Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe to Turn your Passion into Profit

By Candace Nelson

LEARN THE RECIPE FOR STARTING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

For the first time ever, founder of Sprinkles cupcakes, Candace Nelson, is sharing the recipe for success in her new book, Sweet Success. She will walk you through the steps she took to build a globally beloved brand, so you can do it too. Although she deals in frosting, there’s no sugarcoating here. Candace pushes back the kitchen door to reveal mistakes, misses, and lessons learned the hard way. Readers will learn how to:

• Obtain the key ingredients to any successful business
• Craft the mindset of an entrepreneur
• Learn the secret recipe for packaging a product for profit
• Turn kitchen experiments into top selling products
• Cultivate a community of brand evangelists
• Step into a personal brand to amplify the business
• Know where to put marketing dollars most effectively
• And much more.

 

In a time of unprecedented disruption and innovation, people are rethinking career and professional purpose. It’s never been a better time to start a business. Sweet Success dispels the myth that entrepreneurship is reserved for an elite few and is a must-read for anyone with a passion needing a place to start or a push along the way.

At a career crossroads, instead of going to business school like her peers, Candace Nelson reflected on what she really wanted to do—and did what nobody, including Candace herself, would have expected. She poured her passion and life savings into creating the world’s first cupcake bakery. Today, Sprinkles Cupcakes and its Cupcake ATMs have become a globally recognized brand, celebration mainstay and inspiration for entrepreneurs everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Nov 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781400231539

Candace Nelson

Candace Nelson is a serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, Wall Street Journal contributor and an expert in turning one’s passion into a profitable business. Candace revolutionized the baking industry when she left a career in finance to start Sprinkles, the world's first cupcake bakery and Cupcake ATM. She followed with the launch of Pizzana, a growing chain of award-winning pizzerias leading the third wave of pizza in the US. Candace continues to expand her portfolio of investments with CN2 Ventures and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two sons, and Norwich terrier, Willy.

Book preview

Introduction

PREHEAT YOUR IDEA

I love the feeling of possibility that comes with starting something new. Whether it’s creating a modern take on a classic recipe or dreaming up an innovative new venture with loads of potential, a fresh start lights me up. When someone tells me they have a new idea, I’m all in, ready to roll up my sleeves and figure out how to help make it a reality. If a friend is pondering leaving their stale, yet stable, career to pursue a passion, I’m basically writing their resignation letter before they’ve fully made up their mind.

This is because I was once at a pivotal moment myself, and entrepreneurship catapulted me down a new path I would have never thought possible. I now know, firsthand, the immeasurable joy that comes from pushing past a confusing crossroads and discovering what you were born to do. Today, I can speak to the pride and confidence that comes from taking what was once just an inkling and boldly bringing it to life.

I turned my passion into profit by starting small—like, palm-of-your-hand small. It began with a cupcake and grew into an empire. These days, I hear from so many people who want to start their own business too. They are dreamers who want to make their mark on the world and carve out a piece of the economy that is all their own, yet they don’t know how to begin. Without a road map, the idea of starting a business for the first time seems unattainable, so instead they hit the pause button on their dreams. Well, failure to launch no more! I’m here to tell you that the path to entrepreneurship is yours for the taking. Sure, it’s intimidating when founders are glamorized as the subject of feature films and steal the spotlight on hit shows like Shark Tank; they may even seem mystical, when billion-dollar start-ups are referred to as unicorns. It can be easy to forget that entrepreneurs are just regular people. Speaking as one of them, I won’t sugarcoat it. Building a business from scratch is not for the faint of heart. But I do believe that anyone can be an entrepreneur—all it takes is a proper plan and the right attitude.

This book is about just that—gathering the ingredients to start baking the business of your dreams.

One of the reasons I felt compelled to write this book is to dispel the myth that entrepreneurs have something that the rest of us don’t. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that you don’t need an exceptional IQ to create something exceptional. Believe me, I wasn’t exactly top of my class in high school.

