We recently connected with Julie Tyree and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julie, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Profitability presents an issue because no one NEEDS cookies. It’s a luxury item. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand the process or the time involved in creating an order from start to finish which results in a lot of sticker shock. Custom cookies are everywhere and have vast pricing to match. A large company can make custom cookies quicker by means of employees and advanced machinery. When someone sees an iced sugar cookie at a local store, they have that price point in their head. When I give them pricing (which is absolutely fair) some are alarmed. Profit margins are slim primarily because of the number of orders received. Every week is different. Like many small businesses, it ebbs and flows. It’s an uphill battle.

Julie, 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?

I’m just an average middle-aged woman who, by sheer grit and determination, decided to love work. I am actually a career nanny. I have cared for others’ children since I was a young teen. I have also loved every single second. About 25 years ago one of the children I cared for wanted Blues Clues cookies and I made them and all the moms at the party went crazy over them…and it took off from there. I did cakes and cookies for a while until I had an unfortunate accident which broke my back. I decided to cut back and only do cookies so I could sit and work. I work very hard to balance both caring for children and working on cookies. My goal is to make every customer happy. If they have a vision, I spend a lot of time in text conversation to make sure, when they get those cookies, I meet or exceed their expectations. Also, I have a secret cookie recipe. The words, not only do they look amazing, they taste even better, is music to my ears.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

It was absolutely a side hustle. I made cookies for one of the children I cared for, for her birthday at the children’s museum, and it spiraled into something they gave me expendable income. Then, over the years, word of mouth spread. Then, my primary job (nanny job) cut my hours but I still wanted to see the kids so, I took that cut in pay and ramped up the cookie business. My cookie business is now my full time job and my nanny gig is only a few hours each afternoon. I had to hire a web designer and had someone help me start promoting myself on social media. From there, I just had to learn to be more of a people person and design a business model that always put the customers happiness first AND also make the customers experience as easy as possible.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

COVID. Ugh. It was a struggle. No one was having any events and cookies were just not a thing. Luckily, kids still existed and my dog was in school and had friends so, I did more care-giving for children and dogs. Then, when people started slowly reintegrating into a somewhat normal existence, I went to a contactless pick up and delivery method and I changed all orders to individual packaging. These things I still do to this day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sugarandiced.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sugarandicedhouston/profilecard/?igsh=MWNlNGwyMDVsaTkwZg==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19fdtQyPsx/?mibextid=LQQJ4d