We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ligia De Jesus. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ligia below.

Ligia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I took a cake decorating class out of boredom, became a Wilton instructor after than. When a family member asked me to make a 3 tier baptism cake for her daughter, it led to more family members asking me to make their custom cake & their friends after that. When I was making a bunch of cakes every weekend, I started looking for a spot to open my own shop. We went into a 1000 sq foot space to a 3000sq foot space within 6 years. It was tough at first, triple the space means triple the expenses. We grew into the space in the last 8 years. We are now a one stop shop for cake & dessert tables.

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

I have always enjoyed crafts. This is a sweet outlet to what I love to do. Although it gets stressful sometimes, mostly it feels like I’m doing crafts all day long. It’s great to be able to design and create the cake with coordinated treats like cake pops, themed sugar cookies, rice krispy treats, pretzel rods, chocolate covered Oreos, chocolate covered strawberries and a variety of mini pastries & puddings. We take pride in the work we do. Everything is made with love & it shows.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I got my degree in computer sciences but never worked in that field. I moved to the US from South Africa, got a job in a bakery as a bookkeeper, moved from bakery to bakery until I ended up in a bakery that allowed me to actually work in the production line. That’s where I discovered my love for the world of sweet treats.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

COVID was the scariest of moments! Imagine being a part of a party business & all of a sudden, you’re told people can’t gather. No parties & its going to be a while before we are allowed to gather! I thought we were done! We are a food establishment so we were allowed to be open. Calls started coming in & we took on any request within our realm of what we could do. We were so busy! Cookies were the most requested item for drive by parties. Small family sized birthday cakes too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.cakeartistcafe.com
• Instagram: Cakeartistcafe
• Facebook: Cake Artist Cafe