Getting Serious

Bakeries with "The Look", originally uploaded by Flying Time Designs.

Oh my! What am I getting myself into?

I've been having a great time making pretty cupcakes, playing with packaging, taking pictures, looking at pictures of bakeries I like (like the ones shown above)…doing all the fun parts of starting and having a cupcake & cookie business but, I've decided it's time to get on with it and start making some real plans to try to turn my dreams into reality.

Here's some of the steps I've taken since my last post…

•I talked with a connection at work about having a booth at a community event in mid-July. I think this will be a good place to show the community what I do and this event draws the kind of people I think will be interested in my cookies and cupcakes. It might be a good way to test the market. However, this is an outdoor event and in prior years the weather has always been bad. I'm worried about how my cupcakes and cookies will hold up if it's really hot. I have no idea, how many cookies and cupcakes I should plan to bring. I don't know how I'm going to set up my booth, but I know I need to get some signs and things made for it. I'm going to be gone next weekend and the weekend after that I'm going to be really busy so I don't know when I'm going to work on getting ready for this. I need to order some of the specialty items I want to use to make some of the things I want to make. I need to firm up my prices. I should get new business cards made (the ones I have now are more "etsy oriented"). What am I thinking?

• I talked with my realtor friend this week about finding a kitchen/bakery space. This friend has great business sense, knows a lot about the community and has a great sense of style. She seemed very supportive of my idea to start this business. I really value her opinion so I was glad she didn't laugh at me and tell me I'm a nutcase/dreamer! She had a few really good ideas about places that might work for me. Ohhhhh mannnnn… talking locations makes this all seem very real and a bit overwhelming. Therefore…I started working on my business plan again and really trying to crunch the numbers. I'm not sure what my expense are going to be yet but I'm thinking I'm going to have to make and sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 cupcakes or 100 cookies a day for this to work. I have a few other ideas about how to bring in income including "make your own cupcake parties", but still…Can it be done? Can I get that many cupcakes/cookies made? (theoretically I can) Can I sell that many a day, especially if I decide not to have a store-front right away?
Will people around here pay $1.50-$3.00 for a cupcake? Once I start showing my stuff at local events will I get many orders? If I do will I be able to handle them while I'm still working full time? Will I know when it's safe to quite my day job and start baking full-time?

Is it worth going through all this work and stress and risk to make this happen? YES darnit! The alternative would be to spend the rest of my days in a windowless cubicle at the mercy of a boss, probably watching someone else open up this type of business. NO WAY!