dessert. Yeah.
00:32:49
Speaker
So we get going and everybody is so excited to get the doors open, right? But then that's when everything really starts to happen. Yeah. I mean, our first day, our computers crashed like 27 times. It was like, nobody knew what they were doing. Our air conditioning went out. Oh my God. We're a bakery. It's hotter than hell in there. And it was just like insane.
00:33:10
Speaker
And so every day I kept thinking this has to get better. Like what did I do? You know, now my, you know, I've signed my house on the line for this loan. And I mean, I woke up every day just sick to my stomach, like completely sick. I mean, I would drive in there and I'm working like 16 hour days now.
00:33:28
Speaker
because I'm just terrified of anything going wrong there. And I've got 14 employees that don't know what they're doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to pretend I do. So I just constantly felt sick. I mean, I just could not shake the feeling of feeling sick. And three weeks in, I mean, I just was like, I don't know that I can do this forever. You know, just feeling sick every day. And that's actually when I found out that I was three months pregnant. Tada.
00:33:54
Speaker
I had my bun in the oven on my own. Yeah, you did. You're making something. Yeah. So that was a huge shock. Never written in the business plan and something that my husband and I did not expect because we were told it would be very hard for us to have children.
00:34:16
Speaker
Wow, this is happening. Well, I heard this and terrify. Yeah, I heard this from a guy. I don't remember if it was on a podcast or not, but just that like, you know, everybody talks about the work-life balance. I think that's what you were alluding to earlier, uh, is the business can become, you know, the balance, uh, that balance of power shifts to the business only. And so, but this guy was saying, it's like, no, it's just life. Like it all just has to get done.
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, you got it. I mean, life is going to happen in the background, you know, and I wish somebody would have told me that like, you know what, it's going to continue to happen. You have to figure it out. But in that moment, you know, I went to my mom and I was like, I can't do this. Like I can't be pregnant. I can't work 16 hours. I can't. And I was actually insulin dependent pregnancy. So being around
00:35:02
Speaker
You know, sweets all day and my mom looked at me and she was like, all right, figure it out. Get some management in place. You know what? Like, tell us what to do because you're, you're doing too much anyway. So figure it out, you know, kind of the back to the E-Myth, like,
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah, it got a handoff responsibility and my mom, I mean, she never told me what to do, like who to do, what to do, how to figure that out. Um, that was just so key because when she gave, it was like her, I really, I gave myself the permission to do that, but she just reinforced it, right? Like,
00:35:35
Speaker
You know, people, people see you working hard. They're not going to doubt that you're not working hard. And I handed off that responsibility. When I handed off that responsibility, I mean, they did the stuff way better than I did it. They were so much better at it, you know? Yeah. What is your superpower now after your business is 10 years old? Where do you fit on the day to day?
00:35:59
Speaker
I still definitely handle a lot of the marketing, the big picture stuff, and the team also introduces product all the time or ideas, but really running strategy for our company, talking through what we think, keeping up on the trends, and still handling a lot of the big events. Of course, I handle the books. The books are always my responsibility to make sure there's money in the bank.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. That's good. Okay. So your rock, your mother. Yeah. Sorry. She's helping you through it by not telling you what to do, but just telling you, you got to figure it out. I'm here for you. Yeah, she is. And honestly, so I, we came back, we got us, I would serve as a general manager, got assistant managers in place, kind of identified roles. My mom was the production manager and we rolled into that. So, you know, three weeks into it, we got that nailed down. So then we roll into September.
00:36:50
Speaker
and September 27th I remember distinctly because we had just had a rock star day like we're finally getting that emeth kind of methods in place like we're kind of figuring out like what we need to produce every day um I looked at my mom I said you know I'm gonna head off because it was my time to be off work and she was kind of holding my feet to the fire on that and she said okay I'm gonna finish up here
00:37:14
Speaker
And I left to go meet some friends for dinner and I just get to dinner and my phone starts ringing off the hook. I mean, but it wasn't unusual because everybody's trying to sell you everything when you're new business. Like constantly trying to sell you stuff. And so I just kept hitting like, you know, it was a different, kept being different numbers. I kept hitting like dismiss on it. And finally my girlfriends are like, something, you know, you should probably answer that. Like something's happening. And I'm like, but it's always a different number.
