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Denise Golia with Dee’s Little Sweets

Denise Golia of North Providence, RI shares how she started a very successful bakery by niching way down, despite being limited by a personal injury and not being able to start from her home kitchen

Jondell Lafont-Garcia with Fluff Marshmallow Co.

Jondell Lafont-Garcia of Pflugerville, TX is one of the foremost experts in the homemade marshmallow trend and shares how she built her cottage food business despite facing a major personal challenge

Wynter Hosier with Etta’s Gooey Goodies

Wynter Hosier of Greentown, IN shares how she built her cottage food bakery into a successful storefront by persevering and giving back, despite facing many unexpected twists and turns along the way

Kristi Otto with One More Bite Organic Desserts

Kristi Otto of Fort Myers, FL shares how she leveraged her extensive food industry experience to succeed with her cottage food bakery, despite her community not resonating with her products initially

Nicole DiMarco with All About The Freeze

Nicole DiMarco of West Deptford, NJ shares how she took the leap with a new product, and leveraged her sales, retail, and social media experience to quickly start a successful cottage food business

Jenn Bowersock with Jenn’s Backstube

Jenn Bowersock of Sidney, OH runs an authentic German bakery from her home, and shares how she went from struggling as an entrepreneur to experiencing rapid success by finding product/market fit

Tyler & Angie Worthey with Worthey Peppers

Tyler Worthey of Neoga, IL shares how he built a very successful cottage food business during high school, and how he and his mom Angie now work together as a mother/son team to take it to new heights

Ka’Terra Dettbarn with Sweet Addiction

Ka’Terra Dettbarn of Ocean City, MD endured lots of trial and error when starting a cottage bakery with her sister, but by persisting and listening for guidance, they transformed it into a success

Valerie Allensworth with The Donut Lady

Valerie Allensworth of Sitka, AK shares how she built a very successful cottage food business by focusing on consistency, despite living on a remote island in Alaska and facing many unique challenges

Jenifer & Tristan Hoke with The Drunken Chef

Jenifer & Tristan Hoke of Tecumseh, OK share how they used sheer persistence to overcome early sales struggles, and found a business model that works so well that they now can’t keep up with demand

Rob Sanz with Rise Artisan Sourdough

Rob Sanz of Rockville, MD shares how he’s added a cottage food bakery to a busy family life and career, and why he has intentionally kept his microbakery small, even though he could easily grow it

Elisa Marie Lords with Elisa Marie Baking

Elisa Marie Lords of Placentia, CA shares how she overcame early struggles with her sales and built a thriving cottage food bakery by focusing on community, consistency, and customer service

Tiffany Hill with Think Pink Bakers

Tiffany Hill shares how she built on her success as a cottage food baker by creating a thriving online community/course and a packaging business, both of which have experienced unprecedented growth

Tiffany Hill with The Pink Crumbb

Tiffany Hill of Apple Valley, CA shares how she switched careers and built a full-time income from her cottage food bakery, after initially struggling to make sales and nearly shutting it down

Mark Elvidge with Vermont Nut Free Chocolates

Mark Elvidge shares how he and his wife started Vermont Nut Free Chocolates from home in 1998 and built it into an international brand with over 1,000 wholesale locations and constant growth each year

Michelle Dukes with The Cookie Cutters

Michelle Dukes of Penfield, NY shares why she shifted her business model after 10 years of running a cottage food bakery, while keeping focus on the most important aspect of her business: having fun

Shupan Abraham with Cakes By Shupan

Shupan Abraham of Lawrenceville, GA shares how her cottage food bakery transformed once she hired a coach, and what she’s learned about putting herself out there and marketing her business effectively

David Bock with Buzzed Honeys

David Bock of Altadena, CA runs a multifaceted honey business that specializes in rescuing honey bees, and he shares local marketing tips that helped him build an email list of 3,500+ subscribers

Jessi Deily with Colby Jack Rabbit

Jessi Deily of Helena, MT sells macarons and custom-decorated meringue cookies with her cottage food business and shares her journey from struggling artist to successful baker and TikTok influencer

Eric & Denise Steilberger with Fudge De Fûge

Eric & Denise Steilberger of Ocala, FL sell their homemade fudge all year long and share how the lessons they learned from running a cafe in Alaska helped them build a successful cottage food business

Megan Shonka with Happy Mango Bakery

Megan Shonka of Papillion, NE shares the highs and lows of her home-based bakery journey, the importance of being involved in her community, and her plans to expand into a brick-and-mortar storefront

Angela Awunor with Angyono Cakes

Angela Awunor of Glenn Dale, MD shares how she moved her thriving custom cake business from a commercial kitchen into her home, and how she maintains work-life balance with two full-time careers

Episode 100: Where Are They Now?

In this very special 100th episode, previous guests come back on to share an update of what’s changed since they were last on the show, what’s surprised them, and what they’ve learned along the way

Invest In Yourself with Stephanie Wiley

Stephanie Wiley of Whitefish, MT shares how the tragic loss of her son inspired her to start a cookie business, which she has quickly grown by seeking help from others and investing in the business

Live In The Moment with Alisa Woods

Alisa Woods of Des Moines, IA shares how she promotes her home bakery by networking with others, getting TV spots, building Instagram followers, competing in state fairs, and living in the moment

Beautiful Chaos with Chelsa Smith

Chelsa Smith of Des Moines, IA sells sourdough bread from her wildly successful home microbakery and shares many of the ups and downs of building her business while finding work-life balance

Men Bake Cookies with Mike Skyring

Mike Skyring of South Lyon, MI shares how he started a gourmet cookie bakery totally by accident, and how he quickly grew it into a very successful business by leveraging many marketing techniques

Anything Is Possible with Emily Vanlandingham

Emily Vanlandingham of New Orleans, LA runs a home bakery that focuses on school celebrations, and shares the triumphs, lessons, and challenges that have come from creating her very unique business

Think Like A CEO with Jen Morris

Jen Morris shares so many lessons from her crazy journey building a popular cupcake business in Collingdale, PA, including promoting yourself, scaling up, getting published, and validating products

Growing A Movement with Lisa Kivirist

Lisa Kivirist of Browntown, WI shares an update on the past, present, and future of the cottage food and food freedom movements, and how she’s helping support them with many different resources

Get Passionate About Sales with Amanda Schonberg

Amanda Schonberg of Baton Rouge, LA shares tons of business tips for generating more sales, building a following, managing mindset, improving time, growing an email list, and scaling up a bakery

Two Cultures In One with Fawzeya Owda

Fawzeya Owda of Norwood, OH shares her unique journey from home bakery to commercial kitchen when her Palestinian-inspired cheesecake allowed her to build her own American Dream to support her family

The Feel Good Factor with Juno Rosales

Juno Rosales shares the incredible story of how she built an international brand by selling her frozen desserts from home in the Philippines before adding a second location in Los Angeles, CA

The Power Of Two with Heather & Corrie Miracle

Twins Heather & Corrie Miracle of Fairfax, VA share the backstory that led them to create their extremely popular Facebook group about marketing for sugar cookiers and other cottage food entrepreneurs

Chocolate Is Therapy with Gary Knight

Gary Knight of Gardnerville, NV sells beautiful hand-decorated chocolates that he learned to make while overcoming his alcohol addiction and recovering from a traumatic brain injury.

How To Scale A Food Business with Annette Conrad

Annette Conrad of Mequon, WI shares how she massively scaled her home-based custom decorated cookie business by building a team, optimizing systems, and selling to event planners and corporate clients.

The One-Woman Show with Amanda Luecke

Amanda Luecke of Maple Grove, MN shares how she built a thriving custom decorated cookie business with over 26k Instagram followers by focusing on her customers, community, & family.

The Burnt Out Baker with Jenni Reher

Jenni Reher of Mead, CO shares the rise and fall of her vegan donut bakery, how she grew it to 20 wholesale accounts, and why she decided to sell her business when it was doing better than ever.

Can A Product Be Too Good? with Janna Paterno

Janna Paterno of Charleston, WV shares why she wasn’t making money in her custom-decorated cookie business, despite having phenomenal decorating skills and more customers than she could ask for.

Mom By Day, Baker By Night with Daniela Zographos

Daniela Zographos of Anderson, SC shares how she niched down to only selling custom-decorated cake pops, which made her home bakery even more successful and gave her more time to spend with her kids.

Turning Up The Heat with Nathan & Nicole Parchman

Nathan & Nicole Parchman of O’Fallon, IL share how they produce and sell over 200 jars of salsa and pickles each week, and have grown from farmers market to wholesale to brick-and-mortar storefront.

Wholesale Strategies That Work with Sonia Chang

Sonia Chang from Pasadena, CA, who has sold her healthy granola in over two dozen stores and has also operated a popular cupcakery, shares marketing strategies that she’s used to grow her businesses.

How To Live On What You Make with Lisa Kivirist

Lisa Kivirist talks about living off the land, moving away from the corporate life-style, creatively packaging products, diversifying income streams, advocating for laws, and everything in between.

How Many Products Should You Sell?

One mistake startups often make is offering customers too many choices. Initially this may seem backwards and unintuitive… wouldn’t you sell more if you had more to offer customers? Not necessarily.

Feasibility Study: Testing the Market

While you may have a great-tasting product, you still have to test it in the marketplace. It’s one thing if everyone you know loves your muffins — especially, if they’re free. It’s something completely different to see if customers will buy them at two dollars a pop. This process of testing the market for your products is often called a feasibility study; it may take the following route: