Mortgage “Baker” Whisks Up Profitable Storefront

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

I often talk about celebrating your small victories. I think it's really important to celebrate and recognize an accomplishment and achievement, even if those things don't seem like a huge deal. Typically what I mean by those small victories are things like your first sale, or your first signed client, or achieving some other significant milestone. But today's story reminded me that when you're starting a new project, especially if this is your first side hustle, or otherwise it's somehow significantly different, it's bigger, it's more daunting than something you've done before, there are actually lots of small wins that happen along the way before you even get to those sales or those signed clients. So when you set up a website for the first time, you've never done it before, that's a victory.

When you add a button or a payment option or a plugin to your site, and it actually works. Again, a small victory. In the story I'll tell you about today, the person had to get a food license. So that takes some time, it takes some process, and receiving that license, when she ultimately got it, that was a victory, but she mentioned to us it wasn't just the final outcome, the phone call to the county, where she had to learn how it worked and what she needed to do, that was a victory. When she actually went and paid the fee, that was a small victory.

So I like this perspective because there are all kinds of steps along the journey, and you might as well congratulate yourself whenever you cross over any of them. And then of course, you don't stop there, you keep going. You keep going on to small victories, and hopefully to even bigger ones. All right, this story is about a mortgage specialist who whisks up a profitable bakery, mixing her love for cookies and other treats into a hobby, then a small operation based out of a church kitchen, and finally to a retail storefront in upstate New York. Lots of small victories along the way, and I want to encourage and challenge you to think of yours as well.

So we'll come back to that at the end. Here's a message on behalf of our sponsor. I appreciate them allowing us to bring this show to you completely free. And then I'll tell you about this mortgage baker. [Music]

We've all heard of mortgage brokers, but have you ever heard of a mortgage baker?

You know, the ones who spend their days supporting people and buying homes, and then fill those homes with warm baskets of cookies. Well, for Amanda Bernertini in Buffalo, New York, that's not too far off from the reality. Amanda, or Mundi, as her family and friends call her, spent much of her childhood in the kitchen. She would watch her grandma and mom create the perfect baked goods, from Italian wedding cake to rich, buttery sugar cookies. Mm, getting hungry already.

As their little sous chef, she learned and developed a love for the art of baking. Fast forward to present time, and you'll still find Amanda in the kitchen baking. As a mortgage specialist by day, she uses her analytical mind in a focused setting. Baking serves as a more creative outlet. For years, she would show up at parties with a plate full of those perfectly made sugar cookies.

Friends would rave about how yummy and artfully designed those cookies were, and she began to receive requests for birthday parties and other special occasions. She soon discovered she could make money from custom orders. At first, she just received those orders from friends and word of mouth referrals, but when Amanda's orders and popularity began to grow, she knew it was time to take it to the next level. She partnered with a local church who offered up their commercial kitchen for her to use. Now that she had a space, her custom orders continued to melt in.

She would receive baby shower and birthday party requests, and even a batch of let's get naked Valentine's Day cookies. She soon found herself whisking in about $400 a week. While it was profitable and fun, she was working way too much and knew something had to sift. She had a bigger vision for what she called Monday cakes and wanted to open her own bakery. So she switched to a part-time role at her mortgage company and used the rest of her time to find a space to rent.

After some searching, Amanda found a great spot where there would be lots of foot traffic, especially in the summer. But the space needed some renovation and equipment. Her $400 a week in profit wasn't enough to rent that space and cover other startup costs. So she decided to take out a small business loan of $25,000 to help with her vision. In November, 2018, the storefront doors of Monday cakes opened.

Seeing her vision come to life was exciting. She had no idea when she started filling those custom orders for family and friends, but it would lead to her actually owning a real storefront business. Like many new ventures, it hasn't been completely smooth. It was a big decision to take out that loan. There were challenges with renovating that space and then making sure enough business was coming in to hire part-time employees to run it, but she did it.

She figured it out. Monday cakes has now been in business for just a few months and Amanda has already made back half of that business loan. She has what she calls two and a half employees working for her. One of those employees happens to be her mom. They support her in the business while she's working the day job and mortgage services.

She has no plans to leave that job and is happy for Monday cakes to remain a side hustle. Just a few months in, it sounds like there's a lot more to come. She's looking to add ice cream to her shop in warmer months, collaborate with local event planners for larger events, and most importantly, another side hustle, prepare for the birth of her first child. It's been a year of big change and she's glad she followed her dream. [Music]

All right, congratulations to Amanda and Monday cakes.

If you are in the Buffalo, New York area where you happen to be visiting, maybe going to Niagara Falls, go and check it out. And on that topic of small victories, I was trying to think like, what are my small victories today? And the first few things I thought of were tasks like, okay, I prepared this episode. You know, soon I will have completed this episode. I finished an outline for something else I'm doing.

I prepared for a conference call, et cetera. And then I thought, well, I'm going to have to do a conference call. And then I thought, well, I mean, these are all things I have to do. You know, they're all things I've signed up for. It's part of my work, but do they really count as those small victories because this is my normal workflow.

And I thought, well, who's to say what your small victories are? I mean, you can decide for yourself. You know, of course, nobody's doing that for you. But I do think there's something to be said with the idea that these small victories are like when you're working towards something that is new or different or challenging for you. So all the things I just mentioned, even though they're important for me to do them, they're not necessarily challenging but not necessarily like bringing me closer to something.

You know, when I'm actually like working on my business, not just working in the business. A small victory is when I actually think about, you know, business development and take a step back or I do some more development of our team. Or I think, you know, what's the next thing we need to do for our community inside of a social society? Maybe those are the kinds of things that fit better in that category because I tend to naturally not do those things all the time. I tend to naturally just like have my head down and do what's in front of me.

And in some ways that's good. But in other ways, I want to make sure that I continue to grow and challenge myself, just like I'm encouraging you to do. So I'm gonna think more about that as I go forward. So what are your small victories? What are you working toward?

How are you taking steps to get closer to a dream, a goal, a vision that's important to you? I'll leave you with that for the day. The show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/783. Thank you so much for listening. Go out and do something for yourself.

I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

- From the Onward Project.