404 – Identify, Create and Bring a New Product to Market with Kristina Schlegel of Make Bake

Gift is Unwrapped Guest,

episode number 404.

When something is your own,

you have a much different emotional relationship to it.

You're much more invested in it.

You have a vision for this idea that you have Attention.

Gifters, bakers,

crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one,

now you are in the right place.

This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host Gift Biz gal Sue Moon Height.

Hi there,

it's Sue and thanks for joining me today on our first

a new year full of opportunity and potential.

I look forward to bringing you more guest interviews from Makers

in all stages of their business development from them.

You'll see how in many ways they're just like you.

Their dreams are like yours and they'll inspire and motivate you

with their stories and their insights.

You'll also hear midweek tips and talk episodes where for a

shorter time,

I address topics I'm seeing at the forefront of our world

of small handmade product businesses.

And I'm so excited to say that after a short break

so you could focus on your holiday selling season,

the bashes are back.

If you're not familiar with these,

you can go back in the lineup and listen to one

of the podcasts that says Bash in the beginning of the

title. These shows provide you an opportunity to get your business

seen by this whole listening audience.

New visibility with no financial investment.

How great is that?

These bashes are recorded as Zoom get togethers and turn into

a podcast.

Several weeks later you get to showcase your business,

a promotion you have going on or talk about your interest

in wholesale placement or doing a product collaboration.

Valentine's Day is coming up and our next bash in January

is timed perfectly for this.

As long as you're an established handmade product business owner,

I invite you to book your spot.

Go to gift biz unwrap.com/bash

and signup.

These spots are limited though to keep the resulting podcast to

a reasonable time,

but if there are openings you can sign up for as

many as you like.

Let's move into what's in store for you on our episode

today. I am so excited to have you listen to this

one. As her background,

Christina had a lot of strategic product experience with several of

the country's top known brands.

Then going about her personal daily activities,

she identified a product need a pain point,

if you will,

that inspired an idea for a product that could fill the

gap. You're going to hear what this product is,

how she validated her concept,

and the entire product development process she embarked on from there,

the ups,

the downs,

the pivots,

and what's coming in the future.

I bet this is even a product you'll want to try,

but first the story Today I cannot wait to introduce you

to Christina SCH Schlegel of Make Bake based in San Francisco.

Christina is a creative product and marketing strategist with over 20

years of creating category,

defining products and customer experiences that deliver strategic measurable growth for

business. She's worked with William Sonoma Pottery Barn Kids and Sephora

among many others.

She left her corporate life in Silicone Valley to attend the

New School of Cooking.

Christina founded Make Bake a consumer packaged goods baking and food

craft brand.

Her patent pending edible sugar system created an entirely new product

category and is a game changer for busy parents baking at

home and professional bakers too make bake edible vegan food and

baking decoration stickers are sold in more than 150 independent retailers

in the US and abroad.

Christina, welcome to the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.

Hi Sue.

Thank you for having me.

I'm excited to be here today.

I am so excited.

I cannot wait to hear all about your product,

how it came to be,

the whole story,

but before we do,

I'd love for you to describe yourself by way of a

motivational candle.

If you could just close your eyes and envision what a

candle would look like that would just so resonate with you,

what would it be by color and maybe a saying or

a mantra,

a quote,

something like that.

Hmm, that's a good one.

Well, I will start by saying that I am a lover

of the night sky where we live,

it's kind of dark and so we get a lot of

stars at night.

We live in the Bay area but outside of the city

and so I often find myself kind of looking up.

So my candle would definitely be like a night sky blue,

that rich blue that lets the stars come through and if

I were gonna have a mantra,

it would be always be curious.

I think that's kind of a learned philosophy that served me

well professionally and personally and kind of just trying to approach

things with a sense of curiosity before anything else.

Curiosity leads to a lot of good things on the other

side, doesn't It?

It does and it opens a lot of unexpected doors.

Before I went to culinary school and started make Bake,

as you mentioned,

I'd worked in Silicon Valley for a number of years and

in that role I was doing what was called user experience

strategy and design,

which is kind of like a very fancy term for someone

whose job it is to really understand customers and how to

create products and experiences that really help them solve problems,

meet their needs and kind of surprise and delight them.

And sort of the toolkit we use in that discipline is

an approach of curiosity kind of coming into situations and asking,

okay, why is it this way?

Why is this person using this tool?

Is it the best tool for the job or are they

really have another problem they're trying to solve?

Or why are these our assumptions?

Have we challenged them recently?

And that kind of open curiosity is a big part of

the design process for product design and product strategy and has

just kind of become ingrained in me after doing it for

so many years,

kind of always asking why I didn't really have the tools

for it to or really understand kind of how that could

be useful in life and in business until I spent years

working in this capacity and working on so many interesting projects

and problems for clients.

So it really has become,

I think part of who I am now and something that

has kind of unbeknownst to me going into it I think

has served me really well in starting my own business.

Finally, The conversation here brings to mind back when I was

in my corporate world,

I dealt with small boutique shops and also larger brands similar

to you in some ways but from a different avenue.

And one of the things that we would do is make

sure that a lot of the C-suite executives spent time in

the stores understanding what both customers and employees were dealing with

in interacting and how the processes were run,

et cetera.

And just when I was listening to you speaking,

I think that idea,

if it even ever existed with some of us in maybe

our past corporate life get lost when we start thinking of

our own business,

what's the customer experience going through your own business?

So just kind of an aside,

because you brought it up and I thought it was a

nice point just to underline that it's something to give thought

to about the experiences that are happening either for your team

if you have a team or your customers.

