We recently connected with Bailey Morris and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bailey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with 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?

While I am happy to be a business owner, especially at my young age, I actually think of this question weekly. While I currently run my own baking business and do very well at it, I work another full-time job on the side, so somedays it feels like my to-do list is never ending. I often look at my peers who are working one single job under some one else and wonder if that is easier or more fulfilling to them and think it could be to me too. I see my friends who are about to graduate college and most of them know what the next ten years of their life will look like career wise, while I have absolutely no clue what I’ll be doing next year. I graduated college at 19 and had no plan after I was done(which is way more common than people like to point out). I so badly craved that feeling to know the next step that many other college graduates had that day as we walked onto campus one last time. However I think back to my 8-year old self and remember playing “restaurant” with my dad and younger brother. I remember being the server, the chef, and the boss all in one. I can think back to so many times in my childhood when asked questions about my future that I knew in some way I would be the owner of something. I feel like I have always been destined and have seen myself as an entrepreneur. I’m not afraid of taking risks. I understand the sacrifices I have and will have to make to be a business owner. It’s not a walk in the park like the media tries to make it. It takes effort every day, sacrifices, risks that don’t work out, big leaps of faith into the unknown, and constant humility to be able to learn from mistakes. Although I see my other 20 year old friends partying on the weekends, scoring huge on getting that amazing job interview, and doing all the typical “road to being an adult” things, I wouldn’t have my Saturday nights decorating a cake any other way. To be able to say “I own a business” and actually be successful and enjoy what I do is so fulfilling.

Bailey, 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?

My name is Bailey and I am 20 years old, but I started my baking business when I was only 15. I always enjoyed baking growing up, and as I got older( and as my mom trusted me not to burn the house down), I really started to stretch my wings and bake more than just basic cookies and cupcakes. In the summer of 2018 I set up a weekly booth at my local farmers market which unexpectedly went so well that I was asked to come back the following year. This really helped to get my name out there and build repeat clientele. My business started with mainly cupcakes, cookies, scones, and some breads, but over the years as I have gotten more skilled at what I do I started baking full sized cakes, gourmet cinnamon rolls, danishes and other laminated pastries, and recreating childhood classics like pop-tarts oatmeal cream pies(but 10x better). I make everything 100% from scratch. It would be easy for to buy my lemon curd, and get premade pie crust, but why? How would that be any different from someone else going to the store and buying those ingredients themselves. I wanted my customers to try something unique to me and know that every aspect of the item was carefully made from real ingredients they can actually pronounce. I use no artificial dyes or flavors, source my ingredients as local as possible( often times from our own garden), and buy organic when possible. Not only do my customers feel better about what they are receiving, but they can taste the quality difference as well. I feel so much pride in seeing the blueberries that I hand picked myself go into some ones custom cake or the excitement in their eyes when their cake looks better than they ever could have imagined. Bringing joy to other people through what I bake is the goal every day.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I do not have a brick-and-mortar store, yet. Therefore getting clientele can be a lot harder because there is no physical, visible business to see. I started with a Facebook and Instagram page, and word-of-mouth. I told everyone in my family to tell their friends and co-workers about my new venture, and I just hoped and prayed some of them would order from me. A few of them did, but I had to get my name out there in some way so I applied to be a vendor at a local famers market. I baked all of my best selling items the first week so visitors who came by could try a great variety of my items. I sold out in a little over 2 hours. I was so excited. Since then I have worked to grow my social media accounts and attend as many vendor events as I can fit into my schedule. The weeks following these events I receive many orders from new customers, often based on what they tried from my selection. Any opportunity to get my business into some ones head when they are needing baked goods I try and take. I post consistently across my media platforms and I often make “bake with me” type reels for Instagram as their algorithm pushes video content. I have also been so busy that I make spots available at the beginning of the week and once those fill up I usually don’t take anymore. This creates a sense of urgency for customers to claim a spot to order what they need, and it helps me to manage my very full schedule. People will want what they can’t have, so if they miss out one week they usually order the next.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Building a business takes time. You have to turn this crazy idea in your head into a physical reality and that’s not a straight forward process. There are so many small details that some one on the outside would have no idea about. I started thinking about how store bakeries had no fun cupcake flavors. All they had was chocolate and vanilla and the occasional holiday dessert. I started experimenting with flavor combinations and made a cupcake menu with all the basic flavors and then my more unique, harder to find flavors. My Reese’s cup cupcakes were the most popular, and my strawberry lemonade cupcakes sold out each week at the farmers markets. But to keep people interested I had to introduce new flavors and items, so I started a cake menu and then opened myself up for custom cake orders where the customer could pick their flavors and how it would be decorated. I recently made a cake inspired by Elvis’ favorite sandwich and it is to date my favorite bake. But this is how I have continued to grow my business. I stay consistent while also keeping things fun by adding new or limited time bakes to my menu. If I would have stuck with my original cupcake menu from years ago my business would not be here today. But I ventured from my comfort zone and tried new things and it has brought me so much growth. After I attended a vendor event in my home town last October I was featured in a local online newsletter about our city. I felt like I had made it. After that I received two more magazine features before the year had ended. My inbox was full by the end of each day with the amount of orders I had received because of the attention. I was overjoyed and so grateful. This was a major milestone for me! Turning this into a full time gig required taking risks and still does today. I always am working to find ways to set my business apart and stay unique. If you put the work in you will reap the rewards, it just requires patience and willingness to learn new things.

Contact Info:

• Website: none
• Instagram: thetastyfox
• Facebook: The Tasty Fox
• Linkedin: none
• Twitter: none
• Youtube: none
• Yelp: none
• Other: none

Image Credits
All images taken by me.