How Did My Bakery Grow So Fast? It Didn't. It Grew Over Nine Years.
Updated: 15 hours ago
People ask me this question more than almost any other: how did your bakery grow so fast? For a long time I didn't have a good answer. Now I do, and it's a bit of a twist. It didn't grow fast. It grew over nine years. The bakery just wasn't open for most of them.
In the final episode of my podcast series The Long Proof, I told the story of where my customers actually came from. Very few found me cold on the internet. Most of them had known me for years before I ever iced a cookie for money.
The Customers Who Were There Before the Cookies
Before Dani's Kitchen Shop, I ran a 4-H program, worked in agricultural lending, and helped growers get ready for food safety inspections. I wasn't building a customer list. I was doing the work in front of me and trying to be someone people could count on.
Then the bakery opened, and those same people started showing up again. Graduation cookies for kids I'd known since they were little. 4-H cookie boxes for the county fair. A former coworker who orders a holiday box every December. A farmer who orders cookies for every birthday and anniversary in the family.
This summer, I photographed a mom and her youngest daughter in my dahlia garden before the daughter left for college. Her older sister had been one of my most active 4-H ambassadors, and the younger one had started in our youngest tier. Her mom booked the session specifically to support me. Not long before that, a former 4-H kid messaged me after 10 years to order her baby shower cookies.
It wasn't three separate careers. It was one small, layered community, and I kept showing up in it wearing a different job title each time. When people need something for a wedding, a baby, or an office party, they don't start with a search engine. They think of someone they already trust.
Relationships That Run Both Directions
This isn't only about people coming back to me. My friend Nikki of East Fork Baking rented space in my kitchen while she built out her own. I'll be honest: I rented it to her because I thought I'd never fill that space myself. Since then, she's rescued me on last-minute birthday cakes, celebrated my milestones, and been my first call when I needed to check cake pricing for a baker I was coaching.
Then there's Mercedes. During a childcare crisis, someone handed me her name, and I said "yeah, sure" mostly out of politeness. She started as our nanny. Within months she was baking with me, and for about a year we traded off kids and kitchen. Today, Mercedes runs the kitchen.
And Alyssa, who came in about 15 months ago to help with marketing, is the reason this podcast exists and the reason I built A Bakery of Your Own. One hire turned into an entire education side of the business.
Not every relationship lasts forever, and that's okay. Community isn't about who stays the longest. It's about who showed up for the season you were actually in.
What This Means If You're Building a Bakery
If you're wondering how to grow a bakery business, here's what I've come to believe: it takes community to truly thrive. Not hustle, not a perfect five-year plan, and definitely not doing it alone.
That belief shapes everything I teach. In The Business of Baking, I don't hand you my blueprint. We build a system that fits your life, with other bakers around you while you do it. For bakers who aren't ready for the full program, I created The Kitchen Table, a lower-commitment place to ask questions and hear from others.
Even my coaching runs on old relationships. When I'm working through pricing with a baker, I'm often calling Nikki, remembering something a grower taught me about margins, or drawing on a program I ran for teenagers a decade ago.
Your Nine Years Might Be Happening Right Now
You might be in a job or a season of life that seems to have nothing to do with the business you want to build. I hope this story shows you it isn't wasted. Every person you show up for, every room you're in, is compounding quietly, whether you're watching or not.
Listen to the full episode of Mixing Up Success to hear the whole story, and if you're ready to build the next part of yours, find me at Dani's Kitchen Shop. Someone believes in you before you see it in yourself. Let me be that belief today.
Comments