We were lucky to catch up with Cassie Illg recently and have shared our conversation below.
Cassie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
A legacy is a lasting impact on the world. It’s a gift that is passed down through generations: money, property or even stories. Leaving a legacy means dreaming big and changing the world for the better. My dream is to touch the lives of everyone who steps through our doors, be it our customers or employees, everyone leaves Cassie Cakes as family.
Cassie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started Cassie Cakes in 2017 as a way to make ends meet. I was already working full time as the general manager of a cupcake shop but tired of living paycheck to paycheck running someone else’s business. I obtained my cottage license from the department of agriculture permitting me to make cakes out of the kitchen of my home after being inspected and this is where Cassie Cakes began! Each weekend, I would load up all of the cake orders into the trunk of my little car and meet my customers in a grocery store parking lot. The cupcake store I was running eventually shut down about a year later and I was pushed into making Cassie Cakes my full time job. I was honestly terrified about this transition, I was so used to having that guaranteed income each week and now I was having to fully rely on myself to bring in business. I prayed every day that God open the right doors for me and show me way. After about six months of only working Cassie Cakes, I was bringing in double the income of what I was making for the cupcake store, and this is when I knew in my heart that I was on the right track. Each cake that I had made was being put out at these birthday parties, weddings, anniversary parties, graduation parties, and every time people were asking “who made that?!” My name was quickly getting out in the community and more and more people were ordering from me. I ran the business myself for about four years before I decided to bring on my first employee, Kat. Kat is a cake decorator like me and she is still with us today! We just celebrated her 2 year anniversary working with Cassie Cakes! Kat started with us when we were still working out of a home kitchen, she has been with me through so much. It is honestly because of her that we could continue to grow enough that we were able to move into our very first storefront location in 2022. After we opened the Cassie Cakes store in October 2022, I brought on another cake decorator and several customer service employees. We are now a team of 7! We found out in January of this year that we were voted Best of Forsyth for 2023 and that was literally a dream come true for me. It is probably the biggest honor I have received yet and I look forward to serving our community for years to come. My next venture will be to open another location or two in North Georgia. It is really cool for me to look back and see how far we have come. I wake up every single day excited about going to work, I am truly living my dream right now. My husband has been exceptionally supportive through all of the scary transitions we have faced in order to get to this place and God continues to bless me along the way. I don’t deserve any of this, its really just very humbling for me.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
When I was searching for a storefront to move the business into, I looked into doing a buildout of a space in cumming. The price was going to be a little over 100,000 to put a kitchen and store in and I just didn’t want the business going into that much debt. I then actually reached out to an old colleague of mine that I have been friends with for over 10 years and asked to buy her business and take over her space, not thinking that she would actually do it. We talked it through and came to agreement on numbers and then the deal was made! She even owner financed a little portion of it so that I wouldn’t have to use my entire savings to purchase. I am almost paid off on that. Aside from that, everything that we have and everything that we do is funded with cash, I am very intentional about not spending what I dont physically have in the account to use.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The biggest lesson that I have had to learn and relearn from going into business is that 1. It is absolutely impossible to please every single person 100 percent of the time. I am a people pleaser to my core, and it has been a really hard thing for me to internalize. As hard as I try, and as hard as I work, and no matter how good my intentions are, I just wont be able to make every single person happy every single time. I believe it is important how you handle the situations that arise though. I will always do everything that I can to make things right, that is my personality, and that is one of the things that I believe sets us apart from our competitors. Number 2, everyone is not my customer. I used to get my feelings hurt when people would compare my pricing to others in the area. Here is the truth, when making any buying decision, there are 3 things you must consider: quality, service, and price. Here at Cassie Cakes, we can only compromise one of those things. We will never sacrifice the quality of our products nor the service that you receive. This means that our cakes may be more expensive than some of our competitors and we are okay with that. For us, it is way more important that you get the BEST tasting and BEST looking treats with the BEST possible service at a. great price.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cassiecakesbakery.com
- Instagram: cassiecakesnorthga
- Facebook: cassiecakesnorthga
- Other: email: [email protected] phone: 470.281.1785 tiktok: cassiecakesbakery