When I was growing up, my family moved every few years, including internationally, for my father’s job as general counsel for an American multinational corporation. I know it may sound exciting to travel the world as a child. And as an adult, I can now appreciate the deeply diverse cultural experiences I encountered at such a young age. But moving often during my school years was tough. As a lanky thirteen-year-old American girl living in Indonesia, I longed desperately for a sense of home and belonging.

It wasn’t much better when I was sent back to the United States to attend a rigorous boarding school. I was the youngest in my class and my family was still on the other side of the globe. A comforting phone call home was hard to come by: There was only one pay phone in my dorm, and between the time difference and poor international connection fraught with static, calls to my family were often dropped.

Despite the school’s accolades and reputation for academic excellence, the learning environment was all wrong for me. The school days were tightly structured, which clashed with my creativity. The emphasis on high achievement in a traditional curriculum made it difficult for me to find success, and I wandered in search of other interests. I refocused my efforts on fun: finding a ride to the next Phish concert and playing pranks on my dormmates instead of getting good grades. Needless to say, I received my fair share of detention for my wayward ways.

I suppose my reputation for being middle of the road during high school stuck around because at an alumni event a few years back, a former classmate approached me with a decent amount of disbelief while congratulating me on my success with Sprinkles. Sure, I was a little offended, but after years in the public eye I’ve learned not to take things personally. Mediocre classmate turns her life around and makes something of herself? I guess all the misplaced creativity, resourcefulness, and rebelliousness that sent me to detention are the building blocks for what have made me a successful entrepreneur.

The road to entrepreneurship will look different for everyone, but the ingredient connecting all founders is a great idea that we can’t stop obsessing over until we put it into action. Regardless of how you got here, or the type of business you want to create, I can help you. In this book, I will be your mentor, guiding you from career crossroads to new business launch. I will empower you by giving you the actionable tools and information you need to listen confidently to your inner voice and take your big idea from passion project to business venture, first by dreaming it, then packaging and building it, and finally, protecting it.

But sometimes, even with all the planning in the world, you still won’t feel ready. Making the leap to entrepreneurship is ultimately about taking the first step, then the next. I call it following the bread crumbs. I wrote this book to encourage you to go for it, so think of this as your first crumb.

Now, let’s get cooking!

Part One

DREAM IT!

How to Be a Founder

In a start-up company there is no hierarchy, very little in terms of structure and job descriptions, and, frankly, lots to do and not enough people to do it. As a new founder, you will be short on time and even more so on money. You will have to be scrappy and wear many hats that would normally be worn by an entire management team at a more established company. At Sprinkles, among other roles, I created the product and brand story, hired and trained employees, evaluated new locations, crafted PR campaigns, and represented the brand on TV around the world. Oh yeah, I was also in charge of taking out the trash at night.

Assuming responsibility for all these functions as a founder is exhausting and exhilarating. In fact, there is literally no good reason why anyone would want to go out and build something that didn’t exist before, only to risk money, reputation, and a whole lot of sleep to execute something that everyone thinks is a terrible idea. So how and why do you do it? Because you have a dream you just can’t shake until it becomes a reality. And you realize that no one is going to make that happen except you.

When you’re a founder, you are a pie-in-the-sky, head-in-the-clouds dreamer. You see change where others see more of the same. You are the Walt to Disney Studios, the Mrs. Fields to the chocolate chip cookie, and the Steve Jobs to that phone you’re holding in your hand.

In this section, we are going to dream together. I will share those early days when Sprinkles was just a spark of an idea in my mind, and I will guide you through the emotional preparation and mental maneuvering to get you to that place where you are ready to take the leap. So, hold on to (all of) your hats, my friends, and let’s start dreaming big!

Step One

GATHER THE ESSENTIALS

Use passion and purpose to propel you.

