From teaching hobbyists to make Instagram-worthy treats to printing corporate logos on delicate macarons, the women behind a pair of Triangle startups are working to whip up returns.
Kristen Baileys of Bake Eat Love and Autumn Hicks of Mon Macaron didn’t set out to be entrepreneurs. They saw opportunity and picked up a whisk. Now, they’re not letting the current economic uneasiness slow them down.
Food entrepreneurship is a tough business. Last year, Raleigh-based Without A Trace Foods, an allergen-friendly snack company, wound down its operations. In Durham, Mati Energy, an energy drink company founded by Tatiana Birgisson, shut down production in 2020. Raleigh’s Nellino’s Sauce Company shut down production the same year after failing to close an investment, according to founder Neal McTighe.
Entrepreneurship is hard – and when you factor in variables entrepreneurs have to deal with such as supply chain challenges and inflation, it can be tough to keep competing. But competing is absolutely what Butler and Baileys plan to keep doing.
There are challenges: Prices for ingredients are getting higher; the availability of stock more challenging. “We’ve tried to get ahead of it as much as we can,” Baileys said, noting that strong relationships with vendors has been crucial.
But there are also successes.
Butler said her firm is about to cross $1 million in total revenue since launching. And at Bake Eat Love, Baileys is at about 28,000 boxes shipped.
Bake Eat Love
Kristen Baileys was the director of growth at tech firm Pendo in Raleigh when she decided to take the entrepreneurship plunge, funneling $4,000 of her and her husband’s life savings into a startup.
It started with a holiday list in 2018. Her mom asked a simple question – what did she want?
What Baileys, a hobbyist baker, wanted was to craft together those inspirational, Instagram-worthy treats she saw on baking shows. Grocery store kits were too easy. Classes? Too time consuming. So she hit the internet, looking for a kit that could help her bake like a professional, one recipe at a time.
“I didn’t find what I was looking for,” she said. “It didn’t seem like this product existed. … I said why not start a business?”
It started as a side gig. By day, she worked in marketing at Pendo. By night, she was developing – and shipping – her concept, including items such as the popular “raspberry and orange French macarons” or the “eclairs box.” She took it full time in November of 2020.
The demand was there. Before the pandemic bread-baking trend, home baking was really a “lost art,” she said.
“But the irony is there’s never been more baking inspiration than there is today, because you see all these baking shows, Instagram accounts,” she said. “There’s this gap where people see all these cool things they want to try … but there’s an education gap, a knowledge gap, so we try to close that gap with our recipes, so you can make something truly inspirational and fun.”
Customers have bought in – particularly during 2020 when the pandemic had many people staying home. "They turned to hobbies – what can I do to fill my time," Baileys said.
Today, the company offers several one-time baking kits, as well as a monthly subscription service with recipes and ingredients for treats themed by quarter.
The March boxes heading out are the last of the firm’s “international series.” April debuts the “garden party series,” with botanicals such as strawberry and rose-filled cupcakes where customers can “learn how to pipe a rose with buttercream frosting on top.”
Mon Macaron
Autumn Hicks’ entrepreneurship story started in a catering kitchen in 2019.
Hicks, a business major at William Peace University, had baked as a hobby. A mother of three, she started pumping out macarons – delicate, crisp cookies sandwiching ganache – for a PTA auction. And they were a hit.
“Parents loved them,” she said. “They were buying dozens like crazy. … That’s when I thought, hey, let me use this business degree.”
So she started baking – and selling.
Hicks bought an edible printing machine to differentiate further – printing logos and personalized messages with edible ink for the macarons. That way she could edge into the corporate gifting world.
To fund the startup, she used savings and credit cards. She knew she needed to get her name out there, so she took a risk, joining a wedding show at a cost of a “few thousand dollars.” The expensive gamble paid off – and weddings started to sign on for macaron “towers.”
Sales increased. And so did the opportunity. In 2020 the pandemic hit, crushing the restaurant business. It allowed Hicks to find a good price on a lease.
Hicks’ opened the first retail store in 2021 at Seaboard Station in Raleigh, filling the spot vacated by fusion restaurant Papa Shogun.
Today, Mon Macaron is in the midst of preparing to expand to a second retail location, this time in Cary. It’s getting ready to open a production facility off of Capital Boulevard that would allow it to expand into the consumer packaged goods sector. It’s exploring franchise options that could expand its reach outside of the Triangle.
And the 13-person company is hiring.