We were lucky to catch up with Cynthia Wong recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cynthia, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

When I started Life Raft Treats, we made the ice cream in a commissary, which was part of Salthouse Catering’s kitchen. Todd Mazurek is the owner of Salthouse Catering, and for the first 2 1/2 years of the business, he gave me so much support, encouragement, real talk and very importantly- physical space to make and store our products. And he did it at a monthly cost that just covered his expenses in regards to having us there. I would not have been able to survive the pandemic, begin shipping nationwide, get into big box stores and grow the business had he not been so generous with his space and time. I can’t thank him enough, and when I try to, he is so humble and kind about it.

Cynthia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After a career as a pastry chef in pretty demanding kitchens, I left the restaurant industry in 2018 to start Life Raft Treats®. I felt like I’d aged out of the business and saw that fewer restaurants were hiring pastry chefs, that the career of in-house pastry chefs in restaurants was on its was to becoming extinct. I was also completely over working for someone else. So in my head I built a little “Life Raft” that I was going to get on and paddle away to a better life for myself and my family. And I’d felt like food in restaurants had gotten so serious. I wanted to have fun again, I wanted people who ate my food to be having fun. I love ice cream novelties- they’re like their own little story. When you unwrap one, you really feel like you having a real treat. I’m proudest of being able to take some exceptional people under my wing along the way and with a lot of tough love, show them that they can grown and learn and achieve whatever they want, whether it’s in this industry or with me, or in something completely different.

Any advice for managing a team?

Be completely and utterly honest at all times about everything. Give up your ego completely and when you’ve face planted, admit that you’ve face planted. Give bonuses when you can, even if it’s nominal and just at Christmas. Offer flexibility and understanding to team members that have families or financial difficulties as much as you can afford. All that being said, I do not believe in socializing with my team. I do not want them to feel like they are forced to laugh at my dumb jokes or otherwise tolerate me in a social situation! I don’t believe in blurring the lines between personal and work for the team, as much as I care about them and would do anything to help them. Team lunch is also huge. Every day we have a freshly cooked meal prepared in house for everyone.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

We sell on our site locally and ship nationwide through Goldbelly. They’ve definitely helped us reach a large audience and that has been such a huge part of our growth. It’s been fantastic to not have to handle customer service or deal with building out our own web site to manage orders/UPS labels, that admin side of thing. The cons are that it’s a platform a lot of other businesses are on and they can’t be as nimble as if we were doing this all ourselves. They also have to pass along their rising costs to the sticker price of our products on their site. People get sticker shock when they don’t understand what is involved with packing and shipping frozen products overnight– it’s really expensive: the dry ice, the specialized shipping boxes, the labor. If UPS fumbles and delivers melted ice cream, we have to replace it, UPS takes no responsibility for anything.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.liferafttreats.com
• Instagram: @life.raft.treats

Image Credits

Andrew Thomas Lee