Assembling the tools and ingredients for any recipe before you begin is good baking technique. Known in professional kitchens as mise en place, this practice helps ensure that nothing is accidentally forgotten in the baking process. After many years in the kitchen, mise en place is now instinctive for me, but when I first began baking, my methods were much more haphazard. I often forgot ingredients, noticing only once it was too late. In retrospect, my mishaps in the kitchen mirrored the scattered way that I moved from place to place growing up. As a child living overseas, it turns out the key missing ingredient for me was a sense of home.

I had a perpetual longing for life back in the States. Back then, international phone calls were extremely expensive and required parental permission. When I wrote and mailed letters to my pen pals back home, it would take two weeks for the letters to reach them. To alleviate my homesickness more quickly, I turned to the treats I loved—American desserts like chocolate chip cookies, Rice Krispies Treats, and frosted cupcakes. In Indonesia, there were no bakeries offering such exotic delicacies, so I had to learn to make them myself. I spent hours in the kitchen alongside my mom and her well-worn copy of Joy of Cooking baking the confections I craved. I became mesmerized by the science and art of baking, and I loved the way every recipe felt like home. I found comfort and a certain measure of control in baking (well, except when the Indonesian humidity turned my meringue to mush). It was a constant in my ever-changing environment and gave me something in return: passion.

That same passion became the foundation for Sprinkles and was vital to its success. In recent years, some experts argue that having personal passion for what you do is overhyped. They say that at the end of the day, a successful business is about customer satisfaction, not fulfilling your own passion. That’s why some business pundits recommend a more pragmatic approach of finding an unmet consumer need (also known as whitespace in investor circles) and solving a problem over something as risky as pursuing a passion. While I agree that you should establish whether there is a market for your product, I don’t think you should analyze the competitive landscape without regard for personal interests. The ability to combine one’s passion with an unmet consumer need is the ultimate sweet spot for any new business.

Growing up, I was the quintessential well-rounded kid. It seemed like a good thing until college graduation; then it just felt like a euphemism for confused. Unlike my law school–bound or premed friends, I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with my life. So, I did what most people without a clear career path do: just get a job. Though I was a planner, I wasn’t so sure about what I was planning to do exactly. I desperately wanted to identify and own my thing. Being a jack-of-all-trades felt like a liability when everyone seemed to have crystal clear goals. Yet, I felt paralyzed by indecision. (Spoiler alert: If you like doing multiple things and don’t have a singular focus, you might just make an ideal entrepreneur!)

I was recruited into an investment banking analyst program in San Francisco right out of school. Since I had spent my formative years on the East Coast, there’s probably something romantic to say about going out west to explore new frontiers and seek golden opportunities. But honestly, I was looking to lock down any job that put me on a clear career path in a respected field and paid a salary that covered my rent.

I joined a firm that helped companies raise capital through initial public offerings (IPOs) and consulted on financial transactions like mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Let me be clear: I had never even taken an accounting course. In fact, my liberal arts college idealistically refused to offer one! I was a fish out of water from day one, but it was a prestigious job where I hoped to build a solid business foundation—a smart first step into the professional world, I thought. It felt like the right choice to make. But crunching numbers into the wee hours of the night was draining my soul instead of feeding it. I was anxious all the time, lived in fear of my bosses, and developed a pit in my stomach every time a project landed on my desk on Friday at 5 p.m.—which happened most Fridays. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the camaraderie and connection with my coworkers, but our bonds were mostly formed over a shared sense of anxiety, fear, and stress. We were like the last handful of competitors on the TV show Survivor, forming alliances to endure and outlast.

Though it was grueling much of the time, the perks were huge. I’m not talking about vacation time, benefits, or cold brew on tap. I’m referring to the dinners. The deal celebrations, or closing dinners, exposed me to some of the best restaurants in the world.