And I think that's a really good point,

especially when you're starting something new or something that belongs to

you. Kind of the level of ownership and investment that you

have in it is so different than when you're working for

somebody else.

And there are a lot of pluses that come with that,

but there's also some sort of challenges that come with that.

And what I mean by that is when something is your

own, you have a much different emotional relationship to it,

you're much more invested in it,

you have a vision for this idea that you have.

And sometimes we can end up unbeknownst to us kind of

like narrowing our vision because we're working really hard to get

that thing out there and we sort of lose track of

the tools we had where we'd stop and say,

okay, let's get some more feedback.

Let's ask for some customer insights.

Let's kind of put this out and test it.

And sort of being more vulnerable and curious about how people

are interacting with our products.

And when you're a small business owner too,

you have limited resources,

whether that's trying to keep revenue growing or just the investments

that you can make.

But it's something that I was able to bring with me

into my entrepreneurial journey in part because of these years and

years of just doing it on autopilot for other people.

But also I had spent about a year and a half

in product development before we launched,

had what I considered to be a really great launch in

January 20,

20, 10 weeks later,

the pandemic hit.

Yep. I was faced with just like a really obviously unexpected,

unprecedented kind of situation and every business was trying to figure

out how to pivot and survive those times.

But as a new business,

I had a lot of challenges that were really specific to

not having distribution yet or not having a built-in audience on

social to pivot to and market D to C.

I had lots of things that were gonna be very hard

for me to tackle to say nothing of the fact that

I am a mother of two young children so I didn't

have childcare.

And so kind of pushed me naturally back into this sort

of curious researcher mode.

And I spent a lot of the early days of the

pandemic continuing to work and iterate on the product and the

product market fit and get feedback and ended up getting some

really surprising,

well, I guess now it's obvious,

but at the time kind of like insightful feedback that I

probably would've missed had I not been forced to slow down

because of the pandemic.

So I had a forcing function,

but sometimes other people don't.

And so I always try and say to people like,

if you're gonna build something new,

if you're gonna try something new,

it can feel really vulnerable to put your stuff out there

when you feel like it's not ready.

But it's a great idea to keep kind of iterating and

talking to people.

I know there's an interesting question in a lot of listeners'

minds right now.

So I wanna step you back just for a second in

your journey in that it sounds like you hit a really

awesome job in Silicon Valley.

Whatever triggered you or made you decide to take a change

of path there?

Gosh, it's partly a professional answer and partly a personal answer,

but I did,

I had a great job,

I had really interesting problems and really interesting projects.

But I think like a lot of people,

when you do something for a really long time,

you start to crave something different,

you start to see like,

you know,

can I stretch myself in the different direction?

And I was really looking at the world I was in,

which was very software and technology base and kind of just

feeling like I had done so many things there.

And even though there were still opportunities ahead of me,

I just wanted to do something different.

I wanted to get out from front of the computer,

I wanted to make something you could touch with your hands.

I was curious about how you know CPG brands came to

be and I had a level of baking,

so I took a little sabbatical and went to culinary school

and that was like no grand plans just sort of said

to my husband,

my daughter was one after 15 years,

I need a break,

I'm gonna go do this.

And it was really just an impulse in some ways to

go do that.

So there was no clear plan yet you were doing it

cuz you had interest in it and one thing led to

another. Yeah and then I got to culinary school and after

like the first week I was reminded of like how difficult

it is to be bad at something.

And what I mean by that is I had professionally been

doing the same thing for a long time and had developed

a level of kind of expertise,

efficiency, comfort.

And then here I put myself in a situation where I

was struggling to do very basic things because I just wasn't

a baker.

And again with that researcher,

user experience brain that's always kind of traveling with me,

I just started to notice like wow,

like I've forgotten what it's like to be a novice and

sort of when you're creating tools and solutions for people who

are novices and sort of all the stuff that comes with

that. And so I just kind of carried that with me

and then graduated from my culinary school and did some like

cake stuff and was just kind of playing around a little

bit but ultimately went back to my career consulting and it

wasn't until my daughter was a little bit older and I

really wanted to start baking with her that I started realizing

that there was a problem space here that I was experiencing

personally and started to go look for solutions,

realized that there was an opportunity to sort of innovate in

a space where I knew I wanted something different.

And in talking with other moms and parents realized there was

an opportunity that wasn't just me,

other people were sort of expressing the same sentiments.

I wish I could bake for my kid and have it

look that sweet,

I wish I felt confident to do this.

And so all those things kind of came together into this

moment where I thought,

you know,

I knew at some point I probably wanted to start something

on my own but really never knew what that was gonna

be. And when it sort of all came together for me,

I realized like this was a space that I thought I

could do something impactful.

And so I just started the research process and starting to

understand, okay,

where's an opportunity for us to innovate in this space?

And so define for us the problem,

what was the problem?

So the problem as I see it is kind of twofold.

One is parents are looking more and more for kind of

curated solutions to help them craft experiences with their kids.

We see tons of craft kits that are out there now

for example,

and the same kind of extends to baking.

Baking is this like nostalgic suite kind of emotional connection that

people imagine having with their kids and most people just aren't

that great at it.

Or getting a toddler to bake with you or a five

year old to bake with you is kind of a struggle

if you don't have it set up correctly.

And then also there's this idea of wanting to bake for

your kids,

being the person I wanna bake my kids' birthday cakes,

I wanna make something for that class party.

And realizing there was a gap between the time skills and

confidence that a lot of parents have in trying to put

something out there.

And so I just started looking at the tools that were

out there that people were using and that's when I really

saw what we call the edible image market.

So those are probably what you and I think of as

like the big rectangular cakes from a grocery store that have

like a superhero,

you know your kid's favorite superhero kind of put on top

or maybe it's like your parents' wedding photo on like an

anniversary cake.

But when I saw that platform I just thought this is

really interesting.

Like we've seen companies like Catley really elevate the aesthetic and

use of temporary tattoos and companies like chasing paper who've brought

design and aesthetic and functionality to like removable wallpaper.

And what I saw in the edible images market was kind

of a similar thing.

This was a product technology that was old people have been

doing this for like 40 or 50 years wasn't being done

very well.

And so I just started to ask going back to curiosity,

you know,

meeting with manufacturers,

okay, why does this product taste the way it is?

Could it have a different texture?

Could the images look brighter?

Do they have to be circles and squares?

Could we kiss,

cut them like stickers?

And that really led me to this place of understanding that

what I was seeing with edible images was more of a

limitation of imagination than technology.

And so how could we bring the aesthetic and playfulness of

stickers and the modern aesthetic that moms and parents love into

this baking world?

And that was really where the idea came from because I

knew how much my daughter loves stickers and I knew what

moms were doing for party planning and kind of I'll start

from there.

And so were you doing this while you were still working?

I did.

Things overlap there.

They definitely overlapped.

This was,

started the product development process in terms of prototyping.

But this was something that was kind of a slow burn

for me over a couple of years as I was working,

as I was being a parent,

as I was candidly trying to get pregnant again.

And so it really,

I had the luxury of having a day job that I

still enjoyed but kind of wanting and being curious about trying

to do something different.

I love that you're saying this because a lot of people

have heard the story of oh I quit my corporate job

and then I started this new thing and it miraculously,

you know,

was successful right out of the bat.

And people will follow that and see that it doesn't happen

and then they're discouraged and they turn the magnifying glass on

themself and say that it was something I didn't do.

And I think,

you know,

you and I can talk and I think we have the

same opinion,

I think that slower approach where you're not stressed out because

you still have income from a job.

Fortunately you loved,

I also didn't leave my corporate career cuz I didn't like

it. I left for different reasons.

So there is that overlap that's really valuable.

And let's face it,

sometimes people will stay in their corporate job and have a

business on the side as well.

But that ramping up that you did,

I really appreciate you giving some detail about that and that

you did it that way.

I think it's really important and the amount of research you

put in before you started,

And again that's my bias because that's my professional background,

but I think that we do see a lot of narratives

of people jumping into the deep end and swinging big and

that is sort of like a picture that is often painted

about entrepreneurship.

And the truth is it's often much slower and messier than

that. You know,

people are often working their day jobs before they start and

they're often kind of strapped for time or cash and yes

there comes a waterfall moment where you kind of have to

make this decision,

am I gonna be all in?

But it doesn't have to be from the start.

And you know,

related to that,

I think the other thing is that when people have an

idea about something that they're really excited about,

it can be really tempting to just like really invest a

lot quickly in that.

Especially if you think the idea is like novel and precious

people feel very protective of that idea and so they think,

I don't wanna share it with anybody or I wanna get

to market before anybody else does.

And I certainly understand that impulse but so much of,

I think success is really iterative and you don't always see

that from the outside.

But really taking the time to work through the problem,

sort of like one by one,

okay, can I make this,

will it work the way I think it is?

Okay let me try it.

Okay I learned something,

let me iterate again.

And that's a lot easier to do when it's not the

only thing you're doing and it's also a lot easier to

do when you just haven't gone all in with some big

$150,000 check on day one.

So I tried to use my sort of iterative approach training

I had from software to just kind of tackle one little

problem at a time.

You know,

could we make these,

okay, how do we market them?

Okay, we learned something of that.

Okay what?

How we marketed them changed,

we learned something about that that led us to reformulate again

cuz we realized that it wasn't just moms using them but

like you have edible stickers in the house,

your kids are gonna wanna get their hands on that.

So now we had to make them a little bit more

dextrous and resilient to being pulled off the sheet without compromising

the taste and texture.

And so that process,

if I had gone all in and been like,

I'm buying 40 designs and 50,000

units, I would've been hosted,

I would've been just out of business.

So, and it's hard,

but for me I had to try and be patient.

Yeah, I hear from a lot of the people that I'm

working with that they're so hesitant to tell anybody about a

new idea.

Like even in my Facebook group people,

someone will come in,

they'll join the group and they're like,

well I have an idea for a business but I'm not

telling anybody because it's so new,

it's so different,

et cetera,

et cetera.

Right? But if you don't tell people or get feedback,

you don't know the receptivity,

right? And if you wanna try and make something so you

have prototypes,

you've got to tell them because more than likely,

well possibly you're not the one making it.

So there's all these little variations.

How did you manage that?

And did you put in non-disclosure agreements at some point or

was any of that part of your research?

So I will say that like I have a little bit

of a different opinion about ideas and how precious they are.

Ideas are great and lots of people have lots of great

ideas, but ultimately it really does come down to execution.

You can share your idea with a lot of people.

The odds that those people are just gonna drop what they're

doing, take all their time,

take all their energy,

figure out how to solve all the problems that you're trying

to solve,

then figure out how to build a brand around it and

then in our case,

figure out how to build a whole new product category around

it. Like I was telling people all day long,

I'm trying to make edible stickers,

you know,

and that was three years ago and I still don't have

like a mass market competitor who has scooped us up.

