This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Luxury buttercream cakes. Let's talk about that today. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Welcome as well to Throwback Thursday.
This is a weekly segment where we take a look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. And today in our latest feature, we're gonna go to Toronto, Canada. Gonna hear from the owner of Sweet Afternoon Bake Shop. You get to have your cake and listen to it too. We're gonna hear from my favorite cake baker in the world.
Her name is Karen Nguyen. We first featured her in episode 944, and I had the experience of enjoying an amazing custom cake decorated for my book when I was last in Toronto for an event at Indigo Bookstore. It was so cool. She brought out this multi-tiered, incredible custom cake. So what's happened since we last heard from Karen on the show?
Let's hear directly from her. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap-up. [Music]
My name is Karen Nguyen from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My Side Hustle is Sweet Afternoon, and I was featured on episode 944. Sweet Afternoon is a home-based bake shop that specializes in baked goods and custom cakes.
I had always been baking growing up, but one day I was just at home and I felt this push to do something creative. And just like a lot of people, I went down this rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos and landed on some cake tutorials. I was like, "You know what? Let's give this a shot." So I bought cake mix and whatever decorations that I could find at the grocery store and made my first cake. I had so much fun and I wanted to keep practicing, but because it was a lot of cake just for myself and my family, I decided to bring it into my workplace.
And that eventually turned into making cakes for employee birthdays, for any events that we had, any kind of lunch and learns. And then I started sharing my creations on Instagram just to kind of have it as a place to share my creations. And the more people that found my Instagram, the more they would ask for them to order. And then two months later of just putting all my creations out on social media, I got my first paid order. And the rest was kind of history.
I continued to experiment with different desserts, different recipes, and was able to build a community and a menu that I'm super proud of. When I first started Sweet Afternoon and when I was last featured on the show, my main service with Sweet Afternoon was custom cakes. But because of the last year of the pandemic and all the restrictions with events and gatherings, I had to really brainstorm how I could still serve my community and my customers. So I started to make these little mini cakes that would serve around two to three people, which was perfect because of all the limitations on, you know, gatherings and parties. I thought quite popular on my social media that I even launched a cake decorating product for many cakes for other bakers in the community or even in Canada and the U.S.
I did well for a bit, but after some time with some inconsistent sales and less people getting together for events or even celebrating, I decided to put cakes on hold and started promoting specialty treat boxes. These boxes includes brownies, blondies, and what I'm actually known for now, which is a ruffled marshmallow treat, which is essentially a rice crispy made with potato chips. The best part of this shift is now that I can actually ship my product Canada-wide and I'm not limited to just my local community. The main difference from before is now from offering cakes is that I used to work, you know, early mornings, evenings, all weekends, just to prep and fulfill orders, but now with these specialty treat boxes, I only have to dedicate two weekends a month, but this actually still generates twice as much revenue as of before. I think the biggest challenge I'm currently facing now is keeping up with the demand and being able to fulfill the capacity of orders I wish that I could.
I'm super grateful that I have this problem, but since I don't have a team or a commercial kitchen space, I'm limited to the amount of orders that I'm actually able to fulfill myself. I would say get on social media and start posting photos and videos of what you're creating and don't be afraid to share your journey, whether that be on Instagram, Facebook, or even platforms like TikTok. So many people wait until they have a logo or curated a bunch of photos, have a website going, or they're afraid of not being perfect, but getting out there is much better than not at all, especially for treats and baked goods, people want that social proof, so creating for family, your friends, and your coworkers to start and having them share their feedback on Instagram or Facebook, especially in the same age. I think it is important to get to know the person behind the brand because at the end of the day, they are buying from you. So don't be afraid to share your ups and downs because this will help build your community and your local customers.
[Music]
Karen is also a power lifter. And one of her other side hustles when she's not baking cakes, she is a power lifter, like a weight lifter who competes in tournaments. So she doesn't actually eat many of her own cakes, which I respect so much. If I were a baker, I'd be eating my creations all the time. It's one of the many reasons why I'm not a cake baker.
Anyway, I'm so grateful to Karen for helping us out with this segment. Listeners, thank you for being out there as well. For nine plus years, we've been making daily episodes. I'm so excited to make more for you. New episodes every day, seven days a week, download or stream or listen or follow, wherever you get your shows.
Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
