We recently connected with Kannika Costello and have shared our conversation below.

Kannika, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

I really like to travel, but it has been difficult to do since I am the only employee for my company. I feel like I have a strong relationship with my customer base and they will understand if I need a vacation. This December I will be gone all month to visit my family in Thailand. I announced that I would be on vacation in October to give plenty of notice to my customers. I think vacation and time off is very important. Without it, it is very easy to get burnt out.

Kannika, 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 first started baking in Thailand when my cousin married and needed a cake. (She didn’t ask for haha. It was my idea to find her cake). I volunteered to do it even though I had never baked cake before. I tried to ask a bakery around the area, but they said no! So I had only one week to practice. So here we go. I made a vanilla coffee layer cake for her; I warned people before they ate it; I don’t know if it would be good or bad, but everyone that ate it loved it! Then the pandemic happened, and I had much free time, so that I would bake for fun. And eventually sell cakes in my aunt’s resort in Thailand. When I moved to Kansas, I brought Mooyueibaker stickers and many of my baking equipment. I didn’t know I would be a baker in Kansas, but when I got married, I decided to make my cake for the wedding and ended up baking 8 different cakes. After everyone tried them and liked them, I wanted to pursue baking here. 2 years later and now my cakes are available in 7 different shops throughout Kansas City.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Initially it was difficult to bring a new audience for Kansas City. I had some that followed me when I had my business in Thailand but it was hard to stay engaged when I left the country. When I started I would list desserts on Facebook Marketplace that would link to my fan page on Facebook and Instagram. Once I started getting some regular customers and they would give reviews it started to grow. On Instagram I would look to accounts similar to what I do with larger followings and try to meet them and get their advice on such things. Their reposts of my products really helped boost my audience. Also every label on our products links to my social media via a QR code. So I try to give new customers the option to see what else I make and follow me.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I would stick to my motto of “sweet but not too sweet” and found that is what a large group in Kansas City wanted. I think they were tired of most store bought desserts being too sweet. I would also present new flavors from thailand and lesser known desserts to the area to welcome people to try something new. For example most people I met had never heard of Banoffee pie so I wanted to make it to let them to try and now it is one of my most popular items.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/mooyueibaker
• Facebook: facebook.com/mooyueibaker

Image Credits
Yuei Costello _001