Proud Mainer Brings Whoopie Pies to the World

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After her kids go off to college, this former stay-at-home mom begins baking whoopie pies in bulk. She now makes them by the tens of thousands, selling more than $25,000 in creamy inventory each month. Welcome, friends, welcome, community. This is Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau.

Today's story, Proud Manor, brings whoopie pies to the world. So here at Side Hustle School, we're all about bringing you case studies, stories, actionable ideas, things you can do or things you can model your business idea on, even if you've never thought about starting a business before. I believe everybody has something they can do, something you can do to earn extra money, to create a income-generating project of your own using your existing skills, which is exactly what this person, today's featured case study did. So we're gonna go to the great state of Maine. I've been to Maine for book events a couple of times, and it both stops.

I had readers bring some whoopie pies to my events. I don't think I'd ever had one before. I had a lot of my book events. Readers bring cupcakes, which are pretty fun and cool, but in Maine, they're like, we're gonna do something local. I'm not sure if they brought this particular type of whoopie pie, perhaps in the future it will happen.

But the point is, I'm not the only person who appreciates these treats. This manor, as noted, now makes them by the tens of thousands. Her business has really, really grown. It's distributed throughout the state, throughout the region, in fact. So I'll tell you more about that in this story.

You're gonna hear how she got the idea, how she made it happen, and what you might learn from this story. It's all coming up after this quick shout-out to our sponsor. [Music]

For many years, Marcia Wiggins was a stay-at-home mom with two young kids and a pilot for a husband. In the little spare time she had, she taught aerobics at the local gym. But as life progressed, things changed for Marcia.

Both her kids had grown up, moved away to college, her husband was off and away, and there's only so many gym classes you can teach. She had a lot more time on her hands. This newfound free time stirred something in Marcia and she was inspired to pick up an old hobby. Specifically, she began baking delicious treats for friends. And more specifically, she started baking main whoopie pies, a delicious single-serve treat of a dollop of cream pressed between two small cakes.

Marcia was always trying to improve on the traditional recipe and create new flavors. As a consequence, her whoopie pies were a huge hit. She was constantly receiving requests to bake more. Many of her friends wanted to buy some as gifts for their friends. It was this latter point that got Marcia's mind baking.

The whoopies were already a great hobby, but perhaps could transition into a new side hustle. And just like that, fresh out of the oven came her new venture, Cape Whoopies. Her mission was to share the most delicious main whoopie pies made with the highest quality ingredients with people all across the land. Now, of course, from day one, Marcia knew that shipping posed a problem. How would she keep the pies looking great, tasting fresh during postage?

They would also need to tolerate both hot and cold conditions in transit. To try and solve the problem, Marcia contacted a packaging expert. Together, they devised a test to ship sample pies across the country and see if they remained intact. The expert recommended the type of packaging required to ship the pie safely. To receive the tests, Marcia enlisted the help of friends who lived in both cold and hot climates.

In return, well, they would receive free Cape Whoopie pies. She placed the pies inside the packages ready for shipping. The consultant provided special thermostats to track the temperature along the way. The result, Cape Whoopie pies arrived as if freshly made. Marcia now knew she could successfully sell them across the country and ship them in the mail without compromising quality.

Next, she did an online presence so people could order. She decided to create an online store using Shopify. Marcia enlisted the help of a local designer. Once it was up and running, she took high quality pictures of her Whoopies, added several plugins to entice website visitors to buy, and then also to gently upsell them. At first, sales trickled in here and there, mostly from friends and existing customers.

But in a short time, they ramped up. It wasn't long until Marcia was making Whoopies on a daily basis. This became difficult because she was still baking in her home kitchen. She decided to buy some commercial grade equipment and bake in her basement to keep up with demand. In time, the business grew further and that led to Marcia moving Cape Whoopies to a shared kitchen space.

It was similar to a shared office space, but for chefs and bakers. It was there that she settled into a groove and the baking continued. A couple of years in, Marcia was generating a few thousand dollars a month in revenue. But that year, she was contacted directly by Amazon to list her Whoopies on their site. She jumped at the chance and once again, demand increased.

Now by now, she was pushing the amenities of that shared kitchen to the max. For the fourth time, something had to give. As luck would have it, a solution was about to present itself. She met a coffee roaster while working out of the shared space. They were both growing fast and as a consequence, were looking to move to a larger space.

Together, they decided to rent a storefront, roasting coffee in the front and baking delicious Whoopie pies in the back. At more than 5,000 square feet, the space symbolized how much Cape Whoopies plan to grow. It was the beginning of a match made in heaven and the next phase of Cape Whoopies could start baking. As part of this move, she opened her first brick and mortar location. For months beforehand, Marcia was warming up her existing customers to excite them for the launch, building up the hype on social media and the local press.

By the time opening day arrived, the lineup was around the corner. Hundreds of customers were exposed to Cape Whoopies for the very first time. That new exposure led to huge sales, which believe it or not, have not slowed down since. That brick and mortar store, which was never expected to be the main source of income, now makes up nearly 50% of total sales. The rest come from the Cape Whoopies website, as well as Amazon and goldbelly.com and Etsy-like marketplace for designer foods.

And all that spike means that in the last year alone, Cape Whoopies doubled their sales volume. They've kept up with the rise in demand of pies by tracking what is in high demand and supplying more of that product. The business continues to flourish. Marcia, at the last update, bringing in $25,000 a month, a profit margin of around 50%. She's also gone from scooping and baking all the cakes herself to having her husband help out, to now having a team of five working together to bring Cape Whoopies pies to the world.

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Well, a couple updates since we first featured Marcia's story. The business has since been supplying high-end supermarket chain Wegmans Food Markets in Massachusetts and elsewhere with Cape Whoopies products, also testing in other stores throughout other states as well, Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic, and so on. Her website, Cape Whoopies, is still up and running. CapeWhoopies.com, check it out for yourself. I love a good reinvention story.

So many of our listeners are thinking about reinventing their lives or changing something in some way. And I hope that these stories are helpful, maybe giving you a nudge or an idea of something to do for yourself. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. The whole point is to be inspired and go and do something. That is my encouragement to you today.

I thank you so much for tuning in. We've got new episodes coming out every day, seven days a week, always free. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

from the Onward Project.