We were lucky to catch up with Alma Rojas recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alma, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
Absolutely! The Donut Shop is not your regular donut shop! I specialize in mini sized doughnuts that are not fried but baked instead. Another thing besides size and making sure we use yummy, high quality ingredients for our doughnuts is that each one of our mini doughnuts can be customized with whatever designed our clients requests, everything made by hand! We also have a bunch of different packaging presentations we offer for our decorated mini doughnuts. All of these changes to the standard expectation of a doughnut makes our mini sized doughnuts unique and a whole new deluxe experience
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am Alma, a stay home mom with a very fun and unique side hustle! I started baking mini doughnuts back in April 2023 thanks to the wonderful power of pregnancy cravings! I started selling these mini sized bad boys on my last week of pregnancy which to my surprise, everyone loved! which took me to start having a bunch of orders in after posting on Facebook marketplace that I was selling mini doughnuts.
After having my baby I had to stop making doughnuts for a couple of weeks while I healed and spend some amazing one on one time with my beautiful newborn. I wanted to see how far this “donut thing” would take me so I made a Facebook page and kept on promoting, taking orders in and just rolling with it, so far it still on going non stop! People are always amazed by the different designs, flavors, presentations and uniqueness of my doughnuts and that makes me just want to keep going! Now I do pop ups at local markets and events from time to time depending on availability and they always turn out to be great, in most cases I end up being sold out!
I have always loved being in the kitchen so I consider myself to be very blessed to be able to be right next to my now one year old baby doing what I love to do and baking.
That is how I started and
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Best advice I can give is be yourself and make sure to transfer your essence onto your product. Put passion in everything you do and do it joyfully so that everything that you have to offer is sincere and meaningful. People can really perceive your essence through your product and through social media. I do not usually have a plan when it comes to managing my social media, I usually go with what feels right because that is who I am but this does not mean just do whatever! I do recommend seeking for professional social media management but If you are a stay home mama with a side hustle like myself or beginning with your business do what feels right and try to enjoy the process of it!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Definitely would say that listening to my client needs and requests has been very important. Being on time with orders and being as helpful as I can be; this means offering delivery services if it is more convenient for the clients or having orders extra early to benefit and work best with client’s schedule. I personally like to try to accept every order even if it is last minute custom donut order so I can ensure client can count on me to have their favorite treats for themselves or for any event they are attending.
And I would say that having the orders ready on the time , date and place agreed ensuring that my mini doughnuts are as fresh as they can be and flavor is delicious is key to build trust and build The Donut Shop’s reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thedonutshopbrenha.wixsite.com/thedonutshop
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theedonutshop/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091261372665
- Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/the_donutshop?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=46e6f66e-e40f-4e86-9f98-8808b4bf5a2e
Image Credits
Sara R
Veloy (mom)
José R (dad)
Valentina Sanchez (my baby)
Ángel Sánchez