00:37:42
Speaker
So I went outside and answered it and I found out at that moment that my mom had actually suffered a massive stroke. Wow. After working a full day at the shop. And it literally rocked me to my core. And I tell people this honestly, like that moment in time, I literally quit on my business that instant because I felt like it was my fault. That responsibility. Yeah.
00:38:12
Speaker
if I wouldn't have worked her so hard, if she wouldn't have left her regular job to come to me, you know, if I would have stayed at the old company, I wouldn't have all these worries and responsibilities. And you know, am I jeopardizing myself and my employees, my unborn child? Like I just, all these things were flooding through my head as I was driving to the emergency room of how much I hated this company. Oh geez, man, my eyes were watering. Like that's heavy. It was just,
00:38:41
Speaker
It just punched me, you know, it just literally took my breath away and you know, we get there. And of course at that time they didn't actually know what happened to her, but she was completely unconscious. She couldn't tell us what had happened. She had just gotten home, looked at my dad and basically collapsed. So all the numbers, the reason for all the different numbers calling me as it was all the neighbors on the street trying to get ahold of all me and my four siblings. So people just kept taking turns trying to call us.
00:39:08
Speaker
So as I sat there with her, staring at my siblings who were all looking at me for answers, cause she had worked for me all day, I just could not shake the feeling of guilt. And you know, my, even looking at my dad, you know, and him wanting to know like, why weren't you paying closer attention to her? And you know, it wasn't that they ever, not once have they ever blamed me, but just feeling that internal,
00:39:36
Speaker
piece of responsibility and guilt.
Mentorship and Continuing the Journey
00:39:40
Speaker
So as the days kind of tick by, she was actually impatient at Mercy on the neurology floor. It was a pretty massive stroke. Um, some days she knew who I was. Some days she didn't, and I just could not go back to the shop. I just could not. I just literally could care less if the whole thing fell in, but my staff, my staff who we'd put in place,
00:40:00
Speaker
believed in it, believed in it in the mission and just said, you know what, you need to take care of her and we'll take care of a shot. Wow. They, they did not need to do that. And they did. And I'm still forever grateful to this day, but it was amazing that, I mean, they were really saddened by it too, because they worked by her, you know, day in and day out. Yeah. The uncertainty. So as I, as I kind of sat at the hospital, um,
00:40:28
Speaker
with my sister and my siblings trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen. We had one sister that lives in California and my phone rang. It was a California number. I had learned to answer my phone at that point. Yeah. So I stepped outside in the hall thinking it was my sister. Uh, and that's when the other end of the phone said, this is cupcake wars. We'd like you to actually come on the show. When can you fly out here? Geez.
00:40:55
Speaker
And this is still a miracle that I ever made it on the show because I literally told that lady in an emotional pregnancy state. Cause you're cashed out. You're tapped out. I was totally tapped out, but I literally told her what I thought of cupcakes and where I thought cupcakes could go.
00:41:12
Speaker
I'm just all went off on how they ruin people's lives. And, you know, I mean, just this emotional pregnancy, like pregnant crazy lady on the phone. And I literally she said, you know, OK, well, just think about it. Let me know. Because and I was like, I already think I told you what I think about it. But OK. I got to get off the phone. I went back in the room. My little sister looks at me and she she said to me, she's like, who in the world was that?
00:41:40
Speaker
Because I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky person. And I told her, I was like, it's just the Food Network and Cupcake Wars. They want me to go on. There's no way I'm going on the show. And my sister put the ultimate threat. What do you think is going to happen when mom wakes up and finds out you did not go because of her? Geez, trump card. And I looked at her and I was like, I don't know, but that answer terrifies me. Yeah. Cause I don't know. I'm not going to find out. Yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
And so my younger sister was the one that was key and making me go. And she also told me, she said, you know, if something does happen to mom, this is the way that you're going to honor her because she, and she believed in what you're doing. And you've come this far, right? Like you just can't go back now. You got all the chips on the table. You can't just walk away from the table. You got to see what that last card is. So I remember getting on the plane and my mom, uh, she was doing outpatient was doing much better. She's doing outpatient. Um,
00:42:38
Speaker
at all with life, but still so uncertain of what was going to come of this and getting on the plane and thinking, I don't even know if I want to be here, but I went, I wrote it out. And what we ended up doing is on the show, everything that we made on the show was something my mom made me growing up. Was that emotional for you? It was, it was very emotional. I mean, being on that show and being away from her and then making all this stuff. And I mean, again, being the pregnancy hormones.