And you know,

part of that is because we're applying for a patent and

that process and everything,

but execution is really expensive and time consuming.

And so when you hold your ideas precious,

you are not getting valuable feedback that you need to further

shape that idea so that it has broader appeal.

So going back to our edible stickers when we started,

I was just showing them to moms,

right? And so what moms were saying was,

oh this is so great I can make something super cute.

Like no Pinterest fail.

You know,

like that was the kind of of messaging.

So we went out with decorate in seconds,

no Pinterest fails,

like easy peasy lemon squeezy,

you know,

designs you love for themes that they like,

you know like all this stuff.

That was true.

But once we actually started getting them into people's hands,

we started hearing and seeing how the kids were playing with

them. And that was again part of the pandemic really slowing

down and having more time to talk to customers.

And I realized that this was gonna have a much bigger

platform as like an interactive product as like an arts and

craft kind of product because that means kids are gonna want

them, you're gonna have more kids doing them around the table,

they're not gonna be just for birthdays,

they're gonna be for fun time.

And getting that feedback not only changed our branding and marketing

position, but like I said,

it actually went back and we reformulated because we wanted them

to be a little bit easier to peel a little bit

thicker and then we saw kids started eating them off the

sheets, right?

Like we were getting videos of kids just eating 'em on

the sheets and they weren't designed for that.

They were designed to be on something else.

So now we're like okay,

we have to introduce some kind of flavor profile into this.

It can't just be sugar,

we need to layer in some vanilla.

So those are all things you get by having a willingness

to put your idea out into the world and see what

you're learning from the people who are actually going to use

it. Because it's oftentimes those very small tweaks that can be

the difference between something that feels kind of like interesting but

not a must have into something that people just are naturally

telling all their friends about that sort of inherent surprise and

delight. And so that's what I think the value in,

in sort of being out there with your ideas has in

helping you execute.

Yeah, I I'm so glad to hear that response from you.

You know,

it helps you tweak your product as you're saying.

And then also it gives you some wording that you may

never have considered before for your marketing and positioning and all

of that.

Okay. So clarify this for me cuz I'm a little unclear

at this point.

When the pandemic hit,

were you ready to go to market at that point or

were you still in research mode?

No, we were already in market.

You Were in market.

So did you retract then?

I'll tell you what we did.

So we launched again going back to my sort of slow

and steady moment.

So what we did was product development,

developing the product formulation,

all that kind of stuff.

And then we launched with just one design.

So I still at this point,

despite having shared it with a lot of people,

kind of felt like,

okay, am I crazy?

Is this like a cool thing or am I just like

drinking my own Kool-aid?

So we made one design for Valentine's Day,

I knew Valentine's Day was a big baking holiday.

And so I went to a bunch of retailers,

small shops,

you know,

independent retailers,

no minimum order,

just said Hey here's my pitch,

here's my product,

buy two of them for all I care.

Like I'd love to see if you'd be willing to try

this in your store.

And we had a handful of retailers who were like,

this is really cool,

yeah we'll give this a try.

And then we had a small like D to C audience

and we sold something like $6,000

worth of product in like the first two weeks.

No marketing budget,

no paid,

no nothing,

just like a few influencers,

a few shops and our D to C.

And the response was,

wow, we've never seen anything like this before.

We definitely wanna try this.

So based on that success,

I then placed the order for just six more SKUs,

right? So it's just six more designs.

And then my thought was,

okay, we're just gonna have a little capsule collection,

right? We're just gonna do the five most popular kids' birthday

themes and then an Easter one.

So we ordered those and then just as those were literally

like on the truck coming from our manufacturing partner to us,

like Covid was literally like shutting down while they were like

arriving at my doorstep Of course.

And so at that point we had already pre-sold more to

more retailers at that point I think it was maybe 20

or 30 retailers and you know,

they were calling and saying my store's being shut down the

world is,

you know,

if you haven't shipped can I cancel my order?

Basically. Yeah.

I mean nobody knew what the future held at that point,

right, Right,

right. Day one pandemic,

right? Yeah.

I'm like sure,

of course you cancel your order.

So now I'm sitting with something like,

I don't know,

I remember what it was probably like 9,000

units where the vegetable stickers in my office going like,

okay, well what am I gonna,

Is there expiration on those?

There is an expiration.

It does have a pretty long shelf life though,

so it's,

it's like sprinkles.

It's not short.

Okay. They're good for about two years after we,

So you have a little room.

So we Did have a little lot of wiggle room,

but you have to remember at this point I'd already been

invested in this for several years And you had good reaction

in the beginning.

So you were ready to go.

I was ready to put my foot on the gas.

Yeah. And the pandemic just like wiped all that out.

And so people would say to me,

oh everyone's at home baking.

You're gonna sell a million of these.

Well you know,

if I had had 20,000

followers on Instagram,

probably I would've.

But at that time everyone was on social media screaming about

we've pivoted by direct,

we do delivery.

And I just knew that I would exhaust myself trying to

focus on revenue at that point.

Plus wasn't your business model through the shops.

Yeah, you weren't looking at going direct to consumer anyway.

So that would've been a total switch.

That's what I'm saying.

It would've just been like a total shift in resources,

everything and doing it,

you know,

like I said with two young children at home and then

retailers even though they started opening up a little bit,

what I noticed for almost the first full year of the

pandemic, they weren't really looking for new vendors,

they were focused on risk aversion,

right? So they were sticking with the vendors they knew with

their best sellers really just trying to keep their heads down

and get through the pandemic.

So being a new vendor that first year of the of

the pandemic was very hard to break through.

We did have some new accounts that picked us up towards

the end of the year,

but then we ran into manufacturing issues like our manufacturer had

to close down because of Covid.

They were offline for quite a bit of time that created

a backlog,

their bigger customers got priority,

we were a small fish so we were at the back

of the line in terms of priority.

So there were also periods of time where like I just

didn't even have enough product to sell that first probably year,

year and a half.

And so that's when I just said to myself,

okay, and I was in the fortunate position of my husband

works, we could just keep going and not worry about keeping

our life going.

But at that point I said okay,

you know what I should be focused on now is just

more product market fit.

Again, that sort of like product training.

Let me see what else I can learn.

How are people using this?

How are they talking about them?

If I can't really focus on distribution,

let me get smarter about this so that when those doors

open I have a better CRISPR story,

I have more insights to share.

And that's really how I spent that time and that's how

I also learned that kids were playing with them more and

that led to formulation and branding and stuff.

probably almost the first like two years all the way up

we were very much in like beta test mode basically.

Right? We were like trying things and experimenting.

This is really interesting cuz you're the first person I've talked

to that has like kind of taken a step back and

refined things during that time versus making a shift and still

trying to push forward with sales online.

Yeah and you know,

again, very candidly I think that was a luxury I had.

You know,

I wasn't in a position where I had to worry about

if I wasn't generating revenue that like my family would not

make it through.

And because when I started makeba,

my goal was to see can we build something that has

a really big brand platform.

I really wasn't focused on short-term revenue,

I was really more focused on really learning strategically about what

the opportunity was that we could create.

And so all the things that I learned in that year

and a half have been paying off in spades over the

last 12 months.

We finally made it to wholesale trade shows.

Like we finally started going to shows this last summer,

Atlanta, Dallas,

New York.

Now when we showed up at those shows,

I'm convinced that we are way more buttoned up than I

ever would've been had I not actually been forced to slow

down. Our branding was spot on,

the messaging,

the product configuration,

the price point.

And I say that not to be braggadocious but because like

I was doing the work,

that's the work I was doing during that time and it's

really paid off.

I mean we added during just the summer show season in

three months we added like almost 120 retailers.

Wow. Those were also really good shows you selected too.

Perfect for you.

I bring this up Christina because it's a different way of

managing the business,

right? So someone who,

you know,

different product than yours perhaps,

but I just wanna introduce the idea to everybody that you

don't always have to be pushing sales.

You know,

there are a lot of other things you can do in

the background during slower seasons your lifestyle has changed and you

have people that you need to care for or someone gets

sick and you weren't anticipating or planning for it.

You don't always have to adjust and try and push sales

situationally dependent of course.

So I think this is a really rich commentary that we're

having in terms of what you did and how you saw

value out of taking a a pause back,

not decreasing what you were doing for work but how you

were doing it.

So alright,

continue on.

I didn't mean to stop you but I really,

it's something that I think a lot of people don't think

about that there could be a different Way.

No, I think that's a really good point and I wish

I could say like it was all a part of a

grand master plan in some ways I was figuring out as

I go and making decisions as I went.

But certainly as I look back now I realize that that's

a pattern of behavior that I've started to establish.

And when I started Make Bake,

I think like a lot of people I was like,

oh we're getting a great response.

Like we're gonna be profitable in two years.

You know,

I had like these very like naive candidly points of view

because I had really not built a CPG brand before and

of course that's muddied by the time of the pandemic.

But my thinking has totally shift just like as not just

as an entrepreneur but like as a parent and a partner

and a mother,

I realize now that what I'm trying to do is build

something that has longevity.

So like my timelines now look way different and the stress

that that has pulled off of me to be able to

be more strategic and to work at a pace that is

sustainable. Again,

having the resources to do so rather than just running towards

these outside metrics.

Like I said,

it's paying off because we have national retailers coming to us

now. Like the work that I've done has really set us

up that we're getting the calls from the big box stores

that are like,

hey we feel like we need to talk like this is

a product that we think should be on our shelves.

And I really believe that that is has a result of

just being able to have some patience and just kind of

work the problem one step at a time.

I think that a lot of people product development,

yes, since a lot of things are handmade by our group,

they're very controlled on their product development because they're doing it.

Eventually they'll employ a team to take over,

you know?

So it's a little bit different than when you're having somebody

else make your product.

Although we have a subset of our listeners who do the

same thing,

they stumble when it gets to introducing the product to market

and then going and certainly getting wholesale.

Can you speak maybe a couple of tips or things that

you've learned along the way that can help people with that?

I wanted to pause this discussion for a second to let

you know that I recognize you may be feeling overwhelmed right

now. I mean I bring on great guests who are specialists

in their fields and we get into fabulous conversations that you

know can help grow your business.

So after the show you have the full intention of grabbing

a download,

making an adjustment on your website or any number of other

ideas that arise as a result of this podcast.

But what happens,

you get back to your other activities and the momentum you

once had gets lost.

What you've planned to do is forgotten,

then you feel bad because your business is going on as

usual without implementing anything that you know would help grow your

business. We're just too busy doing all the things like a

robot moving from one thing to another without thinking because we

have to.

I get it,

I've been there.

But guess what?

There is another way.

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I'm sharing with you.

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Okay, let's get back to the show.

Yeah, certainly.

I think the first thing is,

which really applies to everyone,

is thinking about the person who buys your product and takes

it home is different than the wholesale buyer.

