We were lucky to catch up with Torri Burrell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Torri, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I’ve always had an interest in baking. Ever since I was younger I would bake for family events but my passion for baking and cake decorating specifically, started during the pandemic. I started watching all different kinds of baking shows during the free time the lock down provided me with and decided I wanted to try to make a custom birthday cake. The first custom cakes I made was for my sister, then my niece, I made a two tier unicorn cake for my nieces 5th birthday just for fun. I decided to post a picture of the cake on instagram and I received so many positive comments on it, as well as at the birthday party. Many people encouraged me to keep going and made me realize the talent I had which caused me to take cake decorating more seriously. I practiced and slowly started taking cake orders from family and friends. I started my cake business in 2021 it was first called ‘K’Tor Kreations’ then I later changed it to K’Tor Étair. Not too long after, I got a job at a bakery as a cake decorator to learn more and improve my skillset. I am now still working for the bakery and running my small business doing custom cakes, weddings etc.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

K’Tor Étair is a cake company. I specialize in custom cakes such as weddings, birthdays, baby showers etc. I also offer party trays/boxes, cupcakes and other tasty pastries. While I’ve been running my small business from my home bakery, I just purchased a mobile pastry truck that will be opening in about 2 weeks which I am beyond excited for. I attended Temple University where I was previously interviewed about 2 years ago and I told them my goal was to open a pastry truck and I am finally making it happen. My main goal for my business and my customers overall is to exceed expectations in every way possible. I always aim to make my customers as happy as possible not only with their orders but with my customer service as well.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

From the very beginning of my journey, the rise in my clientele has came from word of mouth and interviews such as this one. When I get different orders many people will tell me who recommended my business to them and it just keeps growing from there, a large majority of my orders come from complete strangers who has just heard about my business from other people and the cycle just keeps going. My reputation within my market is not only built on positive reviews and recommendations but also my ability to provide my customers with my best efforts with each and every order.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding my business was one of the main things I struggled with in the beginning. It wasn’t easy for me to price my orders at first because one, I didn’t have a method to my madness in terms of knowing how to price orders logically instead of throwing out random prices that seems like it made sense at the time. I was also afraid of losing potential customers if I charged too much which caused me to undercharge many times. Also while funding everything I needed for my truck, including purchasing the truck itself I set aside money from each order I received and used it solely for what needed for my business. I did look into business grants but honestly didn’t gain from it and I did not want to take out a loan for my business so it took a lot of saving and risk at times to fund my business, especially now with my truck.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ktor-kreations.webnode.page
• Instagram: https://ktor-kreations.webnode.page
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torriburrell/?trk=org-employees