00:43:08
Speaker
It was, it was nerve wracking, but it was an amazing way to honor her, um, on that show. And she has seen the show since and recognizes everything that we make. So pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I won't give the spoiler alert away, but we did very well on the show. So yeah. And you can watch that for sure. Was that a, uh, I want to say that, uh, he did read that in the bio. So yeah, that's right. I forgot.
00:43:37
Speaker
Was that a, you know, you're on that show, you're a competitive person. I don't know what it's like taping it. You know, I've been to David Letterman taping. And so that's my only experience, but, uh, did it refocus you in a way?
00:43:50
Speaker
You know, it really did. And I just thought to myself, um, the biggest thing, like getting back on the plane and coming home, realizing like, and my sister really kind of said this too. She said, you know, going out there, there's never been anybody from Iowa on this show. And she goes, I will get overlooked for everything. So this is beyond you. Like you were there representing Iowa. You're there representing women business owners, you know? And so flying back, I really,
00:44:20
Speaker
really was like, I can't give up. You know, like, that's really what it hit me like life's going to continue to happen. And this is bigger. Like I want more businesses, you know, represented in Iowa. You know, I want everybody to do what they're made to do. And obviously there's a reason that both these things happen. And there's a reason that my mom had her stroke, but there's also a reason that we were the first one from Iowa to be asked to be on the show.
00:44:43
Speaker
Yeah, and that's where I really kind of recommitted like okay, we're gonna get back We're gonna figure this out gonna get it together We're gonna make it happen because my team didn't give up on me. I have no right to give up on them Yeah, and and you're cooking for some of you know, the biggest businesses organizations in Iowa small businesses families all these people you're putting out product for and
00:45:07
Speaker
you know, creating this experience, uh, what a Testament, you know, to your story and hard work. So the things after that seem to be like you're all in now and things are working. You've turned the corner. You've gotten over this crest. Now you're like sitting well, you've got management in place. And then where does the Des Moines, the greater Des Moines partnership come in?
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. So after my son was born, so he was born, the show aired kind of had this big blow up moment. But, um, when, when my mom had her stroke, I kind of missed that point that we actually ended up putting a general manager in place because I just could not be there. So we ended up taking one of our assistant managers, making them a general manager and then assigning somebody else, um, assistant manager place. I, you know, went out, had my son got my mom recuperated. And as I began to think about,
00:45:59
Speaker
Okay. Do I step back in and take that responsibility away from her after she's been with me for so long? It just felt very wrong to me, you know, to demote her. And I thought, why would I do that? But in my head, it's like, well, what's next? And am I, I kept thinking to myself, I've had so many mentors come in and surround me and push me forward through all this kind of hoopla that it was really my responsibility and my chance to pay it forward and give back.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:46:28
Speaker
So when my son was getting a little bit older, I was still working just part time at the shop. I was actually approached by a handful of women to kind of tell them how I did all this. You know, basically I told him what I knew. You know, I wasn't trained as a business coach.
00:46:44
Speaker
And then I would send them to the Small Business Development Center, which was a free place to go to help me get started. And by doing that, I was actually recruited by the Small Business Development Center, approached me and said, hey, our original director is going to retire.
00:47:00
Speaker
And we would like you to come consider, you know, running the region. And I was like, I can't do that. Like I've got a baby, I've got a shop. Like this is terrifying, but in my head too, it was really like kind of a motto in your life. Terrifying. We're doing terrifying. Yep. That's about right. Actually, you know, I'm going to actually put that motto at the bakery.