Sort of like the message that you need to communicate to

them. I is different.

They're looking at this product as does this fit in my

store? Is this something my customers want?

Do I understand how to sell this product?

Where does it go?

Those were things that I was learned very quickly we were

running into as a new product.

And again that was something I learned by being at shows

for all the email biz dev I did to get into

the stores we got into.

It wasn't until I got to shows that I started hearing

buyers say,

I really like this but tell me how do I sell

this? Like where does this go in my shop?

How do I merchandise it?

And I realized,

oh that's a gap.

We need to do that work.

We need to create that marketing material.

And so really thinking about the wholesale buyers,

they'll tell you they love the product,

it's cute the way it smells,

taste, you know,

whatever your thing is you're making.

But they still have that business hat on of trying to

figure out am I gonna make money selling this?

Can I saw this?

And thinking about how you communicate to them through that lens

of not just like,

oh I have this great product and here why,

here's what makes my product so great.

But it's like,

hey I have this product,

I think it's a great fit for customers that I believe

you might have because of X,

Y, and Z that merchandises really well over here.

Or just really kind of understanding how you're gonna sell your

product is very different and that's a really good thing to

spend time on to kind of understand.

Would you say that taking away the work from them and

providing it to them will get you closer to having them

place your product in their store?

So like you're saying there you would suggest to display it,

you know the wording.

Do you also provide signage and all that for them?

We do right now provide an option for a display.

It's not a customized display with our branding,

but it's one that we found that just like fits the

product really well.

So we say like here's how we display it and then

we either offer it at cost or sometimes we have show

specials where if like you buy so much we'll give you

the display for free.

So I think just the visual examples for example,

you know when we talk to party stores we say we

are a great item to include in your various themed,

you know,

assortment. So party stores tend to merchandise their product,

like all the unicorn stuff,

all the dinosaur stuff.

But then when you're talking to like a gourmet foods,

you talk about like really popular first seasonal baking assortments,

you know?

And so we just try and buyers will decide for themselves,

you don't wanna be too pushy but like you wanna just

kind of peak their interests about like where you could fit

in. Especially if you have something that is more unique like

our product where people haven't really seen it before.

The other thing that was something I really learned that was

interesting was that I started to notice that retailers often carry

many brands of the same type of products.

So like a store that sells a lot of candles,

they have lots of different candles,

brands, right?

And so they're looking to kind of cover like the different

aesthetics, you know visually like the different styles people have in

their home,

the different kind of smell profiles.

And one of the things that we ran into is people

just being like,

I don't know if this would sell.

Like I have no comparables basically.

And that's really more the case for unique products.

But that was another business hurdle that I had to kind

of unpack and figure out how to explain why we would

sell. Like if you're selling Mary Mary products that make cupcake

kits and paper plates,

even though you've never sold a food product,

that's our buyer,

right? She's purchasing for a party like she's already trying to

solve this problem and here's an opportunity for you to capture

some of that revenue instead of it all going to the

bakery for example.

Interesting. Yeah,

not something that I would've thought of before.

What about suggestions about doing like in-store workshops where they're using

your product or in-store sampling or anything?

Does that apply here?

That's very common in the food business actually.

So like you see a lot in grocery stores and gourmet

grocery, again because we've overlapped so much with the pandemic,

we haven't been able to use that as like a resource.

But let's say fast forward there was no pandemic.

One of the things that we would've done early on would

be to sponsor like kids' cookie events or different kinds of

experiences in some of the stores that we really wanted to

be in.

Another thing that I did early on was I looked at

like the specialty stores I was trying to get into and

really focused on the ones that I thought thought not only

would be a great fit for us,

but that would have some,

for lack of a better term,

a halo effect,

right? So specialty retailers watch what other specialty retailers buy and

big box stores watch what they consider to be trend forward,

specialty shops buy.

And so I spent probably a lot of time on some

accounts that really aren't necessarily driving huge revenue but they're like

important places for us to be,

right? They lead to other people saying like,

oh if so-and-so's carrying them,

we definitely need to look at this as well.

And so thinking about when you go into wholesale,

not just looking at it as like an a revenue stream

just in a dollar perspective,

but having the lens of what is your goal with wholesale,

especially for handmade,

the unit economics are very different with the margins and the

cost of labor.

So kind of just understanding,

okay, where do I want to be that's really gonna be

the best place for my product?

And really showcase to other retailers that we're successful.

You kind of driving the show being very proactive to your

point about picking the specialty retailers that you want to approach

versus who will carry us just a general overall umbrella of

who will carry us.

You're like we're targeting in on these specifically.

Which also to your point earlier about aligning your messaging to

what those individual unique specialty retailers need,

what they're looking for.

So very thought out in your approach,

not just going in and saying the same thing to everybody.

I think that's key.

Yeah, it helps.

I mean we are in like this very kind of surprisingly

different array of retailers.

Like we are in like museum gift shops and like gourmet

grocery and kitchenware stores and kids party stores and lots of

pharmacies actually.

That's surprising.

Yeah, Well because it turns out that pharmacies are a place

that people do a lot of last minute gifting,

especially seasonally.

So we get a lot of seasonal orders from family run

pharmacies, like independent pharmacies.

We're like in an aquarium,

we're in the like Carnegie Mellon Hall,

I forget the exact name,

but the Carnegie Museum gift shop in the kids section.

And so they're all very different.

But what they have in common,

if I look at all the different categories,

the types of stores,

they're all really curated high quality products.

Well merchandise laid out,

they can support our price point and those are things you

have to think about as well.

