We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kadeem Fletcher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kadeem, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I’m definitely happier as a business owner. Don’t be fooled, it’s very challenging initially as you’re working towards building and finding that breakthrough but I get to work with my wife and we get to play by our own rules. Simply said, we have full creative control over Fat Butter Cookies. From the recipes, the marketing, the visuals, everything we do is done by us so when we receive support and we see moments of growth, it’s quite gratifying because we know just how much we have put into it. Fat Butter is a direct correlation of our understanding of each other’s skills whilst also being paired with the love we have for each other; the same love that we channel into the cookies.

We have a very good system with Fat Butter so we aren’t limited to only doing this. That’s also the beauty of working together is that we thrive on efficiency and system that help to make our lives easier.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well for me, I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago till I was 13. Then I moved to Brooklyn, New York and I was really exposed to such wide ranges of culture, art, fashion, music and more. The teenage years of my life were pivotal as they really helped to spark my curiosity and understanding of the things I was passionate about and more. I’ve always had a hustle mentality when I was young and that was fueled by entrepreneurship internships that I had in high school. One of my first mentors was Joe Branch of WME (William Morris Endeavor). I learned a lot from then and I still do till this day. But for me, any industry I’ve been in, I’ve gotten into it by taking chances. I didn’t really go conventional routes and sometimes people overlooked that but that’s also because my passions were a bit scattered due to my versatility.

My wife and I started creating together about 5 years ago when we launched our self-published cookbook which featured my affinity for cooking and hers for baking. Shortly after that, we created our first lifestyle clothing brand, The Blooming Union, which had much success but when we moved to Florida in 2023, we wanted to get back to our roots with the cookies. For me, what I’m most proud of is our resilience and our tendency to adapt. So many curveballs have been thrown our way but yet we still come together to solve the problem and move forward accordingly. Fat Butter is a full-on testament to that and as it stands now, we have really found an incredible groove to continue growing it and showing why our cookies are so special. I’m also proud of the unwavering community of supporters that we have been fortunate enough to gain due to the amazing quality and taste of our cookies.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met my wife on Instagram. I was scrolling one day, saw her profile and I DM-ed her. We quickly started talking and although she was hesitant at first, I took her on 3 dates in a week and to be honest, we fell in love within the first month. I guess, I can say the cliche thing that I knew from the beginning but I really did, it was just something special about her and us. Working with her has been amazing because she’s the missing piece to my jigsaw puzzle. I’m quite cerebral while she’s more hands on. I specialize in marketing, strategy, writing and more, while she’s an expert at graphic design, illustration, content creation. So our brainstorming and post-edit sessions are always good. I feel like we bring out the best in each-other.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Well for us, we started with test phases. We did about 6-7 waves where we allowed people to order through Instagram and directly through us. During these testing phases, we figured out what worked and what didn’t and we made note of that for when we officially launched. We also figured out our system of making the dough, storing the dough and baking it. During this time too, my wife crafted the beautiful branding of Fat Butter Cookies. She took and worked on all the product shots seen on the website while I worked with manufacturers to create our custom shipping boxes, packaging and more. All the money we made from the test phases paid for the production costs of all our materials, mixer, freezer and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://fatbuttercookies.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fatbuttercookies/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fat-butter-cookies

Image Credits

Samantha Marie Fletcher