Food has always been everything in my family. From the classic American desserts I habitually baked with my mom, to frequent outings in the Singapore market stalls to feast on noodles and chile crab, our enthusiasm for food was a constant no matter where we relocated. Even our vacations were about food. A family trip to France was a thinly veiled excuse to sample crêpes, meringues, and pains au chocolat.

I couldn’t believe my luck that I’d landed a job out of college that allowed me to dine regularly at high-end bistros such as The French Laundry, Boulevard, and Jardinière. These experiences awakened my deeply rooted familial appreciation for good food and a thirst for more knowledge around the dishes themselves. I began fangirling chefs, researching farms, and appreciating the importance of a well-sourced ingredient from the right purveyor. I became a regular at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, walking around smelling coffee, tasting chocolates, and devouring freshly baked goods. I started to get the inkling that this wasn’t just a hobby.

You have to remember that this was San Francisco in 1998. While I was eating my way through the upper echelons of the city’s eateries, I also had a front-row seat to a bubbling tech and dot-com boom. People were jumping ship from traditional jobs and becoming millionaires overnight through stock options at fast-rising internet companies. California was experiencing its second gold rush, and I wanted in on this exciting adventure. I left my financial firm and accepted a job at a start-up called Snap.com (no, not Snapchat!). Snap.com was a web portal and its mission was to become the new Yahoo! The expense accounts, and my dining adventures, continued despite the career shift. It was what they called a frothy time. One team-building trip meant going to Napa to eat at Michael Chiarello’s Tra Vigne and ride hot-air balloons. If this was the life of a professional, maybe I could get used to it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a chance. In March 2000 the dot-com bubble peaked and within a year the market had crashed. High-flying internet companies were folding in record numbers, resulting in an estimated $5 trillion worth of stock market value being wiped out. More pressingly, I found myself out of a job.

I wasn’t alone. The exodus from San Francisco was so extreme that there was a six-week wait for a U-Haul truck. I was paralyzed with indecision, frustrated that I had once again found myself at a career crossroads when all my peers seemingly had their lives together. Friends were heading back to school to get their master’s degree or switching gears to work for nonprofits. Here I was, just as directionless as when I started, feeling as if I were being left behind while everyone powered on without me. The professional world had spit me right back out in the same place it found me, confused.

With nowhere to go and no plan in place, I slipped into a mild depression. My days were dictated by TV Guide, punctuated by important meetings with Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. These shows were my refuge and inspiration—the recipes and crafts that Martha had built into an industrial complex, and the noteworthy guests Oprah interviewed, wormed their way into my subconscious.

How could they not? Overnight, I went from grinding sixteen hours a day nonstop to marking the passage of time by reruns. I was paralyzed, on my couch, in the prime of my life, applying for jobs I had no interest in taking. I remember one interview I thought went totally sideways, until they called me for a second round. Instead of being pleasantly surprised, I couldn’t even bring myself to go back; my heart wasn’t in it even though I wanted it to be. No jobs, fields, or industries compelled me, and working for myself felt way out of reach. I couldn’t go home to live with my parents—they were in Bangkok. So I considered my options.

Although I had been immersed in a world of successful entrepreneurship, it felt like an inaccessible path for me. The entrepreneurs I witnessed were engineers and technical savants building Silicon Valley and changing the world. Sure, I dreamed of being an entrepreneur, but without a technical skill set, I couldn’t see myself as one. And knowing how to discern different cacao contents in chocolate didn’t seem like it would fly with investors.

Besides, I didn’t want to code; I wanted to play. So I did.

Whether it was all that Martha Stewart, the endless stretches of time on my hands, or my insatiable sweet tooth, I started to spend some serious time in the kitchen. I got messy with fondant and piped with buttercream. I morphed flour and eggs into cookies and cakes. I felt a sense of joy and possibility while I baked and frosted, stacked and molded. The irony is that while I was doing something fun without any expectation, I was rewarded with the vision to spot an amazing opportunity.

