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

Katherine , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge to profitability in this industry managing expectations. Some people have an expectation for handmade products to be the same price as places that sell products for much less, but they are able to charge less because they are producing at a higher volume and more often than not, those products are not handmade. Handmade products takes so much time; from customer relations, gathering supplies/ingredients, making/baking, decorating, taking photos, packaging, scheduling pickups, etc. These tasks often take more time than making the actual product but are unseen by the customers, but they do contribute to the profit margin. Some customers see the work behind the product and are more than happy to support local handmade artists, and we are so thankful!

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?

My name is Katherine, Kat for short. I am the owner of Kat’s Confections, a home-based bakery located in western Shawnee, KS.

I was born and raised in Kansas City. I always knew I had a passion for baking and creating sugar art! In 2012, I graduated the Art Institute International of Kansas City with an associate’s degree of applied science in baking and pastry. I started as pastry prep/line cook and moved my way up to an Executive Pastry Chef for restaurants and country clubs. I now own and operate Kat’s Confections full-time!

In 2012, I stumbled across the blog of Sweet Sugarbelle and spent hours reading and going down the rabbit hole. When I was ready to finally dive in and try my hand at cookies for the first time, I tried a cookie set with a simple color palette and I knew I was hooked! This began my hoarding of cookie cutters, sprinkles, and food coloring. Little did I know, this activity to pass time would turn into what it has today!

I now make cookies full-time. I have been married for almost 3 years to my husband who also works in the food industry and we are expecting out first baby! We are in the process of turning our garage into a bakery space to accommodate more orders and streamline production!

My business has grown so much since 2012 and I am so thankful for those people who took a chance on me in the beginning!

At Kat’s Confections, I create everything from custom-decorated sugar cookies, DIY cookie kits, drop cookies, and cupcakes to birthday cakes and weddings! My specialty is custom-decorated sugar cookies. People love to order cookies that are customized to match their event with special names or dates on them. I also offer holiday pre-sales with pre designed sets as well as pop-up shops! We do different markets around the city and at other local shops as well as from our home.

We have so much fun creating decorated cookies, as well as different seasonal items for our customers! I often bring a variety of things to my pop up shops to give a different taste of things that I can do/offer. Pop up shops are some of my favorites because it gives us a chance to be out in our city and interacting with out customers face to face. I have so many customers who I now consider friends from seeing them every month at our different pop ups.

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

Building a reputation within my community in the cookie market has taken time and lots of hard work! I mostly run on word of mouth from family, friends, and past customers. One of the main things I started a couple years ago was being a vendor at different local events through the city I live in throughout the year. A lot of the same people show up to the events I do and they start to recognize us. They also are able to try our product there and see a variety of things we are able to offer and ask questions face to face. I also post consistently on social media. The two main social media outlets I use are Facebook and Instagram. Building a following on there of local customers was important to me, because they are the ones who are supporting my business. I take clear photos of my personal work and post those. I think having good photos of what you offer helps a ton, because people shop with their eyes first! I also post relevant pictures of what I am offering at upcoming events or pre sales I am holding.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When I first started Kat’s Confections, I was doing orders for family and a few close friends. I also would just make sets of cookies or cakes for fun to build my portfolio. It always took a backseat to other things in my life like school and work for a very long time. I am lucky my family has been so supportive and helped me realize that it started to grow enough to become my full time job. I always worked in the food industry, but up until a few years ago I always has another job. I now work Kat’s Confections full time. When I decided to take the leap to working Kat’s Confections full time, I started doing more consistent pre sales for holidays and pop up shops. Being consistent from month to month and year to year helps people think “Oh, this holiday is coming up! I can get cookies from Kat’s Confections!”. I also like to offer different designs from year to year so they aren’t getting the same thing every year. I think this has really helped me grow and keep loyal customers which has helped me maintain a busy enough schedule to work Kat’s Confections full time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katsconfectionskc.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/katsconfectionskc
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Katsconfections