Amanda Bragg, owner of PJ’s Baby Cakes, was a long-time baker and fan of this very blog. However, it wasn’t until her job in insurance fell victim to the economy that she considered cupcakes as a career. Armed with a supportive husband, a catalog of family recipes, and a love of all things cupcake, Amanda opened up shop. Starting out baking from home and selling at farmers’ markets led to a booming retail store and mobile cupcake decorating service. Read on to find out how Amanda has balanced it all, and her unique advice for budding entrepreneurs.
Name: Amanda Bragg
Location: Lincoln, NE
Website: www.pjsbabycakes.com
- How did you get started baking cupcakes?
I've always baked, but I started baking cupcakes specifically back in 2007. I'd crave cake and decide that making cupcakes was a better choice (easier to give away extras where a cake would be eaten, by me, in its entirety). I was also introduced to the Cupcakes Takes the Cake blog around that time, and I would sit at my desk and peruse the pictures and my imagination would go wild. - Do you have any formal training?
If by formal you mean did I go to pastry school? No, no formal training. I was, however, taught how to bake (and how not to bake) by my grandmother and mother. Both formally and informally. Although, I just realized today that I failed Meringue 101... I didn't pay attention when they made pies apparently... - What other kinds of products do you offer at your shop?
For the most part, we just do cupcakes. We have a few other treats available, such as Muddy Buddies (Puppy Chow) and Homemade Fudge, but the focus is definitely on the cupcakes. I believe in doing one thing exceptionally well rather than multiple things mediocrely. - Do you have a signature cupcake, or a personal favorite?I would say that our Madison cupcake (our version of the Hostess) is our signature one. It's the most sought after and asked about, and it's named after the street where our store is located. As for my favorite, I always say Lemon. But, after making the Butterbeer one for the last Harry Potter movie, I think Lemon has been ousted. I also love the cupcakes where I get to step out of the traditional cupcake box. My Irish Bombs (Irish Car Bomb cupcakes) were the first where I implemented other flavor combinations besides the traditional flavors (vanilla, chocolate, candy or fruit flavors).
- What led you to open your own business? As I mentioned, I would make cupcakes when I had a craving and I'd only eat 1 or 2. So, I'd take the leftovers to work. People would devour them and rave at how delicious they were. Then in January of 2008, my husband and I took a cake decorating class together and I quickly realized that full-sized cakes were not my passion or forte so I decided to focus more on cupcakes. I continued to bake and decorate cupcakes and take them to work and actually got a few "orders" but never went any further to make it an official business. It was a risk I just wasn't prepared to take (due to being pregnant, etc.). Fast-forward to February 2009, and I got laid off from my insurance job. My son, Patrick, was only 4 months old at the time. Rather than jump into another 9-5er and put Patrick into daycare, we (my husband and I) decided to take a stab at the cupcake business, baking out of our home. We took part of my severance package, rented a stall at one of our local farmers’ markets, and would bake every Friday in our conventional oven (24 cupcakes at a time) until 2-3 in the morning just to get up 3 hours later to be down at the farmers’ market. The very first market, we took about 150 cupcakes (which, when baking 24 at a time, is A LOT of baking) and sold out within 3 hours. Everything just snowballed from there!
- How did you make the transition from farmers’ market to retail location? What was the most challenging aspect of that?
Well, we still do farmers’ markets, but we work out of our commercial/retail kitchen rather than my home kitchen so that would be more of the transition. The reason for this was we just outgrew our home kitchen. About 3-4 months into the farmers’ markets that first year, we were getting so many orders that I was having to turn some down because I couldn't handle the amount in the house. On top of that, Patrick started walking at 9 months (!) and it just wasn't an ideal environment for my cupcakes to be around a toddler (toddlers are like Godzillas when it comes to cupcakes). When we found our space and started working on turning it into a commercial kitchen, we didn't initially plan on being open for retail/walk-in business when we "opened" in February 2010. However, once people found out that we were in commercial space and no longer in our home, we were besieged with requests to be open for walk-in business. After deciding that I'm there working anyway and why not make some extra money while I'm at it, we opened the doors for walk-in traffic. We started small - just 3 days a week - to see how it went, and by November 2010, we were open 6 days a week!
The most challenging aspect of transitioning from home baking/farmers’ markets to retail has been customer education. We live in a Walmart-centric world -- if you need 3 or 4 dozen cupcakes for your child's class the next day, you can run into the store, pick some up out of the case and maybe have the bakery staff stick some plastic picks or rings on top. When you're a small, custom bakery, accommodating last-minute orders is difficult, and you have to be very diplomatic in explaining to your customers as to why something may or may not be done. For example, I can always get someone a few dozen vanilla cupcakes within a days notice, but if they're wanting hand-made fondant monkey cupcake toppers on all 48 cupcakes, then that's a little more difficult since all of our decorations are hand-made and made to order (meaning, we don't have mass-produced toppers just laying around waiting to be placed on top of the cupcakes - everything is made to order for each customer).
On the positive side of that, though, being open for retail as opposed to working out of my house, I've been able to develop some amazing relationships with my customers. I started getting "regulars" at the farmers’ markets but having a retail space allowed for more opportunities since the retail space is open year round (as opposed to the market only going from May-October). I love seeing the same faces and hearing their stories, and getting to know them through their cupcake purchases. - Tell me a little about the decorate your own cupcake party. What was the inspiration for that? The decorate your own cupcake party was created after a friend of mine wanted to do something different for a bridal shower. The first thought was to try and do it in our store. However, our space is only 600 square feet and 500 of those square feet is our kitchen - we don't really have a lot of "front" space as we don't allow dine-in. After some brainstorming, I thought it would be a super awesome idea to offer these parties outside of the store! I'd take cupcakes, icing and myself to wherever the customer wanted, give them a demo and they'd get to be creative and eat yummy cupcakes! It's a lot of fun to meet people as passionate about cupcakes as I am and watch them make their own creations!
- What is the best business advice you've ever gotten?
To be honest, we didn't really seek out advice prior to starting the business. My father owns his own electrical contracting business and a lot of the "business" part of the cupcake business, I based on what I'd witnessed when he started his business 20-some years ago. My husband was the same way with his brother-in-law. We just listened and paid attention to what worked and what didn't. That being said... - Any advice you wish someone had given you before you started?
I really wish someone would have told us to prepare for success. Whenever people start their own business, everyone is quick to tell you to be prepared for it not to work and to have a back-up plan. No one - NO ONE - tells you to be ready for it to be wildly successful. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I think this business wasn't a good idea or anything. But I definitely wasn't expecting it to be as successful as quickly as it was. Also, we do wish someone would have advised us (and that we would have listened had they done so) to consult a lawyer early on in the business planning - especially when dealing with building leases and all that goes with that! - What’s the most difficult aspect of running your own business? It's all-consuming. No matter what you do, you are a business owner. When you're at a family function, people start talking cupcakes and you have to put on your business hat. When you're at the grocery store shopping for food for the house, you find yourself in the candy aisle brainstorming a new cupcake recipe. When you're working at the bakery, you're thinking about all the time you're not spending with your husband and child and when you're with your husband and child you're thinking about all the stuff that needs to be done. Friendships fall by the wayside and hobbies that don't include cupcakes and decorating cupcakes also get put on the back burner. Making time for yourself is virtually impossible. Even when you make it a point to make time for yourself, something happens and you're back at the bakery taking care of business. You can read all the business books and websites you want and people can tell you all of this prior but you just don't realize it until you're doing it every single day! That being said, at the end of the day these sacrifices should be balanced out with the reward of doing something on your own - not reporting or answering to someone else. Not to mention the ego boost you get when people say wonderful things about your work! It makes the negatives seem not as negative, you know? Plus, we have an amazing support system of family and friends - between people watching Patrick for us so we can continue to run the farmers’ market booth, and friends who are willing to accept cupcakes for payment to help run the counter at the store, we are truly blessed.
- Do you work with original recipes? How do you come up with those?
I do! The base recipes (cakes and icing) are combinations of family recipes, recipes from books and recipes I found on the web. I made my own mutant recipes and have consistently used those since I started! Then when I (or my husband, who is technically the "flavor guru") want to try a new flavor, we just figure out how to incorporate it into our base recipes by changing a few things here and there. It's all about knowing your recipe and knowing your ingredients and how they work together. Again, I don't have "formal" training, but I know what tastes good and what looks good and I think, in the end, that's all that matters. - How do you market yourself?
Word. Of. Mouth. We've tried some advertising in papers and we did a Groupon once (don't get me started on that), but word of mouth has been, and continues to be, the best for us. - How does social media play a role in your business?
Facebook and Twitter are amazing tools. Initially, I was wary of social media. As a recovering Facebook addict, the thought of putting my business on Facebook just didn't seem like a great idea. However, after listening to some friends who are in the advertising and marketing field and attending a few sessions at IBIE (International Bakery Industry Exposition), we figured "it's free, so why not give it a shot?" It's been great. While I personally don't use Facebook, my customers do and it's a great way to reach out to them when I would otherwise not be able to do so. - Any goals for expanding your store?
Of course! But, as with everything else we've done, we just have to take it one step at a time and only if it makes sense. Part of what makes our cupcakes awesome is that we keep our overhead low, which allows our prices to be low (compared to other retail cupcakes) and we can't start making rash decisions if we want to keep with that philosophy. - Any cupcake horror stories?
Well, any day above 90 degrees where we're outside at the farmers’ market with hundreds of cupcakes getting ready to melt all over the place is pretty horrifying! Other than that, I can honestly say that we haven't really had any horrible things happen (KNOCK ON WOOD!!) Aside from my friend's penchant for dropping cupcakes every time she comes in to help me, we've had no racks tipping over, no cupcakes not making it to a wedding or big event. All in all, pretty easy (now, I just hope I haven't jinxed myself!!).
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