PICK YOUR PASSION

It’s entirely possible to have more than one passion in your life. In fact, the more, the better! But not every passion translates to business success. Here are three things to keep in mind when you’re considering transforming a passion into a business:

Passion often comes with some industry expertise. When I had the idea to open a first-of-its-kind cupcake bakery, I was immersed in the baking world: I lived, breathed, shopped, and read everything baking. What better place to look around and see what the market is missing but from the vantage point of an expert?

Passion opens doors. When starting a business, you don’t just need to attract throngs of customers; you need a network of investors, suppliers, vendors, and supporters. With earnest passion in your pocket, other people in your sphere will fall under your spell. Passion is contagious, and the more you have, the faster it will spread to the right people to help make your idea happen.

Passion keeps you in business. It’s so hard to start a company, let alone keep one going year after year. If you don’t have a fire in your belly, the numerous obstacles that you encounter are more likely to send you running the other way. Passion is fuel for the determination you need to see your idea through.

If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.

—Sallie Krawcheck, Founder of Ellevest

When I first considered pursuing my passion as a profession, I wasn’t convinced it was the right move or if I would even like it. I knew I loved to bake as a hobby out of my kitchen for friends and family, but how could I be sure I would enjoy it when it became a daily grind? I enrolled in a highly respected pastry school in San Francisco called Tante Marie’s. It was the only way to quell the uncertainty that was plaguing me.

After six months, I found the answer I’d hoped for: I loved it. I took pleasure in working with my hands—the tactile quality of kneading flour and sugar and butter. I cherished creating something that people could consume and enjoy. I especially appreciated that the results were tangible and immediately gratifying, such a contrast to the hours I’d previously spent in front of a computer screen modeling hypothetical financial scenarios. I loved the challenge of balancing art and science with delicious, beautiful creations such as luscious layer cakes and delicate pastry. I felt focused and creative, energized yet relaxed. Hours would go by, yet it felt like an instant. I had finally found my thing.

You might be wondering where to go from here if you don’t have a thing. Trust me, I was right there with you. My copy of What Color Is Your Parachute? was worn thin and I even invested in expensive career aptitude testing hoping some calling would surface. But just because you haven’t identified a personal passion doesn’t mean you don’t have one. One approach for uncovering what drives you is to consider your flow. Flow, a concept introduced by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the seventies, is an optimal state of heightened focus and complete immersion in an activity. You may have heard athletes refer to it as being in the zone. When you are in your flow, you are so engaged in doing something that you enjoy, or are passionate about, that you can easily lose track of time. I had experienced this expansive state of flow while baking in my kitchen.

Think back to a time when you were doing something you were passionate about. What was it? Did you feel you were in a state of flow?

ADD PURPOSE TO MAKE IT

Reviews for Sweet Success

[cathygeha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sweet Success by Candace NelsonPart autobiography and part entrepreneurship explained with catchy baking terms for section titles, this book gives a look at the way SPRINKLES became a big name in business and baking as it took cupcakes to a level they had never been before. The business had ups and downs, as did the author, and some were discussed with how they were overcome. Having a dream is not enough, passion is not enough, hard work is not enough…in fact…even if one were to follow every suggestion in this book…one still might not succeed. This book does provide concrete steps, suggestions that are worth listening to, and a lot that can be learned. I learned that starting a business is not my personal passion but did think about the suggestions and then wondered which of my interests might have been one that would/could have become a passion that led to a successful income generating international success…The catchy titles, headings, and subheadings were enough without being too much, the steps offered were organized in a way that would lead a person through what needs to be done, the examples of successful businesses were spot-on, and though not a complete business design tome – a good place to start when considering opening a business. My favorite part of each chapter was at the very end where the author provided a section called, ‘food for thought’ where questions were asked that made me put my thinking cap on and in so doing…evaluate what would be required to really succeed…or…have a chance at succeeding should I ever decide to open a business.Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC – this is my honest review. 4-5 Stars