We recently connected with Kate Wojtkowski and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kate thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
Most customers join Cookie University to learn basic baking and cookie decorating skills. A few have gone on to create their own custom cookie businesses. I really love it when they connect with me on social media so that I am able to see their gorgeous creations and watch them grow.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I received my formal training at The Institute of Culinary arts in South Africa. After I immigrated to USA I worked at a custom cake shop, baking and decorating specialized birthday and wedding cakes and cookies for about 6 years.
I then ran my own custom cookie business from home. I offered ‘Cookie Decorating Ladies Nights’ as a service. For these, I would bring everything needed to decorate cookies within a particular theme to the clients home. They would invite their friends and I would teach them how to decorate cookies. I really enjoyed seeing how proud of themselves these women were after making beautiful cookies. I wanted to extend my reach to more people. This is how Cookie University was born.
Cookie University is a subscription box service with an educational element. Each month, subscribers receive a new box of baking tools such as cookie cutters, food coloring/flavoring, recipes, sprinkles and/or stencils. Each box also includes a link to view the virtual classes that teach subscribers how to decorate the cookies they bake, using the tools provided in that month’s box. The tutorials go over some trade tips and secrets to making professional looking cookies at home.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
I have an Instagram page where I post cookie decorating videos. People enjoy watching these so they get lots of views. Many of these viewers then go to my website to subscribe to my box.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
When you create a business you have a target audience in mind. Mine was teenage girls. I thought they would be the group that would want to learn to bake and make pretty cookies the most. I focused my marketing to that age group but then realized that teenage girls are usually too busy with school and sport etc to really commit to the effort and patience needed to make, bake and decorate cookies. (Not to mention the kitchen clean up.) I later found that many of the subscribers that stayed on the longest were in fact retired women. This wasn’t a major pivot for me, just a reminder that sometimes in life you have an idea of how you think things will go, and then something else will pop up and surprise you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cookieuniversity.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katewojtkowski/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookieuniversity