We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Wilcox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Courtney thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our main reason for starting this company was to help out other people and families with affordable cakes/sweets for any occasion. As a Stay at home mom to my 4 boys i understand more than anyone how expensive special events can get. In our option everyone should be able to gift their child or anyone a little bit of magic that’s not going to cost them a crazy amount of money. After searching long and hard one day for someone who could make a not so basic store cake for my son; I sat down with my now husband and said “I could easily do this”. I had been baking cakes for friends and family for years, but had never attempted anything fancy decoration wise until that day. Now it’s been 5 years and we have helped out hundreds of families by being the affordable cake lady. The smiles I see on the kids faces make it worth it to me, not everything has to be about profit. Sometimes it’s just about making someone happy with a cake!

Courtney, 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 Courtney Wilcox and I am the proud owner of CoCo’s Cakes, Sweet’s & Treat’s! We are a home based bakery that offer all completely customizable cakes and sweets for all occasions. I have been in love with baking my whole life, but decided to make it a profession about 5 years ago now so I could stay home with my 4 boys. In that time we have grown a huge client base with the most wonderful customers and have multiple cakes on display in multiple businesses through out Kansas City. We’ve had the chance to make cakes for tons of amazing organizations in Kc, from KCPD, multiple hospitals, dispensary’s, even for members of Sporting KC. We pride ourselves on being “the affordable cake lady” even with times being as tough as they are now.

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

Word of mouth and social media. Social media is such a powerful tool when it comes to owning a small businesses. We were really struggling with getting our business out there into the public when we first started up. I personally had no experience in sales, customer service, or social media, but with a little determination and a lot of research I realized that I had the most powerful tool at my disposal. So I spent about 3 weeks setting up Facebook pages, google business accounts, paying for ads, anything I could do to get the business out there. Once that was all set up, business was slowly rolling in, but not as fast as I would like. That’s when my amazing customers came in to save the day by just talking about our business, the way we care for our customers, and always go the extra mile. Within 3 months we were a fully functional business with tons of orders every weekend.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

About 4 months ago, I was faced with some tough decisions as most business were and still are.
“Do we keep going?”
“Can we even afford to keep going with inflation?”
Orders were slowing down and the cost of everything is just constantly going up. Store bought cakes were back on the rise and there was just no light at the end of the tunnel in sight. So we shut down for about a full month, and in that time I not only re-found my love for making cakes, I was able to make some adjustments after speaking with my customers on pricing. I was determined to open back up and keep true to our mission of being an affordable place to get your treats. In a blink of an eye, we were back and doing just as great as before. Things are little different now, especially with cost of eggs and butter going up and down constantly, but I am proud to say we’re still going and still known as the affordable cake business!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocos_cakeskc?igsh=N3B6ZWZlbnAzeXNu&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/CoCosCakes.SweetsKC/