We get retailers who reach out to us and say,

I'd love to carry your product but it's too expensive.

And we say,

okay well it costs what it costs,

sorry it's not for your demographic of buyer.

But retailers say yes for some reasons and they say no

for other reasons that have nothing to do with the product.

It's just could be not a fit.

Well I hear your list of types of specialty locations,

I'm gonna call them cuz they're not all stores either.

So stretching your mind to what is a fit for your

product. You don't have to limit yourself to local boutiques,

like who would've thought a pharmacy.

Yeah, There's a lot of opportunities over and above what we

may think.

So did you have like a brainstorming committee or is this

something you knew from before?

How did you get this,

this broad,

very creative list of potential placements?

Well I can't say that it was all coming from me.

Part of it was going to like that first trade show

and getting like a quick velocity of different stores and then

starting to see the patterns that emerged and then sort of

like leveraging those patterns into focusing more bd.

In the early days I was really focused on what I

thought were like very trend forward party and gift shops with

like big social media followings cuz there's that sort of,

again, that halo of getting out there.

And for me,

grocery, those were the two categories that I felt like we

were a natural fit for in the specialty market.

And then everything else we just learned by just seeing like

who started approaching us and who started reordering and then sort

of like doubling down on that in our conversations and learning

very quickly about how to quickly iterate your story so that

when that next person comes up you're like,

oh, you know,

we actually are in a handful of pharmacies and here's where

we do well there and why So it keeps you on

your toes.

Yeah, you know what?

But what you're saying is you keep learning,

you're out there,

you're listening,

you're observing,

and then you apply what you've learned and then you get

keep getting better and better in how you're responding to people

and consequently how they then work the product into their stores

and are promoting the product and for both of your benefits

obviously. Yeah.

You Were referencing in the beginning as we were talking that

it's not always easy.

There are challenges that come up,

you hear about these overnight successes and they really aren't,

you know,

you just end up hearing about them recently,

but they've been 10 years in development or whatever.

Take us to a time when you were having some challenges.

Well I can actually,

I have a very recent challenge I can share.

Okay. So you know,

as I mentioned,

we have had just extraordinary good fortune and sort of paying

off on the hard work of having lots of larger retailers

that are now starting to approach us.

And it's been really hard because it's not just like,

oh, we might be interested,

we've actually turned away like purchase orders,

opportunities to be in stores because we have a manufacturing situation

that can't scale with us.

So there came like this sort of watershed moment where I

realized, oh,

I'm not gonna be able to grow this business unless we

start making these ourselves.

And that was kind of a scary moment because that was

not where I started when I started this.

I didn't want to be in the manufacturing business.

I'm a product brand marketing person,

not a facilities operational person.

And I also knew that doing that would be a huge

capital investment.

And well beyond the scope of like what we as a

family would be prepared to take on our product requires highly

specialized equipment.

It's very expensive.

There's a lot of hoops you have to jump through to

have food manufacturing that's like FDA approved and certified for allergies

and kosher.

It's, it's not just like something we can GarageBand for lack

of a better reference.

And so there was a moment where not that long ago

where I was was like,

oh, we might be done because we're looking at like a

huge, huge hurdle.

And because I have this background in this industry,

I started talking to friends and they just started looking at

me and saying like,

why aren't you going out to raise money?

Like you have all this data that shows like that you

have this trajectory.

And I kept saying like,

well cause you know,

like our sales aren't there yet.

Like I just feel like you know,

they're gonna wanna fund a business that's already doing this much.

And they're like,

no, like you have the business case.

And so I had to make this kind of big step

back and say,

okay, are we gonna do this?

My vision for my life and make Bake was a slow,

gradual building of a business brick by brick growing specialty and

maybe someday ending up someplace that was bigger.

But now I kind of have to like jump off a

cliff and go out there and raise money and figure out,

okay, is this the thing I'm gonna spend the next 10

years building and where can I find 20,000

square feet in a one hour radius to build a food

manufacturing facility?

So that is like a choice that I had to make.

It sounds like all like up and up and potential successes,

but like that's not where I started with this.

That's not what I had originally wanted.

And so now I'm finding I had to do some soul

Searchie and realize,

am I gonna keep doing this thing that I'm excited about

and take it to the next level?

And I just realized that when the meetings keep coming and

people keep saying,

oh let's talk to this buyer.

Oh, let's talk to that buyer.

I'm like,

okay, I have to give this a go.

So that's kind of like the next phase is we're gonna

we're working on a program to go raise money to be

able to manufacture these ourselves.

That is so exciting.

I'm sure a little bit scary.

And I would imagine you've already thought all this through,

that your position will change where you focus your time and

everything is going to totally change.

My position will change,

my accountability will change.

That's a big thing.

I think sometimes people when they see on the outside and

they hear stories of like businesses getting funded or even acquired

that it sounds like this big,

you just see for lack of better term dollar signs,

but you are accountable.

You know,

when someone writes you a check,

they expect you to deliver.

And so that changes the priorities in your life,

the pace of your life,

who you are accountable to on what timeline you're accountable for.

And so it was a really kind of like,

I took like a solid month to kind of decide am

I, am I gonna do this?

Is this the next step for us,

or am I gonna just go in a different direction and

keep it something more boutique?

Time will tell if it's gonna work out and if that's

the direction we're gonna go.

But it's a uncomfortable stretch,

you Know?

Yeah. But exciting for its potential as well.

No, a hundred percent.

And you could have gone either way,

like honestly,

you could have just said you were gonna stay boutique,

you know,

and just smaller really calculated placements for some time.

