This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to a brand new week of Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. I am so excited to bring you a whole bunch of stories all about just awesome regular people out there. People who are just like you don't necessarily have the gold from the time they were born to be an entrepreneur. They got regular jobs, they got families, they got responsibilities, whatever it is.
But they also believe in looking out for themselves. They also have a desire to build something for themselves, to pursue a creative project, to do something that matters to them and ensure a foundation of security and stability, even if they always love their job, never wanna quit their job. All right, that's what it's all about here on the show. And also a reminder that there are lots of reasons to start a Cytosil. Also, your reasons can evolve as you go along.
In fact, for a lot of people, they almost certainly will evolve, especially if you're beginning from necessity, which we'll talk about a bit today. Today's story features a pastry chef who starts by making wedding cakes on the side and grows her hustle into a full-time business selling $100,000 worth of custom cakes each year. And she's also got another cake in the oven planning to open a second bakery. But it all began from this simple reason. And here's what she said.
And I quote, "I started working on the side out of necessity. "Working a nine to five doesn't always pay the bills "and making a few cakes on the side "helped me have a little more cushion "in my mattress at night." We have all kinds of people listening to the show. If you're out there starting from necessity, from that position of, "Well, I really need to do something soon." I totally understand that. I hear you. That's why we're here bringing you these different stories, hopefully to inspire you and gently nudge you into doing something for yourself.
So if you need some cushion in your mattress, just like today's story did a few years back, well, stay tuned. That story is coming up. Show me the sugar. [Music]
Ella Stone is a pastry chef in Charlotte, North Carolina. In her words, "She's in the habit of turning sugar into cash." I like that.
Long ago, she started designing and baking cakes with no intentions of turning it into a business. But after nearly 10 years of side baking and eventually full-time baking, she's now operating a commercial bakery. In fact, since this journey began, she's made over 700 wedding cakes, was featured in Cake Masters Magazine. Side note, gotta subscribe. Had a Game of Thrones cake go viral when it was featured on Buzzfeed and sells nearly $100,000 worth of wedding and custom cakes each year.
But of course, it wasn't always that way. So how did she do it? Let's take the top layer of icing off the cake. Ella said it happened slowly and began from necessity. She and her family needed extra income and she was good at baking.
This led to her starting celestial cakes and catering back in 2010. It wasn't long until she was putting 40 hours into her full-time job as a pastry chef and then another 40 hours at celestial cakes and catering. When her son was born, she had to scale back so she decided to quit her nine to five and go all in with her hustle, changing the name to Celestial Cakeery. Over the years, she's experimented with lots of ways to attract customers. She's paid for Instagram and Facebook ads, influencer ads, magazine ads, and even putting out local flyers.
You name it, she's probably tried it. However, what's worked the best for Celestial Cakeery has been her customer reviews. If you have a local business, pay attention. Ella has nearly 105 star reviews on Google, which is by far the highest in her city. Her website is now at the top of Google organic search results for wedding cakes in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is precisely the phrase you're gonna type in if you're looking for a wedding cake in the area.
Free traffic is better than paid traffic. Initial startup costs were nearly nothing because she started out of her home. She used her own oven, fridge, and handheld mixer, items she already had on hand. As her business grew, she began to invest. She swapped out her home oven for a commercial oven and bought more refrigerators, tables, and mixers.
Ella said this slow growth approach helped her avoid going broke since she only bought what she could afford to pay and what she needed at the moment. Great philosophy, love it. The first three years, she worked out of her 75 square foot townhouse kitchen. Later, after going full time with Celestial Cakeery, she moved into a larger home and worked out of a 225 square foot kitchen. However, it wasn't long until she outgrew that space too.
She was storing extra refrigerators and wire shelving full of supplies in her son's bedroom. And it even stopped making dinner at home because there wasn't enough room. Not only that, cakes were everywhere, which I'm not sure why that last part is a problem, but I suppose over time, too many cakes. She and her husband finally had to remodel and add on a roomier 800 square foot kitchen area. We're just going from small to medium to big here, but again, only as business grew.
Now let's talk about pricing. How did the business grow? Well, Ella's cake prices run anywhere from $60 per single tier cakes to over $1,300 for five tier cakes, along with a $20 per hour design fee for more complex orders. In the beginning, Ella was making wedding cakes at $2 a serving, which was actually kind of underpricing the local market in her attempt to kind of stand out and get ahead. However, after 10 awards, a few magazines, and all those five star reviews, she slowly increased that price to upwards of $6 per serving.
Celestial Cakeery now sells at least $100,000 worth of wedding and custom cakes per year. If all goes as planned, the estimated sales for her new brick and mortar bakery, Swirl, should double that. What began as short-term necessity has turned into long-term security. The cakeery is a sweet, sustainable business. Well, like I said, we've got all kinds of people out there listening to the program now, people all over the world, really.
I get emails from people in lots of different situations, including lots of folks who've been doing this a while, people who are very well off because of the side hustles or businesses that they built, other people who have good jobs, but are just trying to kind of think ahead, which I think is very wise. But we also have lots of people who are in that position that Ella was long ago, starting from necessity. So if that's you, first of all, know that you're not alone. Try to think about this perspective different times when I'm making the program. How is this episode going to help somebody who's just getting started?
My encouragement to you is, just like you can see through this example, like don't take it from me, take it from Ella, take it from Alison last week, Dennis last week, Jennifer, all the different people that we feature every single day. Start where you are. Start right where you are with the skills that you already have. Serve your customers well. Like treat your customers, treat your first customer, your second customer, every customer, like they're the most important person in the world because from the perspective of your business, they are.
Invest in your business only as it grows. Like the time to invest in your business is like once it starts to be successful and you can always invest in yourself beforehand. There's lots of ways to invest in yourself without spending money or without spending very much money at least. And then over time, what you're trying to do with all of this is to build an asset. You build that asset so that you have options and choice, possibility, opportunity, these values of Cytosol School.
And ultimately that's what it's about for me when I think about, you know, why do we make the show? It's because we wanna see more people like Ella out in the world. So whatever your situation is, I do hope you'll do one thing today to get closer to a goal that you believe in. Even if you don't see the entire plan, I mean, if you don't have all the steps, just take one step, okay? Then take another one.
That's ultimately how it works for all of us. So inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. A big thanks to Ella for letting us feature her today. We're gonna link up her bakery and anything else I mentioned on the show notes page. That page is at sidehustleschool.com/835.
Episode 835. Here we are in the middle of April, at least for those listening in real time. If you're listening later, well, it was a good April. We've got much more on the way. Thanks so much.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
