The Great British Baking Scratch-Off Poster

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

[Music]

This is episode 1333 of Side Hustle School, 1333, one of those fun little numbers, I guess in 100 days or so, 109 days, is that right? 100 and something days we're gonna have at 1444. And today, I'm especially excited to bring you this episode. Have you seen, by the way, the Great British Bake Off? Have you seen that TV show?

It is a ridiculously binge-inducing show in which nothing ever really changes yet. As I implied with the description, you just wanna keep watching it. I have probably seen three or four seasons of this show, maybe 10 episodes per season. And every time I watched it, I'm like, "Why am I watching this?" But yet I wanna see what happens next, okay? So the show now has, I think it's something like 10 seasons in total from the original, as well as a number of spinoffs, including an extra slice, Junior Bake Off, a celebrity charity edition, and various localized versions.

This show has probably made some people very well off through the process of baking cakes and lots of other pastries, some of which most Americans have never heard of, or at least you're like, "What is that thing? "It's this interesting little British thing, "and all these people are gonna bake it, "and we're gonna see who does it best." All right, well, if you haven't seen that show, go check it out. Now, I don't know if this is a reflection of the times that we're in or something else, but a lot of people are interested in improving their baking skills. So in this story, two British military officers take their baking talents to the masses by selling scratch-off posters featuring 100 classic pastries. Or in the lexicon, we could say 100 classic bakes.

So interesting story, lots of stuff here. On your mark, get set. Well, just, you know, hold on, because message from our sponsor, and then that story's coming out. Stay tuned. [Music]

When British military officer Collette Priest started baking, she did it as a hobby.

It offered her a break from her physically and mentally demanding job. In fact, she says it was just the kind of therapy that she needed. She and her partner James, who was also in the military, would bake pastries and cookies, exploring fun shapes and unique flavors. Then one day, Collette stumbled upon a cookie cutter design that caught her eye, a 3D dinosaur model set. She thought it would be fun to test out with James' family.

Together, they baked the cookies, assembled them, and added icing and sprinkles for the finishing touches. The experience was so positive that Collette decided to look around to see if there were more 3D cutters on the market. When she found out that there weren't, she thought this might be an opportunity to design her own. James, an engineer by training, volunteered the two 3D printers he owned to turn the designs into reality. They got to work on the specs, drawing shapes out to scale on paper, and then creating life-sized mockups of the designs.

Over the next few months, they made progress. Collette had created a portfolio of beautiful cookie designs. But just as they were about to fully launch, COVID-19 hit and changed their plans entirely. Why does that always come up? Man, I'm just getting so tired of COVID-19 hit.

I know you're probably fatigued about it too, but this is kind of the world that we're in now. So one of the biggest concerns in the UK at that time was the lack of personal protective equipment. Also known, you probably know this too, as PPE. In response to that problem, an online 3D printing community sprang up, asking for those who had 3D printers at home to produce face shields. Collette and James knew that this was far more important than their business and joined in to help.

Although their 3D cookie cutter plans were put on hold, Collette quickly discovered a new opportunity to keep her side hustle dreams alive. While people were staying at home due to lockdown, a lot of them began to try their hand at baking. Collette wanted to inspire some of these cooped-up homeowners and apartment dwellers to expand the types of tasty treats they could create. Enlisting the help of a friend who had graphic design skills, she created the 100 Bakes Scratch Off poster. The poster lists 100 classic bakes to try from hot cross buns to focaccia to treacle tart.

That is a particularly delicious British specialty in case you're wondering, treacle tart. Once you make an item, you scratch off a square to reveal a picture, and the goal is to bake all 100. It's a quest, I love quests. Collette and James weren't sure whether the idea would take off, but there was no way to know without trying. They moved quickly with each of them handling their share of duties.

James built a WordPress website as well as installing other essential services such as Square to collect payments and an email service provider. In the meantime, Collette worked on the marketing and designed a roadmap for their launch. They had 1,000 of these posters printed for their first batch, and they were determined to sell out. This meant building up a social media presence, especially as they intended to get people to share the results of taking on what they called the 100 Bakes Challenge. Collette announced a launch date to build anticipation, adding photos to display the uniqueness of their poster.

She also conducted giveaways and offered discount codes to people who had subscribed to the email list. On that launch day, they sold 60 posters. Encouraged by their success, they also created a bite-sized version of the 100 Bakes Scratch Off poster, and this challenge was more suitable for children. This too was well received, selling 40 as soon as they released them. Collette attributes this success to the work she's put in on social media, engaging with other bakers, sharing baking techniques, as well as creating social proof.

Their website and design work ended up setting them back about $600, with the posters themselves costing $1,500 to print. However, they've had great success with marketing, and Collette's quick thinking and hard work has brought in about $1,000 a month since May, with 200 of the original posters sold and counting. As military officers, they are no strangers to uncertainty. They know they'll need to continue to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. One challenge they're facing is the overseas assignment that Collette will have to undertake in the upcoming months.

To ensure that James can keep up, the two of them have since taken their business onto the Fulfilled by Amazon platform, solving any delivery problems that might arise when they're short-handed. Pivoting from one product to another, and now to another means of distribution, Collette and James have shown that when you're building a side hustle, there isn't a single cookie cutter approach. [Music]

Awesome project, big congratulations, Collette and James. I know this is the ultimate bucket list for bakers, as mentioned, I love a good quest. On their website, they have this copy that says, calling bakers of all levels, whether you're experienced or just starting out, bake your way through all 100 classic cakes, biscuits, pastries, breads and confectionery, scratching off the panels with each completed bake to reveal beautiful hand-drawn illustrations.

Very cool, you can see the whole poster and order yours if you'd like at crumbsbycollette.co.uk. So that's crumbsbycollette, C-O-L-L-E-T-E.co.uk. I'm gonna link it up on the show notes page of course as well. Just a quick suggestion, maybe if it's possible, get the .com as well. If you've got a .co.uk or a .ca domain or something for Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else, if it's possible to also get the .com, I think that's always good.

You can just have it redirect to your original website. Now here's a fun fact, millions of people have started baking as a form of stress relief during COVID-19, which we all know, but I was interested in the data. So we found some information saying that sugar and flour sales have gone up by 130% and 221% respectively. So people are buying 221% more flour all because, well presumably because people are at home more. So they're always winners and losers whenever these things happen.

I think it's important to pay attention to trends and what people are doing, what is accessible, what is not accessible. And you kind of make your decisions from there. So as I said, love this project. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. How are you taking action, what are you working on?

Today's show notes, including links to that aforementioned website, are at sidehustleschool.com/1333. Pretty easy to remember, 1333. Thank you so much for being out there. You are amazing, be sure you're subscribed. As much more is coming up.

My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.