We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jesse Whitmer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jesse below.
Jesse , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
I’ve been baking cheesecakes for the past 5 years simply for personal enjoyment. Ive always loved cheesecake, just didn’t love the high prices for quality which had me on a mission to start making them for myself, friends & family. I would serve my creations at family gatherings and special events until June of 2022 when a long time friend of mine had finally convinced me to start my business. In July 2022 Sweet Dreams Cheesecake Emporium was created and established. The next step was moving into the Sunbury Market house which is a weekends farmers market to sell my product on Fridays and Saturdays. That took place in October 2022. Business was growing slowly but was growing to the point that my personal goal was to move my business into its own storefront within a year. I spent a big portion of that timeframe setting up at events, collaborating with other local small businesses and in September 2023 my goal had become a reality. I’m now in my own storefront and able to focus on operating my business on a full time basis and being completely self employed, loving every minute of the journey to get here!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I spent the better part of a decade in management roles in the corporate environment which had given me knowledge that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else in terms of running businesses, customer focus, customer satisfaction, marketing, etc. Now, with my business, I am able to offer my customers only the BEST cheesecake treats, handmade and crafted by yours truly for ANY OCCASION and ANY EVENT, or even just because!
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
The initial capital needed to start my business was completely self funded. At the time I was working at a job that compensated pretty well and worked crazy amounts of overtime just to stockpile the cash to start my venture. As time progressed, a former coworker had expressed interest in becoming an investor and assisted with purchasing some of the equipment needed to open my storefront.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
While I was selling at the weekend farmers market I was selling out of coolers that were owned by the market. I was constantly having to deal with equipment breaking down and loss of product. Then, while attempting to open my storefront we kept running into setback after setback with City code and rezoning.
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