We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Keefer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

CakeyBums was born out of a desire to empower women to achieve their fitness goals while feeling confident and comfortable in their own skin. It all started with the development of our first product, the fabric booty band, which was designed to enhance workouts and help women grow their glutes. But as we began conducting test groups for the product, something unexpected happened. The women who were part of the test group were not only inspired by the product, but also by the story behind it. When I shared my personal story of how I created CakeyBums, the women in the test group felt a deep connection and sense of inspiration. That was when I realized that CakeyBums wasn’t just a fitness apparel company, but a brand that was focused on empowering women both inside and outside of the gym. Each woman felt empowered to share their own dreams and passions with the team, and it was then that we knew we had to do more.
We realized that our mission was not just to provide high-quality, comfortable fitness apparel, but to create a community of women who support each other and inspire one another to reach their goals, whatever they may be. We wanted to create a space where women felt comfortable sharing their struggles and successes, and where they could come together to motivate each other to push past their limits.

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

My name is Lauren Keefer and I’m the founder of CakeyBums, a fitness apparel company. I always had the desire to start my own business and after my own fitness journey, I realized I wanted to empower other woman inside the gym to reach their fitness goals. While going to business school at the University of Kansas, I had done a lot of case studies around Amazon’s platform. One of my goals upon graduating was to create a product I could sell on Amazon’s platform that I could be fully invested in.

In December of 2018, after years of pondering what my product would be, I came across a fabric resistance band with cute peaches printed on it. My friend revealed to me that she had bought her band from the UK and upon further research I noticed that patterned fabric resistance bands were about to be a new and upcoming trend. Amazon was not selling a cheetah patterned band at the time and I immediately created a cheetah pattern, becoming the first cheetah print band on Amazon.

From there we were able to scale and expand. Although the pandemic was an unfortunate time for many businesses, we were able to grow due to the many people searching for at home equipment. We were able to expand into our ribbed scrunch booty leggings which are colorful, supportive and highlight your curves. We now have a variety of workout sets, leggings and athleisurewear available on our website.

What makes us stand out from other fitness apparel companies is our love for music. We have ingrained ourselves in the music scene all across the Midwest. Our apparel made its latest debut in TarrynBlake’s “Too Grown” music video on YouTube.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One of the biggest times I had to pivot was during the pandemic. We had been hosting free booty camps using our resistance bands to spread brand awareness. Due to the restrictions of the pandemic, we no longer could use our booty camps to reach new customers. During that time we relied on using our social media to spread brand awareness. We decided to create giveaways and build our relationship with brand ambassadors which helped us continue raising our social media reach.

I truly believe it’s important to set goals but a large part of success is being able to be flexible on how you get there. We often are so set to stone on the game plan we created to reach our goals we can miss out on major opportunity that presents itself outside of the plan. It’s important to be flexible and to always know that you can solve any problem that comes your way.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe I was able to build my reputation within the fitness industry because I wasn’t scared to get on the ground level and create booty camps to spread brand awareness. Building a network around fitness was so essential. I was able to team up with very influential companies in the industry such as Supplement World, Planet Fitness and Stretch Lab. I was able to use my resources to enter into the fitness market in multiply cities. We teamed up with influencers and businesses in Kansas City, Wichita, Oklahoma City and Austin etc. This ultimately lead to one of the biggest decisions of my life, moving my business from Wichita, Kansas to Austin, Texas. I knew that the move would be an amazing opportunity for my business due to Austin’s growth and love for the fitness scene.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cakeybums.com
• Instagram: @cakeybums
• Facebook: CakeyBums
• Twitter: @cakeybums
• Youtube: CakeyBums

Image Credits
Paulin Conde, BH Photography