But riding the wave right now,

especially because there is excitement about it.

Yeah. Seems like a pretty smart move if you ask me.

So we're gonna be keeping our eyes on you now,

Christina. We'll see.

But I'm actually actually very excited about it.

I'm familiar with the process because of my corporate career and

professional career,

but like we said sort of earlier in the conversation,

it's so different when it's your personal experience and yeah,

I know for a lot of people who make their own

handmade products,

kind of this journey might be different than the one that

they're on,

but so many of the same problem spaces apply at each

step. You have a little bit of success and then you

try and enjoy that success,

but then that success opens up like new challenges or new

problems. And so you're on this constant cycle of like going

up and then feeling like,

okay, now I'm kind of like starting over again.

And you see kind of a lot that phrase like,

remember that you once wish to be where you are,

you know?

And I think we forget that,

that it's okay to feel highs and lows because getting to

that next place is really exciting.

But then when you're like,

okay, I can't make any more of these myself,

I now need to hire people.

How do I find them?

How do I train them?

How do I have confidence that what they're putting out is

to my standards?

And those are all growth pains that is this a constant

cycle of like growing,

succeeding, being in more pain,

growing some more,

And celebrating along the way,

right? Like recognizing and acknowledging that you're making advancement,

which helps a little bit when you get to those uncomfortable

stages again.

But just seeing that it's learning something new,

it's achieving something,

it's identifying the next step and then it just cycles up,

like you said.

So, alright.

You do not sell direct to consumer,

right? We do actually.

We sell on our website direct to consumer,

and we do get sales on our website,

but it's not been a business strategy up until now.

It's not something that I've invested time and energy in because

I was trying to build my wholesale business first and also

coming from that world,

like I kind of know what's involved in building a D

two C business and how expensive it is and time consuming,

but it is something that we are gonna be exploring more

Our assortment has grown.

So one of the reasons I didn't focus on it initially

was I just didn't have enough product.

We are shipping stuff to people.

You wanna ship like 40,

50, 60,

70 $5 worth of product.

You don't wanna be shipping $10 for the product.

And so in the beginning,

I just didn't have enough product to make it worth the

whole funnel of acquiring,

fulfilling and all of that.

Now that that's changed and our average order value is up,

now we're gonna start doing some things to focus on the

D to C side of the business,

which for me is also fun because I've sea legs there

a little bit more,

right? Like I've never manufactured a product before,

but like e-commerce,

email marketing,

that kind of stuff,

like that's more in my wheelhouse.

Well, and that's your link then to the end consumer and

getting all that goodness about how people are using it for

future product development or wherever it takes you there.

But for our listeners here,

if they were interested in the make bake products to look

at them and passively purchase,

where would you direct them to go?

I would direct them to our website.

You can find an entire collection at Let's make bake.com.

And if you follow us on social,

on Instagram at Let's Make Bake,

you can see all the fun stuff that our customers are

making reshare tons of of content,

and you can see these things out in the wild and

how people are actually having fun with their families.

Oh, very fun.

So we can also get the product,

take pictures,

make sure to tag you so you see them and you

never know,

you might get your own pictures on the website as well,

or socials,

et cetera.

So any final comments?

Christina, for someone who's just starting out,

you've come far in your journey in really just a really

short amount of time,

but anything that you could say for someone who's sitting where

or the year before maybe?

I would say the one thing that I always try and

keep in mind for myself is that it's good to look

around you and see what other people are doing.

It serves as research and as inspiration,

but it's also really important not to compare yourself to people

who are in a very different place in their business journey

than you are that can end up feeling really defeating.

So there are people that I look up to as entrepreneurs

who are a hundred paces of front of me.

And if I thought to myself,

oh, why am I not doing what they're doing?

I, I'd feel sad all day long.

Yeah. And so finding that balance between drawing inspiration from other

businesses and other people,

but remembering like your journey is unique to you,

your set of circumstances,

your goals,

your resources.

And so don't compare yourself to where other people are in

their journey.

As long as you're doing what's working for you,

like that's the most important thing.

You don't wanna do a ton of social,

don't do a ton of social that's working for you to

do in-person shows.

Keep doing the in-person shows.

You don't have to do what other people are doing.

Success comes in like many,

many forms and comparison is the thief of joy.

So Comparison is the thief of joy.

You are so,

so, right.

Absolutely. Christina,

thank you so much.

This has been such a valuable and interesting conversation.

I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

Thank you so much for letting me share my story and

connect with you.

I've really enjoyed being here.

Such an inspiring product development story,

isn't it?

If you're at the point where you're trying to figure out

what your small business product will be,

pay attention throughout your day and see if you can identify

a need like Christina did.

But caution ideas are great,

but action is what matters.

Christina is a perfect example of moving the idea forward through

action. And you've just heard how this can happen step by

step. Before you move on to your next activity today,

make sure to get your name on the list for at

least one gift Biz Bash.

You can see dates for the upcoming sessions and get signed

up over@giftbizunwrap.com

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support, a rating and review is always fabulous because it helps

get the show seen by more makers.

It's a great way to pay it forward.

And there's another way where you can get something tangible in

return for your support too.

Visit my merch shop for a wide variety of inspirational items

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And now be safe and well and I'll see you again

next time on the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.

I wanna make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook group

called Gift Biz Breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

I got a really fun post in there that's my favorite

of the week,

I have to say,

where I invite all of you to share what you're doing

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people.

And just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making.

My favorite post every single week.

Without doubt.

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