00:47:26
Speaker
So I decided, uh, I talked to my general manager, you know, and she told me flat out, she was like, well, I just wonder what was going to happen because I thought I would lose my job. She, she literally had been sitting there thinking she was going to lose her job whenever I decided to come back.
00:47:40
Speaker
And I said to her, I said, you know, we both have a huge passion for this community. And if I take this, this is really us paying a forward to our community and using our own story as example of survival. And she agreed to stay on if I took that job. And that's what we did. So even though legally I 100% own the company on paper, she hands down is my partner in the business.
00:48:04
Speaker
we profit share with all our managers. So it's really all of our businesses. We run it like it's a team. Super cool. Yeah. So from there, Council of businesses and then in the same process ended up being recruited over at the partnership to do something very similar over here. So every day you got to encourage other business owners to do what their paths are about, do something frightening and start a business. Right? Jump in.
00:48:31
Speaker
Jump in, jump off, jump in. I know this is like a nationwide podcast, but I just want people to pause and think, what were they really meant to do with their lives? Because if they stop and allow themselves to think about it, there's something already settled in their hearts. Everybody has that.
00:48:50
Speaker
You know, we always say like everyone thinks about retirement, but how about you don't think about retirement? What if you never had retirement? What would you want your everyday to look like? Like stop thinking about retirement. Start thinking about what do I want to do for the rest of my life? And then retirement goes out the window because you're just so passionate about what you do and you love what you do and you want to get better at it. You want to try to keep tweaking it.
00:49:11
Speaker
That is the true uncommon path, is when you can go out and say, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life and I get paid for this. Like, this is amazing. And everyone has that drum inside. Brian does a great job of talking about the Jumanji drum, how it just keeps beating louder and louder inside of you. Man, I would encourage you, if, you know, you have that in your listener, to reach out to either Brian, myself, or Christina and just kind of talk through that and like,
00:49:37
Speaker
Obviously those are emotions that you want mentorships and that's a huge part of my life and my story as well as yours, Christina. And so, man, I would definitely want to encourage you to say like, you got to have a good community around you. It's always not going to be exactly how you plan, but man, these people that are on an uncommon life path are loving it and learning so much in the process. And you just can't do that if you just put your money and put it in a Roth. Like you're not learning that much. Let's be really honest.
00:50:05
Speaker
Well, in just the lives that you've impacted, you know, and you reach that point of like, I'm done. And then you've got all these people that have just said like, well, we'll carry this right now. Yes. You know, I made you stronger. Yeah. And, and I don't know, I think we've kind of reached our time limit here, but you know, just a shout out to Des Moines. I mean, it's just been a neat place to do business and be a part of the fabric. I mean, we're an Ankeny, but
00:50:33
Speaker
obviously down in Des Moines quite a bit and there is just a lot going on in the startup space, in the venture capital space, and women-owned businesses. It's a great place to do business, I would say.
00:50:48
Speaker
It really is. And I love that people say it's a flyover state, but it's not. Like, this is actually the heart of things. And the people that have this Midwest heart, the Iowa nice, it's a real thing. Hard work ethic. Yeah. And there is no traffic. I just want to point that out. And if there is traffic, then I tell people just keep flying over because I don't want any more traffic.
00:51:11
Speaker
but no it's really neat to be a part of and man I want to thank you for all the people that you've inspired along the way and your desserts and I'd like to thank you for your desserts because we all know I have a sweet tooth
00:51:23
Speaker
Well, thank you guys for having me. I just feel, you know, I encourage everybody that, you know, has a small business to share their journey because life is messy on the backside and people need to know that it's never going to go away. Right. Aspires one person to actually go out and start a business that, you know, they were meant to do. That's, that's worth telling your story. Right. So true. So if our listeners wanted to hear more about you or get in touch with you in any way, what would be the easiest way for them to do?
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, so reach out to me. It's Christina at cremecupcake.com. It's C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-A at C-R-E-M-E cupcake.com. Perfect. Well, you've been listening to another episode of the Uncommon Life Project. I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. I am Brian Dewhurst. Thank you, Christina, for sharing your story. And thank you for listening. Until next time, go be in common.
00:52:14
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.