We recently connected with Julia Mullaney and have shared our conversation below.

Julia, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

To be successful, you have to be willing to allow two things: failure and criticism. When I started Five Ingredient Feast, it was a weekly newsletter; I sent five original recipes to subscribers’ inboxes every Monday. All of the recipes pertained to a theme (for example: 5 tasty pasta salads, 5 easy cocktails, etc.). Eventually, I dropped it to every two weeks because weekly became too much to keep up with. And from there, I realized the business model just wasn’t sustainable, and people around me (including my former business coach, whose feedback I still value tremendously to this day), said I needed to take additional approaches to win over advertisers. I needed other ways to add value for potential brand partnerships, and in my head, I had failed at what I set out to do. But in allowing that criticism and failure, I saw the potential in building a social media brand instead of a newsletter model. And low and behold, that social media aspect is what made my business profitable. Letting in other ideas and opinions is invaluable to growing a business, and so is the ability to understand when to pivot — and to accept that the initial plan might not be what’s best for the long term success.
Now, I’m in the midst of relaunching the newsletter with a much better understanding of how to use it as an additional branch of the business tree rather than the whole tree trunk.

Julia, 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?

I have always loved to cook. My favorite meal growing up was boxed mac and cheese (and between you and me, it still is), and I always felt independent and accomplished when I made it myself — with my mom’s supervision while I used the stove, of course. Anyway, fast forward to college, and as a journalism major, I took a class that required me to start a blog. I chose a food blog because I felt it represented my favorite hobby, and post-graduation, I interned with a local food magazine before interning with Rachael Ray’s magazine. By graduation, I knew I wanted a career in food — and also knew I wanted to own my own business one day after getting a taste of the media industry’s long hours!
When the pandemic hit, so did the idea: With everyone cooking at home, why not create recipes made with simple, affordable ingredients? At the time, I was in my mid-20s and had just moved out on my own. My kitchen was small, and so was my grocery budget. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money or time at the grocery store and didn’t have the counter space to prepare super-involved meals. So I started Five Ingredient Feast: a recipe concept featuring dishes only made using five ingredients or fewer.
It started as a weekly newsletter and was only a passion project. But eventually, I started making videos for social media (primarily Instagram), and in 2023, my French Onion dip recipe went viral. It received millions of views, which translated to thousands of new followers. I decided to drop the newsletter aspect and focus solely on growing the social media business, and today, it’s one of my core sources of income. But that’s because so many people want the same thing: easy, affordable recipes. Whether you have a small kitchen, a tight grocery budget, you don’t love cooking, or you think you can’t cook, everyone can benefit from the concept — and that’s what I wanted to achieve. No home cook left behind!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I started Five Ingredient Feast as a newsletter, my social media for the brand was kind of an after-thought. I would post to Instagram and Facebook (I’m not on TikTok), but I wasn’t actually utilizing social media the right way. By June of 2023, I had about 2,000 followers, was posting every few days, and wasn’t engaging much with other accounts. But after going through a tough personal life change that same month, I decided to put all of my focus and energy into building my social media brand so as not to think about what was going on in my real life. (Spoiler alert: It worked!)
I began posting daily. I carved out time every day to test, film, and post recipes, and it led to working extremely long days when coupled with my full-time job. But I knew that if I wanted to succeed, I had to put the work in. I followed a bunch of new food accounts and began engaging with others in my industry every single day. I answered every comment, DM, etc. that I received. And finally, I stuck to recipes that thought people would like: easy appetizers, quick dinner ideas, and things like that.
Within about a month, one of my recipes went viral and earned millions of views. The consistency, I believe, is what brought the success. And to this day, that French onion dip recipe is what I give credit to. I wouldn’t be where I was without those caramelized onions (oh, and the hours of work dedicated to building my social media, lol). I went from about 2,000 followers in 2023 to nearly 30,000 in 2024. And there is still plenty more work to be done.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Maybe it’s not so much a lesson, but I had to shake off the idea that people would criticize me. I knew that by sharing so much of my life on social media, I was making myself susceptible to criticism, but I also knew that for every critic, there were more people who were interested in what I was doing and wanted to support me. It’s hard to convince yourself that people want to see what you do; it’s much easier to tell yourself nobody cares. But I’ve received such great support from not only people I’ve met through Instagram but also people I knew growing up. Something that has surprised me about growing Five Ingredient Feast is how many people from childhood, my hometown, etc. have chosen to follow along and support. It shows you that there are always more people rooting for your success than your failure, so it’s important to shake off any non-constructive criticism.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fiveingredientfeast.com
• Instagram: fiveingredientfeast
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fiveingredientfeast

Image Credits

Five Ingredient Feast